The Ridgeback Review: Berlin

Our last stop with the Austin family was Berlin. Arie arranged for a tour guide, a lovely 31 year old masters student born and raised in Berlin. Driving into the city I was more like, "Eh." But after a few hours with Dennis, I had an appreciation and admiration for this many-times-over historically pivotal city.

Fernsehtrum Tower built "by" the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
I loved Dennis' telling of its construction, the GDR erected it as a sign of their superiority, only the materials and engineers they had available were sub standard. They ended up secretly importing most of the materials from other "lesser" countries, kind of defeating their whole "we are better than you" stance.

Bebelplatz is the site of the Nazi Book Burnings and houses an underground memorial by Micha Ullman of empty bookshelves lining a room large enough to hold the 20,000 volumes burned for being "un-German." It is visible from the surface through the window in the cobblestones.

Nearby is a plaque inset in the square that displays the memorial is a plaque describing what happened at the site along with a quote from Heinrich Heine's play Almansor, "...where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people." Wow. So true. The thing that strikes me is that this play is from 1821. I guess history does repeat itself.

"That was only a prelude, where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people."

Berlin Opera House

Throughout Berlin there are "stumbling stones." Each stone shows the name and vital information of a person lost in the Holocaust. The stumbling stones appear in front of places where the victims worked or lived and are intended to remind people that the victims were human, not statistics.

At Checkpoint Charlie

The Berlin Wall

Natey

Kyle and Evy

Inside the Berlin Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe

Remember when Michael Jackson displayed his son by dangling him out a hotel window?
That's this place.

Our tour ended at the Brandenburg Gate

Nathan and Barb

Wish this was a better picture. Nathan is making friends with the police guy and wearing his hat. Super cute.

The tour was really amazing. I learned that my little family can hang on a walking tour and will not hesitate to book one again! It was a fun couple days in Berlin.