A headscarf and two pigeons.

Mittwoch 27 2008

Toured the bunkers in Gesundbruennen Unterbahnhof (and nearby Pankow U.) on Berlin's underground tour. It's a rather like Seattle's, only with more fatalities and fewer opium dens in its history. The "bunkers" were originally transit storage areas, they were retro-fitted (not very well) first by the Nazis as conventional (if ineffective) bunkers, and later by the French West-Berlin representatives as nuclear fallout shelters (these stations are in the formerly French-controlled district of Wedding). Did you know that the GDR put gates in the Berlin sewers and spikes on the subway beds (though the stations were already boarded up and guarded) in order to keep their own citizens in? The sewer-gates had to be cleaned by special teams every week (for over 40 years) or else they'd cause flooding in the streets.

In the afternoon we had a lecture from an immigration lawyer at the alien registration ministry (informative, but less engaging than other pursuits have been).

During lunch, I wandered around the Bebelplatz (the square where the Nazi book burning occurred).

Yesterday we saw the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, the Soviet War Memorial and the remains of the Gestapo Headquarters.

Die "Denkmal fuer die Ermordet Jueden von Europa" wart sehr nett und mächtig. As soon as one gest away from the group/the tourists (and can reflect in relative peace), it goes from being somewhat plain yet to esoteric to being very symbolic and generally moving. It's made of concrete blocks of uniform length and width (maybe 2x7 ft or so), but which vary in height (appearing about .5-1.5 ft above ground level). As you walk towards the center, however, the ground drops below you (like going into a lake), so that you're soon in an aisle lined with 10ft slabs. The regular placement and shape of the blocks makes for a neat grid of walkways, even as the ground itself is rippled and slanted. The effect is intentionally disorienting (and yet so regimented!). On returning from the maze of straight lines, I was struck by how very much the slabs resemble crude coffins... A very effectively thought-provoking monument. There's a museum underneath it (this is all outside at Alexanderplatz, by the way), which I've heard good things about and which I intend to visit later. Probably not this week, though, as I expect the trip to Sachsenhausen on Friday to be very emotionally draining as well.

The war memorial was surprisingly very nice (despite the differing worldviews, ie the ubiquitous Stalin quotes). It was very peaceful and pretty—once one got past the communist propaganda, and viewed it as a memorial to the 5000 people buried there. There's a lot of greenery, and large statues (and a series of carved scenes lining the walkways: the right hand side written in Russian, the left in German). Pictures forthcoming.

Of the Gestapo headquarters (in the old government quarter), all that remains is a partially excavated basement. After the war, the bombed-ruins were demolished; some of the basement of the building was discovered a few years back, so there's now an exhibit there about the various police forces of the 3^rd Reich, and their victims (particularly the political prisoners who were “interrogated” in the basement cells). Before being used by the Gestapo, the building was actually an art school (built in the late 1800s I believe).