A City No Longer Divided

The last place my companions and I visited on our ten day Thanksgiving break was Berlin, Germany. Wow. What more can you say?

What do you think of when you think of Germany? World War II, Hitler, Jews, the Holocaust, Gas Chambers, Berlin, the Berlin Wall, West Berlin, East Berlin, genocide... Am I on the right track? With Germany such a big part of the World history, it's hard not to think of these things when you think of Germany. So what is it like when you actually visit Germany?

In Berlin, it's very obvious that the history of the city shadows over the city and the people. The first thing I noticed that the only colors being worn by people on the street was black, black, and more black. In a bright sky blue raincoat, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

One of the first things my companions and I saw was the bombed out church shown to the right. As our tour guide the next later said to us "The people of the city has left it the way it is on purpose. For them it is a constant reminder of what happens when you steep the world in the worst war it has ever seen."

That sentence pretty much sums up the feeling of Berlin as a city.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. Berlin and its people were already celebrating Christmas when we arrived, and our first day there we got swept up in the Christmas celebration at one of the many Christmas markets throughout the city. We spent the day trying German eggnog, rum, cotton candy, and exploring the local crafts.

The second day, we got up early to go on the Famous Walk in English - done by a tour company who does 5 or 6 tours (including Cold War Spies, Concentration Camps, Pub Crawls etc.). Our tour guide, Kenny, was a Scottish man who had been living in Berlin for ten years, but still had the amazing Scottish accent! The tour costs 10 euro for students under the age of 26 plus a two euro travel card (it costs 12 euro for people over the age of 26) and lasts for 4 hours. It was the best money I've spent so far.

The tour was absolutely incredible. We started with Museum Island and the history of Berlin from 800 years ago and moved all the way up through the pulling down of the Berlin Wall. I stood at Checkpoint Charlie. I stood in the deathstrip. I stood in front of the remains of the Berlin Wall (seen below).

And even more powerful, I stood in the parking lot that is now the only marking for where Hitler's Bunker once stood. We heard the story of his suicide, the events that followed and the investigation that started years later to prove that he really was killed that day.
I heard the story of how the Bunker, 50ft below the surface, was dynamited twice and then the remaining room was filled in with soil and the entrance buried.... so that the location could never become a Shrine for Neo-Nazis.

I'm heart ached as we went by the huge monument of 2,411(?) concrete stones that stood in memory of the Jews killed during World War II (Seen above).

It was the most incredible experience of my life.

If you're planning on visiting Europe, go to Berlin, take the tour, learn our history. Remember, and teach your children to Remember, like the Berliners do, what happened in those terrible years. After that visit, I can -never- forget what happened that allowed us to enter those dark times.