BERLIN
June 21st 2018 - June 25th 2018
June 21st:
Arrival. The airport felt smaller than it should've be.
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The first stop is the Pergamon Museum. I had been there before, and I loved it, so I definitely wanted to go back now. The Ishtar Gate - one of the several entrances to ancient Babylon - is so impressive! It still baffles me to this day that the original is in Germany, while Iraq (the current location of the site of Babylon) has to make do with a replica. However, there's an enormous queue to get in to the museum (close to two hours, according to the info), so we opted to eat something first.
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When we got back to the Museum island, we only had to wait half an hour.
We've spent around two hours inside the Pergamon museum, and saw wonders such as the Ishtar Gate and the Gate of Miletus, along with the parts about the antiquities and about Islamic Art.
Unfortunately, a large portion of the museum was closed off, including the famed Pergamon Altar.
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After the museum we went to the hotel. Well, I say hotel, but it was a small shipping containter with mold and cracks in between the wall segments. After complaining, we received an upgrade. A slightly bigger shipping container with a proper bed and nicer decorations. Horrible.
And there's a lot of noise outside at night.
June 22nd:
Starbucks has been a tradition in our travels. This Starbucks was below the Fernsehturm, which is a special place to have a coffee.
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It's raining and it's a long walk to the Jüdisches Museum. The permanent collection was under construction. The Garten des Exils was one of the more interesting things about the museum.
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Checkpoint Charlie is a classic thing to see if you're in Berlin, but it's only interesting if you know about about the context.
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Looking for a bite to eat, we stumbled upona bakery called Katjes Cafe. Delicious sweets! And an amazing name too.
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Not far from the bakery is the Anne Frank Center. It's a small museum dedicated to the life and death of Anne Frank within the context of the persecution of the Jewish people.
It's moving to see how sober-minded she remained throughout her hiding.
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Another moving and touching place (Berlin is a city with a very rich history, there is so much sadness and grief, but luckily there is also joy and beauty) is the Tränenpalast. The Tränenpalast is a train station that was nicknamed "the palace of tears" as it was the border crossing between East and West Berlin. The divide after the Second World War caused families to be separated, one part of them living in the West and another part living in the East. Many tears were shed as people from West-Berlin went back home after visiting relatives in the East (they were not allowed to travel West, out of fear that they would not return). While also not a big museum, it is packed with history and tragic stories. It's very much worth a visit.
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We walk past the Brandenburger Tor after passing on the famous Unter den Linden street, and then turn left to visit the Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas, the famous square with concrete blocks (called Field of Stelae, designed by Peter Eisenman and Richard Serra) representing the millions of Jewish victims during the Holocaust.
Below the concrete memorial is an information center about the Holocaust.
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And we're slowly going back to the "hotel" and make a quick stop at the Gendarmenmarkt where you can see the Deutscher Dom, the Konzerthaus and the Französischer Dom who, three impressive buildings that will make you feel small and leave you in awe.
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For dinner we went to Vöner der Vegetarische Döner, good fast-food at a reasonable price.
June 23rd:
Today would be a day that would burn itself into my memory, a day where words fail. I had no idea that this would have such a big impact on me.
We went to Sachsenhausen.
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Sachsenhausen is located in Oranienburg and it took us a busride, a tramride, a trainride and a twenty-minute walk to get there.
And Sachsenhausen, if you didn't know, is one of the many concentration camps used during the Second World War. It also functioned as a labor camp for the nearby brickworks factory.
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The entrance block has been transformed into a museum.
There's one former barracks for inmates still standing. The inmates slept with way too many people in such barracks, three-double bunkbeds and plenty of people on the floor.
All the other barracks for inmates have been demolished, their outlines have been marked. It's a vast place and housed so many prisoners.
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The so-called death zone is the strip of land at the perimeter where you would be shot if you came too close to the fence.
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The "arbeit macht frei"-sign, the remnants of the ovens, the execution trench, the morgue and the basement where the corpses were stored, ... things you know exist, but are not natural to fathom.
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Prisoners were subjected to medical experiments, went hungry, risked death at any given moment and were forced to go on a death march prior to the Allied liberation of the camp.
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We spent little over five hours here, it's not enough to read all the information.
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It's a horrible place with a horrible story, it's emotionally exhausting, heart-wrenching, but it's a necessary visit. For everyone.
June 24th:
How could any day follow yesterday?
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The Memorial for the Berlin Wall is very informative about the divided city during the Cold War, with some original parts of the wall itself.
From the viewing platform of the documentation center, you can see the outlines of the former wall.
Nearby is a wall with pictures of the people who died at and by the Berlin Wall. This installation is called Window of Remembrance.
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Just a bit further down the street is the beautiful Chapel of Reconciliation, the nearby sculture depicts East and West meeting each other again, after years of separation, families reunited, but it also symbolizes the impact of war.
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The Border House was a house that was located on the separating line between East and West and served as a means to easily get to the West side, until the East stopped it.
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Along the Bernauer Straße and the route of the wall, they've erected a new wall made of steel bars.
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Back towards the city center, we went to the Berliner Dom, but found the price too high. The same went for the Nikolaikirche.
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Bad weather prevented us from doing a boat trip on the Spree and a panorama view from the Park Inn hotel at Alexanderplatz (or base-flying from on top of the hotel).
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We headed for the Tiergarten instead and climbed up the Siegessäule (yes, I was scared), the view is stunning. In the basement of the Siegessäule are little monuments of several famous landmarks.
June 25th:
Since our flight back was at 6:20 in the morning, we decided to spend the night in the airport. Nothing interesting happened.