Hallo.
I am currently sick. despite all the vitamins, and the
airborne tablets I ATE straight up, my nose is all
broken out and I have a fever. I am in the hotel room
tonight while everyone else is out.
other than that I am having a good time. Berlin is a
very interesting place. It really hasn't made too much
progress since WWII. It is fascinating to see
destroyed buildings and massive reconstruction
projects going on everywhere. You would think that
after so many years, the place would be cleaned up by
now, but it isn't. Just as the residual landscape of
war is in your face in Berlin, so is the extreme
racism and an uncomfortably all-white, all-educated,
all-pretty public. We have met so many Germans who
have never met a Jew (who was alive) before. At the
same time, there are Holocaust memorials that groups
go to and I see them jumping on the memorial stones.
Luckily the monuments are sprayed with a protective
coating to save them from being destroyed by grafitti
or gum. Other memorials erected in the last 15 or so
years have in fact been destroyed by Berlin citizens.
As if the city hadn't housed enough hatred already, it
is divided- east from west, still today. This morning
we went to Checkpoint Charlie, where so many people
were killed as they attempted to cross over the Berlin
Wall into West Berlin. Although the wall is down now, there are rarely cross-overs---
meaning, never a person who dates a person from the
other side, therefore, if you were born on one side of
Berlin- you stay on that side. Even our tour guide,
who was born in West Berlin, barely knew the streets
or attractions of East Berlin.
East Berlin is where we are staying. It is the place
with the most Jewish "sites." I put "sites" in quotes
because the sites used to have Jewish significance but
were destroyed. So, really when you visit them, you
are visiting the LACK of a site. A void, loss is the
attraction to the place. There were places we visited
like the "missing house" which resembled a street of
connected row houses, and all of a sudden, a row house
was missing, as if it was skipped over. This house was
inhabited by Jews and destroyed in the 1930s and never
rebuilt. Also, empty lots which appear to be just
squares of grass, used to house synagogues, or Jewish
stores.
Sorry this is so long, I didn't think it actually
would be...There is so much more to tell. This is
really an eye-opening experience.
xoxox,
wendy
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