Central Berlin

The Holocaust Memorial, aka The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, is a 4.7 acre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae." The are arranged in a grid pattern in a sloping field. It is said to represent "a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason." An attached underground information center holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.

Next, I decided to take a walk over to Brandenburg Gate which is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany. It is the last remaining city gate through which Berlin was entered. It was originally commissioned by King Fredrick William of Prussia as a sign of peace and was built in 1791.

Across from that lies the Tiergarten, which is German for Animal Garden, and once was a hunting ground. Now it is a big, beautiful park for walkers, bikers and pets.

After that, I walked a very long 1500 meters to the Victory Column. It was built in 1873 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War. However, by the time it was built, Prussia had also defeated Austria and France in the Austrian-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars respectively so it took on a new meaning and inspired the bronze sculpture of "Victoria" at the top of the column.

The Victory Column

Reichstag Building

Lastly that day, I headed up to the Berlin Wall Memorial Site. It provided a sobering view of the many people that died there trying to escape from East to West Berlin. A description on their website explains it best:

The sealing off of the sector border starting on 13 August 1961 made dramatic changes especially in the everyday lives of the people living on Bernauer Strasse. From one day to the next, they could no longer travel freely through their own neighborhood, and neighbors, friends, and relatives were separated from one another. The house across the street was suddenly part of another political system. Through no fault of their own and against their will, the people of Bernauer Strasse became eyewitnesses to and actors in an episode of post-w ar German history in Berlin.

In desperation, people jumped out of the windows of apartments bordering West Berlin and paid with their lives. Some of the Bernauer Strasse escape attempts succeeded, however. Cameras and film crews brought these scenes to a watching world.

The construction of the Berlin Wall put an abrupt and violent end to daily life, leaving traces that are visible even today on Bernauer Strasse. The former “no man’s land” between Brunnenstrasse and Gartenstrasse has been preserved, undeveloped, in its original width. An outdoor exhibition by the Berlin Wall Memorial is being laid out here. Using the many historical fragments still found here and the area's eventful past, the exhibition uses concrete examples to describe the purpose and function of the Berlin Wall. It concentrates especially on the stories of people whose lives were disrupted or restricted by the Wall, who were expelled from their homes because of it, or who attempted to escape over it.

The Berlin Wall Memorial is located roughly in the middle of this section of the former border. The Federal Republic of Germany established it in 1998 "in memory of the city’s division from 13 August 1961 to 9 November 1989 and of the victims of communist tyranny." In their design, the Stuttgart architects Kohlhoff & Kohlhoff preserved sixty meters of the former "no man's land" as a physical reminder of the Wall, while giving it an artistic interpretation and shape.