(Another look back at being a tourist in Germany … )
Here we were in Berlin. Just a half block away was the historic Checkpoint Charlie. We saw this on our huge day of Berlin walking and when we saw the famous Brandenburg Gate up close.
Germany
6
Jul 15
Two things about dining in Berlin
(This is extra material from our trip to Germany because it is summertime and our trip was grand.)
The food was very inexpensive. That’s the first thing. We went to a few places where the bottled water — which you do pay for — costed as much as the food. The grocery store was pretty cheap too.
The second thing we learned while eating at A Magica, a pizza place, on the suggestion of a friend. Germans eat their pizza with fork and knives. All of them. Sometimes you have to use a fork. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. No shame in it. To see an entire restaurant doing it was a bit unnerving.
Nearby the pizza parlor was Gethsemane Church, built in 1893:
The architect here used both Romanesque Revivalism with round arch windows and neo-Brick Gothic with traceries and rib vaults in the construction. His work wasn’t damaged during World War II, and there is a plate commemorating the German resistance against the Nazi government. Like many churches, this one was a meeting place for East Germans opposed to that government. The statue in the foreground is the Benedictive Christ, previously stood at the former Church of Reconciliation. That church was destroyed by the East German government in 1985 to make more space for the Berlin Wall. Since reunification it has been a central locale of civil rights groups and peace movements.
Just down the street was a cool sign for a burger joint:
I wonder how they eat those.
22
Jun 15
Alexandrovka the Russian colony in Potsdam, Germany
(Extra material from our trip to Germany.)
The Prussian army was fighting Napoleon’s French armies in 1812. Prussia was conquered. The Prussians lined up with Russians in 1813. There was a bit of an embarrassing problem, though, since about 1,000 Russian troops as prisoners in Potsdam.
Whoops.
Of those men, 62 stayed.
Back at the palace, King Frederick William III loved him some music. From those 62 he formed a Russian choir from his “guests.” The choir would stay in Potsdam, with Tsar Alexander I’s blessing, as a sign of the renewed friendship between the two countries.
The Tsar died in 1825. To the west, the Prussian king decided to pay tribute to the Tsar and choir by building a village for the 12 remaining members. A Prussian landscaper and a Russian architect got the job of building it all. Modeled after the Russian village of Glosovo near St. Petersburg, each house was built in Russian style. They were furnished and each had a garden and they the men all received a cow as well. The Prussians really wanted them to stay.
A Russian Orthodox church dedicated to St. Alexander Nevsky (Tsar Alexander’s patron saint) was built nearby.
The last of the original inhabitants died in 1861. Today, most of the houses have private owners and most of them have been restored. One is now a restaurant, another is a museum. One still belongs in the family of one of the Russian soldier-singers who decided to stay in Potsdam 190 years ago.
Problem was, those first residents weren’t making a lot of cash and weren’t really farmers. So there were lean years. Only two of them had learned a profession, others rented out their places and quite of few of them died in huge debt.
There is said to be a great deal of agricultural history in this little community, as well. At one time 500-year-old fruit trees were said to be in place. (I find this to be a romantic notion, but hard to believe. Most of the fruits they grow in the area are from trees that just don’t live that long and the apple tree life span would be a long shot.) Hundreds of apple varieties were grown in the area. Today they harvest about 20 varieties. Huge numbers of cherries, pear and plum varieties were also grown here.
19
Jun 15
A few Berlin postcards
(Extra material from our trip to Germany.)
This wall relief is on display at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin:
It is from the temple-palace at Tell Halaf and was made from basalt and limestone.
Tell Halaf is a dig site in northeastern Syria, near the Turkish frontier and was the first find of a Neolithic culture, dating to the 6th millennium BC. The name Tell Halaf is a modern name. Tell means “hill” and Halaf meaning “made of former city.” The original name is unknown.
Max von Oppenheim excavated the site at the turn into the 20th century. Some of his finds were destroyed while on display during World War II. The surviving pieces went into storage until the beginning of the 21st century. Now more than 30 sculptures are on display.
This is a panorama. We got to climb to the top of the rotunda of the Berlin Cathedral, prominently featuring the iconic Fernsehturm:
Click the image to embiggen!
16
Jun 15
Hier wohnte
You see those words all over the parts of Berlin we tromped around in, and it is sobering.
You get the sense in that great old city that this has been a psychologically hard place to live. I know from books and film footage how bad things were in the city during the war. I’ve read about the divided city and remember the Wall falling. I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. and seen historical footage.
It isn’t history or grainy footage or an abstraction when you’re there.
“The past intrudes into our society,” said Wolfgang Thierse, president of the Bundestag.
Now I’ve seen the bullet holes in the buildings. I toured the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, documenting the East Germans who conceived incredible ways to get across to West Berlin. I read there about the frustrations of oppressed East Germans who didn’t get the support from the West they’d hoped for during the uprising in 1953. We met people in Berlin who grew up in East Germany, of course. One guy told us about how his mother, who was an East German tour guide, was disciplined for once calling it the Wall. (East Germans said “the anti-fascist protection barrier” was for keeping out spies.)
The city is living with a lot. Pick any emotion. That burden must be heavy.
And then you see these:
Those are stolpersteine, “stumbling blocks.” The monuments, created Gunter Demnig, commemorate a victim of Nazi oppression. They remember individuals – those who died, survived or emigrated – who were condemned to prisons, euthanasia facilities, sterilization clinics, concentration camps and extermination camps.
Jews, Christians, gypsies, homosexuals, blacks, communists, the disabled, they’re all represented by stolpersteine. More than 48,000 have been laid in 18 countries. You see them all over Berlin. (And in some cities they are still, apparently, somewhat contentious.)
Hier wohnte means here lived. Ermordet means murdered.
