Stolpersteine and the Judisches Museum

Although these fall somewhat out of chronological order in my posts, I figure I may as well continue with a few more memorials to the Jews of Berlin and their persecution/deaths during World War II. It's hard to know what else is appropriate after my visit to Sachsenhausen.



The Stolpersteine (literally: stumbling stones) are a memorial project placed throughout the city. They are polished metal plates set into the cobblestones of Berlin's sidewalks. It took me a while to notice them, but they are everywhere. Each Stolperstein carries the name of a Jewish person who lived in Berlin and was deported and often murdered during the Holocaust. Their birth and death dates are included on the stones, along with the name of the concentration camps in which they were interred.

In this closeup, you can read the names of an entire family. The last Stolperstein on the right commemorates an infant - only a year old when they were deported to Auschwitz. Her sister wasn't any older than 4. These Stolpersteine were just down the street from the Goethe Institute.




I also spent a full afternoon/evening at the Judisches Museum. It deals with a history of Jewish exile and persecution specifically (so not exactly religious history). The new addition to the building, designed by Daniel Libeskind, opened in 2001. It is incredibly striking modern architecture, as thought-provoking as the exhibits inside. From what I've heard, the space of the museum is meant to make as much of an impression as the material presented. There are lots of long narrow corridors, sharp corners, and empty, echoing architectural fragments.

The most effective of these spaces was a triangular 'void' that remained open through all 3 floors of the building. On floor level, it served to hold the installation "Shalechet" or "Fallen Leaves" by Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman. This was a thick carpet of steel ovals, each punctured and welded to form human faces with mouths open. Visitors were invited to walk across the installation. It was rather awful. Not just the thought of attaching human identities to the abstracted sculptural forms, but the precarious act of walking and the sound. You had to move slowly and watch each step. The noise of the steel faces (the fallen leaves) hitting one another and shifting beneath your own weight was incredibly grating. It hurt my ears, and I don't think I'll ever forget the experience.

Zinc-coated facade of the Libeskind building;
lots of lines and random zigzags.

The juxtaposition of old and new buildings that make up the Judisches Museum

Olive trees planted in the "Garden of Exile."

This was another contemplative architectural space, not quite as jarring as "The Void," but also disorienting due to a sloping ground line. I never actually got around to the Holocaust Memorial, dedicated in May 2005 and located south of the Brandenburger Tor. Like the new addition to the Judisches Museum, it is abstractly conceived - an undulating field of nearly 3,000 concrete stelae. That leaves something for my next trip to Berlin, I suppose.

Sachsenhausen

Model of Sachsenhausen

The rainy weather last weekend was appropriate enough for my Sunday excursion; I joined a group from the Goethe Institute to tour a concentration camp in Oranienburg, just outside of Berlin proper. Sachsenhausen was a model camp for the Nazis, perfectly laid out within the bounds of an equilateral triangle, and displayed to visiting ambassadors and rulers (even through 1945!). The gates are chilling enough, with their ironic slogan: "Arbeit Macht Frei." About 100,000 persons were murdered within the precincts. More died here after the Soviets and the DDR took it over as their own Speziallager No. 7.

Entrance to the concentration camp

Our guide was an elderly gentleman who enriched his store of historical knowledge with personal accounts from his experiences during World War II. He must have grown up quickly between the age of 8 and 16. If I understood correctly, he was sent off to stay with relatives or friends while his parents were interred at Sachsenhausen. They survived the camp, unlike many others.

We had a large tour group and since our guide tended to go into more detail than my language skills could keep up with, I couldn't catch everything he said. But I did grasp the enormity of his commitment to telling these stories and their personal resonance. At certain moments, he spoke more slowly and would look off in the distance at nothing in particular. I'm sure his memories filled that void with more than I will ever struggle to make sense of in this world.




It was the sheer number of stories that made our visit to the historic and commemorative site so overwhelming. I think this was the educational strategy of the museum, as well! All of the outbuildings, some original and some reconstructed, displayed pictures and information about the people who lived, worked, labored, and perished at Sachsenhausen. The exhibits focused on sustaining individual identities beneath a crushing load of numbers (numbers deported, abused, put to death). Yet the amount of names, people, stories (each one different and unique) was too much to take in...

Our walking tour also became rather long. After we stopped at each of the monuments dedicated to different groups of prisoners in the wooded area outside the main camp, and got through the front gate, it was already 1.30 or so (We met at 9.30 in the morning for our Ausflug!). I was getting chilled by the rain, so I split off from the group at Barracks 38 and 39 in order to finish looking at the grounds on my own. Louise and I refueled on kaffee und kuchen, then explored the rest of the camp.

Barracks 38 & 39

T-shaped Prison

One of the prison cells at Sachsenhausen

Memorial sculpture with fresh roses at the Crematorium

As I rode the U-Bahn back to my apartment, I sat across from an elderly gentleman. He was dressed precisely and sat erect, although his eyes didn't focus clearly on anything. They seemed clouded by cateracts. Once more, however, I was struck by the realization of how much he had seen during his lifetime. The modern world rushing past must seem to be an entirely different world from what he used to know. It made me wonder what the world would be like when I have experienced that many years of my own life.

Rainy Day

A few more pictures from Schloss Charlottensburg and its gardens...




The red bridge leading to the Luiseinsel was quite picturesque surrounded by dripping greenery. When two other persistent visitors crossed the bridge in the rain, the scene suddenly became a Japanese print (suited to the chinoiserie and japanese motifs copied throughout the interior decoration of the palace rooms).

The remaining photos are a portrait series of Louise, who decided to give up on staying dry. We had fun, regardless of the weather.

Schloss Charlottensburg

Okay, so this past weekend it rained. This is not new news anymore, in fact, it is almost funny. I resolved to go out and do some of the big sights that I need to fit in before my time in Berlin is over.

On Saturday I met Louise (another classmate at the Goethe-Institute) at the Schloss Charlottensburg. The tours of the interiors and our stroll around the gardens took most of the day. Sunday, I traveled with a group from the institute to Sachsenhausen, a WWII concentration camp located just outside the city. I'll have to post on this another time. It was a rather overwhelming experience, and the overcast skies and constant drizzle certainly contributed to the somberness of the setting. Its grim history was also quite a contrast to the splendour of the Prussian court at Charlottensburg.

Entrance courtyard to Schloss Charlottensburg

The Baroque palace in Charlottensburg was built as a summer residence for Queen Sophie-Charlotte when she was the wife of Elector Frederick III (to become Frederick Ist), and was expanded as the living quarters of the royal Hohenzollern clan (in the tradition of such Baroque palaces as Versailles). Although the palace was significantly damaged in World War II, its furnishings and works of art had been removed for safe-keeping, and the interiors have been mostly restored. It makes for a full day of touring if you follow all the intineraries on the audio guide! But it is worth it. The interiors are stunning, with a large oval ballroom at center facing the gardens at back. The most interesting (and most kitsch) was the porcelain room designed by Frederick after Sophie-Charlotte's death to hold and display her collection of Chinese blue-and-white. It is crazy. You'll have to take my word for it, since photography inside the palace wasn't allowed...

I would have loved to sneak at least one or two photos, however. The art collection of the Hohenzollerns included Watteau's "Pilgrimage to Cytheria," "Return from Market" by Chardin, and J. L. David's "Napoleon on the St. Bernard Pass." These were all delightful surprises on the brocaded and silk-covered walls.

The palace served another generation of rulers under Friedrich Wilhelm III and Queen Luise. Her mausoleum is tucked away in the gardens. It was on our trip out to find this sepulchre that the skys opened up and it began to pour. We took refuge under the trees at first, but soon the amount of falling water was about the same under the trees as out in the open. We gave up and continued our way out to the Belvedere, where more of the royal porcelains were on display. These were behind glass cases, and some of them incredibly beautiful. I need to start saving for a tea-set like that... maybe I'll purchase one by retirement!

Mausoleum for Queen Luise

View of the Schloss Charlottensburg across the lake and gardens

Belvedere, built as a tea house for Friedrich Wilhelm II

Balconies in Berlin

Berlin is full of architectural wonders, but the most typical building facade is the Plattenbau (pre-fabricated). It make for a very distinctive profile in the city streets. Some just look grim and awful, but others (when kept up and painted) are really charming. What I enjoy most are all the balconies looking out over the streets below. The balconies are often as green as the city parks and squares, supporting aerial gardens full of potted plants.

The following are just a couple examples from a walk around Prenzlauer Berg:

Views fom the Fernsehturm

This is an aerial view of Berlin, looking toward the Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz. The main boulevard that you see turns into Unter den Linden once it crosses the Museumsinsel (where the huge Berliner Dom is most obvious). This culminates in the famous Brandenburger Tur.

I took the photo from the panorama platform inside the Fernsehturm. There is always a line for going up in the tower, and Louise and I were both too hungry to join the second line for the TeleCafe on the next floor up. But the views were worth our time. It also helped to put into perspective the topographical relationships between different areas of the city that I'd already visited on foot! I had walked around the Tiergarten, diplomatic quarter, and Potsdamer Platz on my first weekend in Berlin (once the sun came out!). But I didn't have a sense of where all that lay in relation to the historic center and area around Alexanderplatz.

On the other side of the tower, I could look down on the Goethe-Institute where I commute every day for my language classes. You can just pick out the cross streets at the Weinmeisterstrasse U-Bahn station (where I pop up from under the city on the U-8 line each morning); these intersect at center right in the photo below. The Goethe-Institute is the building on a diagonal to the lower left of the intersection... Our classrooms are located around the second courtyard. These are the two black rooftops with lots of glass skylights. Good luck figuring this out!

Alexanderplatz

These are a few belated photos, although I only took them this past weekend. I don't always have my camera with me when I'm walking around. Especially not when I go out on the Spaziergangs offered by the Kulturprogamm at the Goethe-Institute... These are great ways to explore the city and get a bit of cultural context and history thrown in, but it takes all of my attention to successfully follow the guide (since the tours are all auf Deutsch).

One of our first tours was through the historic Mitte, the central part of Berlin and its oldest neighborhood. This was where the medieval town was founded, originally two merchant trading posts placed on either side of the Spree river (one named Berlin, the other Coelln - a forgotten city that got swallowed up by its twin). I say medieval, but Berlin isn't all that old; it began only in the 13th century. Its location also helped to define the city in more recent history, since the division between East and West Berlin made a semi-circular loop around it, including Mitte on the Eastern side of the Berlin wall.



Alexanderplatz was the main commercial hub of East Berlin, and is marked by the distinctive Fernsehturm (built by the DDR in 1969). I can see the tower from my apartment in Kreuzberg. Actually, you can see it from pretty much anywhere in Berlin! The photo above is an interesting juxtaposition of the tower, meant to celebrate the technological prowess of a secular East Germany, and the Marienkirche, Berlin's oldest standing church. It usually comes in second in the guidebooks to the Nicholaikirche, which had to be mostly rebuilt after WWII.






I thought after my discussion of the fountains in Leipzig, these photos would be more than appropriate. I was really pleased with the closeups I got of the rearing centaurs supporting the figure of Neptune. The sun was behind the fountain, so the light was really interesting. Because I watched the 5th Harry Potter movie in the Cinema on Alexanderplatz, the fountain is also fitting in comparison with the showdown between Dumbledore and Voldemort and the climactic scenes in the Ministry of Magic.




Not the Ministry of Magic, but rather the Rotes Rathaus, Berlin's town hall and seat of city government. The Senate meets here. We've just done a whole chapter on German politics in my language course, but I will spare you the details... I find the terracotta frieze running around the sides of the Rathaus much more interesting =) The panels show events from the city's history up through the 1870s, when the building was completed.

Another view of the Rathaus

Frieze depicting the city's history

Leipzig

I will have to post this entry without any photos to accompany it… Although I traveled to Leipzig this past weekend, I forgot to bring my camera! What tragedy. I made the trip with my friend Rachel Jans (she is in my dept. at the University of Chicago and also doing language study at the Goethe-Institute, although much more advanced than I!). And Leipzig is truly a charming city. However, since it rained most of the two days we were there, it wasn’t the best of weather for taking pictures. I was happy enough not to be juggling a camera with my umbrella.

Leipzig is a city known for lots of things; it has a famous school of contemporary artists and was quite active in political agitation before the fall of the Berlin wall and German re-unification. It also possesses quite a musical heritage. Johann Sebastian Bach was cantor of the St. Thomas church (1723-50), and his influence can be seen in the work of other famous musicians and composers associated with the city later on, such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Robert and Clara Schumann.

We poked around the shops and museums in city center and got to see most of the major sites during our first day. Historic Leipzig is quite small! Like I said, it was also a rainy, cold weekend. We did a lot of walking, but I wasn’t interested in trekking long distances. We spent half our time indoors, recuperating with cups of coffee, hot Apfel Strudel, and such things. I had a delicious brunch this morning, sächeschen Quarkkeulchen with applesauce, whipped cream, and tiny red berries that are super-tart, but tasty (Johannes berries, I’ve since discovered). Quark is some kind of cream. That’s as much as I understand of my German explanations! The resulting food item was a pudding-like flat cake with raisins scattered throughout and yummy.

Okay, so the food in Leipzig was definitely memorable! We also did a lot of snacking on the trains, since the ride was about 2 ½ hours between Berlin and Leipzig. We weren’t on the fast, commuter trains. We did the trip with the ‘Schönes-Wochenende’ tickets offered by DB; these were discounted and could include up to 5 people on one ticket. Because of the ticket, we were a little more limited in our choice of trains. Still, it was a pretty direct route. Other than a bit of confusion when we had to change trains (some of these more rural stations don’t seem to be populated on the weekends, and esp. lacking anyone in official uniforms to announce which train is which or to update the signs hanging above the platforms), we made it there and back again. The countryside between Berlin and Leipzig is just as flat as in Berlin. I watched green fields and farms flicking past through a very rain-streaked window.

We left this afternoon earlier than we’d first planned for our return. But after going through the main art museum, the Museum der bildenden Künste, on Saturday afternoon (this way we were indoors during the most torrential part of the rainy downpour) and after some more walking this morning and other museums, there wasn’t much left to do. Rachel had to visit a gallery of contemporary art for her research and I wandered through the Bach Museum next to the St. Thomaskirche. But the rain made any other Spazierengang unappealing! We’d already drunk enough coffee for the day and had frequented several different cafes.


If I would have posted pictures, I think they would have been of the many fountains in Leipzig, and maybe the incredible, baroque building facades. They were really beautiful, actually. And we got some great views of the rooflines from the upper floors (and huge, floor-to-ceiling glass walls) of the art museum.

The fountains were everywhere. In the rain, they simply looked wetter! A huge jet of water spurted from the center of a shallow pool in front of the Leipzig opera house, while another fountain with an obelisk and frolicking bronze figures (winged horses, dolphins, and mermaids) stood across the square before the concert hall. There was also a fountain with two tiers of red granite and carved reliefs (a circle of standing putto on top and bearded faces on the bottom) in a small square where we took a coffee break and later returned for dinner on Saturday. Finally, we discovered a tall fountain with the Pied Piper of Hamlin tucked away by the Neues Rathouse. The captive audience of children is, I suppose, a reminder to the city officials of governmental decisions gone badly. Oh. I should also count our umbrellas. They did a magnificent job of dispersing water!

The Botanischer Garten

We're back to some not-so-great weather this week! But Saturday the clouds stayed away, and I went out on multiple train lines (the connection was supposed to be pretty straightforward, except that there must have been repair work going on on the train line that we would usually take; the detour included two or three extra trains!) to the Botanical Garden in Zehlendorf. Louise, another language student in my class, came along with me.

The Berlin Botanical Gardens aren't as big as Chicago's. But they are really impressive; nicely laid out and with a huge variety of plants from all over the world. They are also much older than Chicago's Botanical Garden, since some prince or other founded them in 1679. A Grand-Duke, sorry! The model garden was started in Schöneberg, another Berlin neighborhood, and transplanted to its current location at the beginning of the 20th century. Today it is part of the Freie Universität.

Louise and I both appreciated the greenery and the break from city surroundings. She had to put up with all my photo-taking, since I am still partial to the plant kingdom in terms of environmental biology.

Church Musicians

One of the things I love about European cities in the summer (well, in fact, this is true of many cities, including Chicago...) is the number of musicians performing out-of-doors. Below is a trio playing string instruments in the entrance courtyard to the Peace Church (or Friedenskirche) in Potsdam. The church was built by Frederick Willhelm IV in the mid-19th century and includes a Byzantine apse mosaic imported from Venice.

Potsdam Outing

I'm a wee bit behind on posting... my apologies! With classes every morning, the week goes by quickly. I'm happy to say that we've finally begun our summer, weather-wise. Last weekend was actually hot. But it has stayed sunny and warm during the week. My plans tomorrow are to seek out the local Schwimmbad and do some R&R (that stands for reading and relaxing in my book).



Some photos are in order, however, from an excursion last weekend to Potsdam and the summer palaces of the Prussian royalty. Above is our group of German-language students listening intently to the gentleman who served as our guide. We're standing in the Dutch quarter of Potsdam, with the typical brick facades and peaked roofs of Netherlandish architecture lining the street. As for the palaces, I enjoyed the green parks and estates surrounding them more so than the Rococo interiors =) But I have to say the yellow room with parrots in Sans-Souci won me over. It is also known as the Voltaire room after its famous philosopher inhabitant.

First, the exterior (also dominantly yellow):






We had a rather large group, too big for an effective tour of the grounds... so after seeing the Schloss Sanssouci we were on our own. I walked around with a few other new friends: Louise-Helene (in my weekly class), Ben, and Josup. We made our way to the Neue Palais where we could get tickets for an unguided tour. The palace is enormous! Like at Sanssouci, we all had to put on large felt slippers to protect the marble and wooden parquet. We skated across the well-polished floors from room to room, admiring various works of art and the many, many framed mirrors. My favorite room here was a grotto entirely covered with seashells and precious minerals/stones for its decoration. I didn't purchase permission to take photos inside, so no images here to illustrate.

Ben, Louise, and Josup in front of the Orangery

It was a long day, with lots of walking. We finished off with some lovely crepes and ice cream for dessert at "La Madeleine" back in Potsdam proper. It was an expensive meal, but worth the treat. A lovely evening to finish soaking up the last rays of sun.

La Madeleine - A French Creperie in Potsdam

Ich bin auf Deutschland

I am mostly recovered from jet-lag at this point, although the weather has been miserable ever since I arrived! Two weeks of rain and cold... This is the reason I thought I'd begin with this picture of a girl who was playing in the fireman fountain. It's wet. =) I took the photo last week. I seized a moment when the clouds had briefly cleared up to explore my neighborhood. I'm living in Kreuzberg, which is a fascinating multicultural area of Berlin. It has a large Turkish population and I've esp. enjoyed seeing the kiosks for doner kebaps, baklava in the little bakeries, and other Mediterranean fare in the local Turkish market - all of these familiar reminders of my trip to Istanbul last summer.

I'm staying with a German host through the Goethe-Institute language program; above is a view of my little Schlafzimmer. It's a good living situation, even more so than some of my other classmates, it seems. Simone is friendly and I've had some great opportunities to work on my conversational skills nach Hause. In general, my spoken German is rather poor! The point of this program is to build my basic vocabulary and grammar skills... I've encountered much more German than I've been able to deal with in my research already. Doing my reading lists for dept. exams this past year was just one more reminder of how much competency I don't have!

We have language classes every morning at the Institute, aber nicht zu viele Hausaufgabe (not too much homework)... Classes are just 10 min. away on the U-Bahn. It's very convenient, although I am not doing very well at leaving the house on time. =) The schedule also allows some time to explore the city, and there is a ton to see! I've done a few tours with the Kulture Program at the Institute so far. They've been super informative, and useful for orienting myself at the beginning of the summer.

It will be fun to update my blog regularly while I'm abroad this time around!


Bis bald!