Today is our last day in Berlin. As with every city that we have visited, there is never enough time to see everything you want to see. Berlin is certainly not an exception. We returned to the Topography of Terror to look at the exhibits at the outside wall. It's so hard to comprehend the coming about of the Nazi party and what was to be their meticulous killing machine. Nobody was safe, aside from Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah Witnesses and Roma's they murdered old, feeble, sick, disabled men, women, children even babies.
There were any number of pretexts that a person could be arrested by the Gestapo. Having an "asocial" attitude, not wanting to or able to work, being denounced by your neighbor. If there was any pretext for their wanting a person, that person was quickly brought into their clutches.
So we hung out there in the broiling sun, I think I'm a bit overdone, then headed out to find a place to eat. After eating a satisfying light lunch we headed over to the Jewish Museum which is located in what was once West Berlin.
The museum was designed by Daniel Libeskind and opened in 2001. It has a zig zag design and was designed to give one a sense of the emotions that Jews were having while being persecuted. There was a stairway that went nowhere, a door that opened onto a wall. There is a Memory Void covered by ten thousand heavy iron plates cut to resemble faces, that is a memorial to the murdered Jews. From the sharp angles of wall, sloping floors, even the light coming through the window, your senses are awakened to human suffering that has existed through the ages.
The museum houses exhibits of Jewish civilization through the ages. Going through the exhibits teaches one about the Jews as people as well as a religion. Gerri and I were impressed and humbled by the experience and we're thankful to have been there.
Tomorrow we leave for a short visit to Hamburg then onto Munich!
Until we get to Munich, l'haim!
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