Good bye Berlin, until we meet again

  

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!

 

Berlin - A Sobering First Day

        

We finally made it to Berlin yesterday, Sep 14th! The train ride was very enjoyable, passing through some gorgeous Czech countryside. The train had a very cool restaurant car where we went to have a bite to eat and a cappuccino. Very nice to sit there while watching the scenery. This particular train was operated by the Czech railways. Our reserved seats were in a 6 person cubicle, much different than what we had experience previously, and really not to our liking. The first couple who rode with us were a quiet English couple, they barely spoke 2 words, they got off in Dresden where another fellow got on while carrying a big guitar.

Our new riding mate was also quiet and soon got up to go to the restaurant car. After he returned, not knowing if he was an English speaker,  I pantomimed his playing a guitar. He spoke in English about there not being much room in the cubicle. That's when we learned he was an Irish folk singer who had just performed in Dresden. He was a very pleasant person to speak with as we talked music and eventually a bit of politics. On the music side he has been around for a long time. He had performed with and knew Pete Seeger, telling us of staying at Pete Seeger's place overlooking the Hudson River in New York. We talked a bit about music and the impact it has on life, we talked a little philosophy which also led into some politics. His views on politics reflected the fears most Europeans have of our current elections and a possibility of a Trump as president. As I said it was a very nice encounter, he got off the stop before us and we kicked ourselves for not getting his name.

Today, Thursday the 15th, we got up and had a leisurely cappuccino on the small deck of our apartment. Incidentally this apartment is beautiful! It's a modern apartment in a nice residential neighborhood. It's a little further out than we would usually like, but it's convenient and well equipped.

Getting on with our day we took a taxi down to the Mail Boxes Etc store so we could finally get rid of that box of clothes that we could not ship from Prague. It took 200 Euros, but it's gone! The store is located close to Checkpoint Charlie which was where we wanted to return. Down from  Checkpoint Charlie is the Topography of Terror which is the location of what was the headquarters of the Nazi Gestapo, SS, SA and other instruments of the Nazi machine. They have a museum there which features a pictorial history of the rise and eventual fall of the Nazi killing machine. Gerri and I spent almost  4 hours there, reading and learning more of how the Nazi's where so meticulous in their callous disregard for any people they considered inferior. It was disheartening to see pictures and documents that showed how people had given up their freedoms by listening to someone who played on their fears. The blaming of Jews for the economic conditions that were a result of the Treaty of Versailles ending the First World War, the singling out of groups of people because of their beliefs or customs had so many similarities of what could happen in today's world. This was a sobering reminder of the saying by George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Let's hope and pray that we remember.

     

Prague - Day 3

 

        

Well Gerri and I are wrapping up our 4 day stay in Prague. This city has so much to offer that it would take days and days to see it all. Yesterday we walked across the Charles Bridge up the steep hill to the Prague Castle. The day was one of the hottest since. We've been here so it was a tiring trudge up the hill. But we old folks kept up and even passed a lot of young folks who were huffing and puffing.

The castle is an imposing structure dating from the ninth century when a Prince Borivoj set up a fortified settlement here. Through the centuries there have been 4 major reconstructions from Prince Sobeslav in the 12th century to a classical facelift under Empress Maria Theresia in the 1700's.

Today the castle complex is a collection of museums as well as the official residence of the head of state. From the castle we walked back down the hill,  a heck of a lot easier going down, back over the Charles Bridge to do some more exploring.

 

Today, Wednesday we are sufficiently rested from yesterday and off to start another day. The day actually started off on a sour note. Having packed a lot of clothes for the cooler weather we had expected, Gerri and I packed up a bunch of things we wouldn't need and headed for the only UPS outlet in Prague. After hailing an Uber driver we got out to the UPS facility near the airport, walked around to finally find the UPS place only to be informed that they won't take personal items! Only business shipments. Sure would have been nice if the UPS website had stated that, it would have saved us about 2 hours time and $48.00 US. Oh well, that's another story, thankfully we know there are outlets in Berlin where we can ship stuff from.

Afterwards, Gerri and I spent some time in the Jewish Quarter. The square is the site of 5 different synagogues, the Ceremonial Hall, the Old Jewish Cemetery and the Jewish Museum. The museum fell victim to one of the most ironic and grotesque acts of WWII. The Nazi's took over administration of the museum and brought in materials and objects from destroyed Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia. This resulted in probably what is the worlds biggest collection of sacred Jewish artifacts and a memorial to seven years of oppression.

Before I started this trip I learned that Prague was the scene of a daring assassination in WWII, Prague was the base for a despicable brutal Nazi officer named Reinhard Heydrich. He was one of Hitler's favorites and a chief architect of the extermination camps. The allies started an operation code named Anthropoid where the British trained and parachuted some Czech freedom fighters into the country with the intentions of sabotaging and assassinating Nazi's. After having been dropped into the wrong target area they made their way to Prague. After a few days planning and collaborating with resistance movement members, they made an attempt to assassinate Heydrich. The first fighter tried shooting Heydrich but his Stengun machine gun jammed. The second fighter threw a hand grenade but missed getting it into the car, however the grenade did blow off the car door. Heydrich was hit with a piece of shrapnel and later died of infections from his wounds.

The resulting manhunt by the Nazi's resulted in the murders of many people. Whole families were either shot or sent to concentration camps to be gassed to death. In fact a whole village had all the men shot, then the women and children were sent to concentration camps. The only ones that were initially spared were a total of 11 children who the Nazi's believed they could "Aryanize" by sending them to live with German families.

The whole story has just been released in a film, Anthropoid. I am definitely going to see the movie when I get back home!

Tomorrow is a travel day where we will take the train to Berlin for a 3 day stay. Gerri and I are looking forward to our return there following our first visit in 2014. Signing off for now, the Fleet Feet Gonzalez's!

Prague on a Sunday

Gerri and I arrived on Saturday after a 4 hour train ride from Vienna. The ride was tiring but the hot weather was the real issue. We had about enough energy to get to our apartment  then find a place to eat. The apartment is pretty much an antique as are most of the things here in what is known as Old Town. The apartment is on the 5th floor, unfortunately the elevator only goes up to the 4th floor. Actually with the building being so old, the elevator was installed at some later date. The owner of the apartment informed me that we should not put more than 3 people at a time in the elevator. Since it's as small as an average hall closet, I don't think that's much of a problem.

Riding up in the elevator is kind of like an amusement ride. You close the entry door, push the button for your floor and away you go. It's kind of neat, in a weird way, to see the wall of the elevator shaft whizzing in front of you as you look past the nonexistent door. With a jolt and a bounce we arrive at our floor. The apartment is decent enough, it's clean, it has a beautiful view of the River Vltata and it's close to all the historic sites. 

Sunday we wake up to a beautiful cloudless sky as the early morning sun hints at the hot day ahead of us. Not being the hurrying kind when we travel, I make our morning cappuccinos, then after being duly fortified with espresso, we head out. We were on a mission to find some things, like my Harley Davidson t-shirts after which we wandered about for a bit. The day got hotter and hotter. The weather is unseasonably hot. We were expecting temperatures in the high 60's to lower 70's. Instead the weather through our whole trip has been in the mid to upper 80's. Of course we didn't pack much in the way of summer clothes so we are sweltering. A trip to the department store shows that they have their winter stock out and not much of a summer stock left to choose from. Oh well!

The highlight of our day was after dinner when with the coolness of the evening weather we were able to explore a bit more. We crossed over 1 of the bridges close to our apartment, walked on the other side of the river to the more famous bridge, the Charles Bridge. This bridge was started during the reign of Charles IV around 1357 and completed in the early 1500's. It's the oldest stone built bridge in Europe. The bridge is about 510 meters long and is lined with religious statutes along its length.

With this being the 15th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, Gerri and I were surprised and honored to see a memorial to the firemen who lost their lives in the twin towers.

 

We walked across the bridge back to our apartment, feeling blessed with our lives and grateful to the men and women who serve our country. The sun has set so we'll wrap up our day and start out again tomorrow.