If Vienna was a fairytale, Berlin was a history book.
I just returned from my second weekend excursion outside of the Czech Republic. Five of us went to Berlin, and I feel like I learned so much in just two days!
When we arrived on Friday, we went to the museum at Check Point Charlie, one of the exit/entry places on the Berlin Wall. The museum was full of stories of people who attempted to — and succeeded, in some cases — escape from one side to the other. It was really interesting. I knew very little about the Berlin Wall before then, or about the political situation during that time.
On Saturday, we took a free walking tour around the city, on which we saw the New Holocaust Memorial, stood on the ground above the bunker in which Adolf Hitler committed suicide, saw a standing section of the Berlin Wall, etc. etc. We then headed to the Jewish Museum, which taught me a great deal about the Holocaust. We visited a temporary exhibit, which was actually from the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., about the genetic studies which took place during the Holocaust and the cruel ways in which people were sterilized after being deemed genetically unfit for reproduction by Hitler’s standards. Those sterilized included Jews, mentally handicapped children and adults, and Gypsies, among others. It was hard to take in, for sure.
Our last and very special stop was at the Reichstag, which is the Berlin parliament building. It has a glass dome on its roof, with a Harrelson-esque ramp tourists can climb for free. The last group of visitors are admitted each evening at 10 p.m., and we were (very luckily) in that last group! The view was amazing, and as we got ready to take the elevator back down from the roof, fireworks started going off in the distance. It was a great way to end our trip!
