Berlin (July 6)

The sun was shining when we woke up on our first morning in Berlin.  This was the first clear, beautiful day we'd had so far.

Our first stop was the Olympic Stadium, built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games.  The stadium is quite impressive -- very powerful propaganda!  and, thanks to the weather, the view from the tower was incredible.

We then went to the villa in the suburb of Wannsee where the details for the "Final Solution" were finalized.  Wannsee is a wealthy community along a lovely lake -- a European version of the Finger Lakes.  I was rather apprehensive about this stop.  I knew I needed to see the site, but I didn't know how I would feel about entering a place of evil - the hatching of evil on such grand magnitude.  The villa has been turned into a place of education.  Most of the museum is devoted to Holocaust education.  The room where the Wannsee Conference took place (the dining room) does go into great detail about the meeting and its attendees.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I spent the least amount of time in that room, and I couldn't bring myself to read many of the details.  I did buy the impressive museum catalog, so I can read the same details in a "safer" environment.

In the afternoon, we went to the Track 17 memorial. Here was where Jews from Berlin were deported to many different points east.  The memorial is simple and powerful.  Along the track are markers giving the date of each deportation, the number deported, and where the train was going.  The track isn't used anymore (there is a new station just down the street), and trees are growing along the rails.  An affirmation that no train will travel this way again.

Our last stop of the day was Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  A field of stones.  Some are tall and some are flush with the ground. They are a maze in the middle of the city.  People walk all around -- tourists and a Beliners, young and old. Children run an play amongst the stones.  The memorial is abstract and allows the visitor to interpret it.  I felt no initial affinity to the place, though I was expecting to feel something.  I actually felt nothing as I entered one of the many pathways through the stones.  But I didn't enter alone.  I was with four women from my group. Together we were able to interpret and understand.  The stones seem to rise and fall.  It can all be analagous to the Holocaust -- choices, ups and downs, no way out.  The stone felt warm when in the sun and cool in the shade.  As we walked and talked, I began to appreciate the memorial.    Then, our group went down to the memorial's underground exhibit.  This is very well done and quite moving.

We ended our Berlin tour with a stop at the Memorial to the Homosexual Victims of the Nazis.  The memorial is in the park (Tiergarten) across from Brandenberg Gate (very close to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the US Embassy).