Ice, Ice Baby

Our time in Berlin has been characterized by cold weather, but today’s tour also focused on the coldness of the human heart. Our first stop of the morning was the DDR Museum along the banks of the Spree River. Inside you can see/touch/listen to lots of memorabilia from the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik in German). We got to see school supplies, work clothes, nudist beach scenes, recreated the ‘Lipsi’ dance, listened to music from the 1970s, and watched a film about planned communities. Then, we walked to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum near our hostel. They had an amazing exhibition of artwork produced by Berliners from 1961-1989 to complement the rich textual explanations. Moreover, the museum displayed artifacts from successful and failed escape attempts including tunnel-digging equipments and a home-made hot air balloon. The museum’s top floor was dedicated to World Religions, Ethics, and the International Struggle for Human Rights. Resistance movements in India, Poland, Hungary, and the United States demonstrated the various guiding principles of nonviolent movements. A quick coffee break later, we headed off to the Topographie des Terrors exhibition on the site of the old SS/Gestapo HQ. It was an open-air exhibition crowded with students so we didn’t stay too long. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped off at the Holocaust Memorial. The site is well-known for its innovative architecture and field of stelae which leaves the visitor to discover his/her own meaning. I found the most touching statements to be those made by children. J’s haunting message to her father: “I shall die soon. I don’t want to die, but they won’t let us live. I’ll never see you again.” Death marches, extermination camps, forced separations, a terrible legacy.