Day 21 (part 2): The missing piece
Today has been my last full day in Berlin. Tomorrow I catch the train to Krakow via Warsaw. I decided to make a last attempt to get to the information centre for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. So I headed out early. The weather was better today. Still overcast but dry, so I walked in. On the way I stumbled across another set of monumental buildings.
I got to the memorial 20 minutes before opening and secured myself a space near the front of the queue. And it was so worth the effort. The centre is brilliant in both design and content. I took the audio guide and meditated on the horror and futility of what happened. These pictures are from inside. One of the design elements in the information centre is the continuation of the blocks above into the ceiling and other spaces below.
I spent a long time wandering though the centre, taking it all in.
Afterwards I headed towards another site I had read about. One of the churches that was bombed in the war has been kept in that state as a memorial and reminder. What I now realise is that the church is located in what must have been the hub of west Berlin and all this time I have only really seen what was east Berlin. So there were two things to see.
Unfortunately for me, the church is undergoing maintenance and is shrouded by a scaffolding and covering, all you can see is a little of the steeple poking out of the top. But as soon as I looked around I saw the more conventional western city that was missing from the Berlin I had seen so far. This was the missing piece of the puzzle. It all made sense now. Mind you, I wouldn't say I prefer one over the over. The two sides of Berlin are quite different but both beautiful in their own way.
An added bonus of visiting this side of Berlin was making it to the Berlin museum which chronicles the history of Berlin. It was another well presented museum, but I think I might be getting museum-ed out. However, the added attraction of this one was that you were taken on a tour of a real nuclear fall out shelter constructed in the early 70s. It was eerie, and if you think about what might have happened, it was quite horrific. The shelter was built to accommodate 3,600 people which is mind blowing in itself, but you have to question whether people really could have survived in these conditions.
