The Berlin Smell

Plaques recognizing Nazi victims  

Our Guide Beth at Checkpoint Charlie 

Berlin Wall

Parking Lot over Hitler's Bunker

Fredrick's Palace being rebuilt (in the background)

Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny

New Church only 15 years old

The Destroyed New Synagogue

Hotel de Rome

Cocktails on Deck at our Hotel

Sunset from Roof Top Bar

Cold Appetizers and Bread 

Mixed Grill

We met our guide, Beth, at the hotel and started out on a walking tour of Berlin. Our hotel is situated in what was Communist East Berlin. This part of the city is the more interesting part. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to understand a thick German accent, but it turned out our guide was from Wales. She is a graduate student in German History and very knowledgeable.

We were immediately informed about a fact I had never heard of before. Berlin is built on a swamp. As you walk the streets of Berlin every once in a while, you get an absolutely awful smell, that is like the odor from an open sewer. It is the smell of the swamp filtering up through the streets.

Much of Berlin was destroyed in the war. Amazingly they have rebuilt much of the city to look exactly like it looked before the war. When you look at a Church or a Palace you really don’t know if it is new or the original. They would rebuild structures from the rubble, so the stones  church above look old.

Imbedded in the sidewalk at various points are small plaques that commemorate where a Jewish Family lived. We walked to where Checkpoint Charlie used to exist. There is a wall with photographs of it. Checkpoint Charlie was the passage way from East to West Berlin during the Cold War. Remnants of the Wall remain, and you can see the actual size and scope of the enclosure. Beth presented very interesting perspective on how the people of West Berlin felt after re-unification. They lost a lot of government benefits and felt that it wasn’t a merger of East and West Germany, but the absorption of East Germany by the Federal Republic of Germanywhich we now call simply Germany.

It was a short walk to Hitler’s Bunker, where he lived his final days and then committed suicide. There is no marker of the destroyed bunker, it is just an unpaved parking lot. The German government wanted no plaque or other remembrance of him, where right wing fanatics might gather. It is illegal in Germany to display the swastika flag.

We then attempted to visit Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the vast monument of concrete slabs. Unfortunately, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in Berlin for a 3-day State visit and the entire area is closed for security reasons. We don’t like him anyway, so we will be happy when he leaves, and we can then visit the memorial. The Brandenburg gate area is also closed.

We walked towards our hotel, stopping to visit the very moving Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny. This is a very powerful statement. Inside a building built in Greek Revival style, there sits a single bronze statue of a grieving mother holding a victim of War or Terror. There is no reference to a particular war, or even period of time. It could be any person unjustly killed. The building has an oculus (opening in the roof) allowing the sun to shine through into the darkened room.

Nearby we could see another giant reconstruction project. The rebuilding from scratch a replica of the Fredrick the Great’s Palace. When this replica is completed it will be turned into a museum.

We adjusted our walking to skirt the security and walked to Museum Island. The Spree River runs through Berlin. At one point it splits in two and then eventually reunites. This creates an island that is home to many museums. We walked across the island (for some reason I had assumed the island was remote from where we were staying, but it was actually very close). Sunday we will return to the island to visit some of the museums.

It is a short walk from Museum Island to the old Jewish Area. The weather was warm and perfect for walking. The restored New Synagogue with its golden dome towers over the neighborhood, however the sanctuary is no more. Just the façade and the restored dome remain. It was badly damaged prior to and during World War II and subsequently much was demolished; the present building on the site is a reconstruction of the ruined street frontage with its entrance, dome and towers, and only a few rooms behind.

We walked around the old Jewish Neighborhood looking at stores and eventually took the S-Bahn (Trolley) to return to our hotel’s area. A short shopping excursion, and then it was cocktails on the roof.

I had wanted to have Turkish Food (it is not available in Los Angeles – I assume due to the high number of Armenians living in LA). Since Erdoğanwas in town, complicating our sightseeing, we decided to go out for a Turkish Dinner. We had an excellent dinner at Hasir Restaurant. It was a warm night and we ate on the patio. Wonderful cold appetizers followed by hearty entrees.

A Taxi took us back to the hotel and the first full day in Berlin was complete.