Langwitches Travel

Our third day in Berlin was reserved to visit the Jewish Museum.

The Jewish Museum Berlin first became known for its architecture - the building designed by Daniel Libeskind was already a much frequented place by Berliners and tourists in 1999, two years before the permanent exhibition was opened. The website also reflects the great interest in the architecture with texts and pictures of the two buildings: the Old Building (the baroque Collegienhaus) and the modern Libeskind Building.

Besides the interactive exhibits that tell of a 2000 year history of Jews in Germany, the most impressive part of visiting the Jewish Museum for me was the architecture. I would have never imagined that a building and its layout could impact me in such a way.  

We listened in on a guide, that was explaining to another group of visitors, that architecture has always been important in the Jewish faith. In the Torah it was exactly explained by G-d, how to build a temple, arches, tabernacles, tents, etc. There were rules for everything. It is also still tradition in a Jewish house to leave a certain area unfinished to remember the destruction of the Temple. The museum architecture remembers this…

One area of the museum was physically divided into axes. Visitors walk down each axis. There is the axis of exile with all the names of the cities that Jews emigrated to.

In 1938 a Jewish newspaper wrote:” For every Jew living in Germany today, probably the most urgent question today is:”When and where can I emigrate?”Between 1933 and 1941, some 280.000 German Jews fled the Nazi regimem heading for the United States, Palestine, Great Britain and other parts of the world, including South America, Africa and even Shanghai in China.

The axis of Exile led into the Garden of Exile. 

where 49 tilted columns are standing on a sloping plot of ground. They are filled with earth and with Russian oliver trees whose branches form a canopy of leaves in summer. The exile meant rescue and safety, but the escape from Germany and the arrival in a foreign country caused disorientation. The refugees often had difficulty gaining foothold in their new home.

Walking in the garden of exile, one could feel a certain wave of nausea and even dizziness while trying to navigate through the labyrinth of columns, where you did not know what you were going to find around the next corner.

Another axis is the axis that leads to the Holocaust Tower

The axis of the Holocaust slopes gently to an empty 24 meter high space called the Holocaust Tower. it is unheated and lit only by natural light falling through a diagonal opening in the wall. Sounds can be heard from the outside. Daniel Libeskind called this room the “voided void”. It was later interpreted as a commemorative space for the voctims of the Holocaust. Libeskind’s architecture continues to be open to entirely different, personal interpretations.

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Since Day Two was our only full day in Berlin, we got up early (well as early as five women can get up and ready). We met my cousin with her husband and son to take the subway to the Zoo. The weather was being kind to us and it did not rain.

What a beautiful zoo. I would recommend to anyone visiting Berlin to take to time to visit. The animals… their habitats… the surroundings… the trees, … everthings was really beautifully done.

We had, of course, a special purpose for going to the Berlin Zoo. We wanted to see Knut, the famous polar bear cub. He is a little over 6 months old now. Twice a day, Knut comes out with his zoo keeper and has a little playtime in front of hundreds of cheering visitors and school children who came to see him.

We saw Knut again, after his official appearances were over. He was in an area all by himself. It was obvious, that he was not happy, since he was running around making loud “crying” noises, calling for his zoo keeper and “adoptive father”. A few minutes later we saw Thomas Doerflein appear on his bike leaving the polar bear area. No wonder Knut was so upset! It was odd to see the “now so famous” zoo keeper just a few meters away from us.

In the afternoon we said goodbye to my cousin and her family and took one of the famous city tour double decker buses. Despite the rain, we enjoyed the almost two hour ride through Berlin, driving by the most famous landmarks and areas.

• Kurfuerstendamm
• KaDeWe
• Luetzowplatz
• Jewish Museum
• Checkpoint Charlie
• Gendarmenmakt
• Alexanderplatz
• Berliner Dom
• Unter den Linden
• Brandenburger Tor
• Reichstag

We got off the bus at the Brandenburgertor, since we had a break in the rain. It was a special feeling to walk through the gate, that I had last seen almost 30 years ago as a child only behind the wall.

We also walked through the Holocaust Memorial, that is just around the corner of the Brandenburger Gate. What an amazing experience… It will still take some time to digest.

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We left Frankfurt early, around 6:30 am, and drove through the Bundesstaaten (states) Hessen, Thueringen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Brandenburg to the capital of Germany: Berlin. Although the weather did not cooperate very much, we made the drive within 5 1/2 hours.

We met my uncle and cousin in the Berlin neighborhood of Wilmersdorf. We then settled into the apartment my uncle made available to us. We all then walked to a little typical restaurant in the area “Hell & Dunkel”. After lunch we headed out to explore the area a little further and even ventured to the Kuhfuerstendamm.

We stood in front of the Heiliggeistkirche and were able to catch a little glimpse of how the rest of the buildings in Berlin must have looked like after the war. In some giftshop we even saw some postcards with old photographs of how the area was devastated after the war.

We had dinner in a small Italian restaurant and made our way back to the apartment when it was already after dark.

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