Berlin Revisited

"Ich bin ein Berliner"

Well, not really, but I did live there from 18 months to 5 years old. My family moved away in 1984 soon after my sister was born and then watched on TV with amazement and joy along with the rest of the world as the Wall came down in '89. Last weekend I both returned to this city and saw it for the first time. Berlin has changed so much in the last decade that I might not have recognized it even if I had been old enough when I lived there to really remember it.

The West Berlin of my childhood consisted of our house in its quiet, residential neighborhood with its backyard covered in autumn leaves, Gleineke Park with its walking trails and a big black bear statue you could climb on, and the Grunewald See frozen-over in winter where my dad took me ice skating. On weekends I remember going with my dad to a bookshop in the British quarter for the newspaper and stopping in the S-bahn station for ham and cheese croissants on the way. I remember when my mom brought my baby sister home from the hospital and let me hold her in the rocking chair. And I even remember driving through Check Point Charlie once - a stern man in uniform with a large gun leaning down to look into each car briefly and then waving them on. That memory is so surreal it could well be the creation of an over-active imagination; born of knowing I was there at that historic time and fed by pictures I may have seen on the History Channel. Even if that last memory isn't real, the creepy feeling I had coming upon Check Point Charlie a few days ago - a small, isolated tourist attraction on an otherwise normal street, guarded by fake soldiers in fake uniforms (you can pay them a Euro to take a photo with them) - certainly was. In any case, being back in Berlin didn't really jog any of those childhood memories. We were mostly in the neighborhoods of the former East Berlin in any case, a part of town where I obviously didn't spent a lot of time in the early-1980s.

A Sprawling City

About as big as London but with half the population, Berlin is a spacious, un-crowded city. The neighborhood of Mitte, in the city center, boasts the iconic Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Jewish memorial, and myriad art museums. Its streets are broad and tree-lined and strolling along the river Spree and past various monuments is a pleasant way to pass a sunny autumn afternoon. There was very little traffic in the city center on Saturday as the streets had all been blocked off for the Berlin Marathon which was to be held the next day. After walking from Potsdamer Platz past all the sights and over to the ubiquitous TV tower at Alexanderplatz we headed further east to the East Side Gallery - where a 1.3 km stretch of the Wall still stands in its original spot - no longer serving as an artificial divide between east and west but as a large canvas covered in artwork by international artists dedicated to peace.

Eastern Rebirth

On Saturday evening Hannah and I went to dinner with some friends who have been living in Berlin for about 9 months. They took us out in Prenzlauer Berg - a district which had been part of East Berlin and which quickly became a hip and artsy neighborhood after reunification. It was lively on a Saturday night - we saw people lining up to get into a gallery opening, and passed bars and restaurants to suit all tastes before we found the cool, minimalist (save for the large fish tanks and the long cocktail list) after-dinner bar we were looking for. We also couldn't help but notice the prevalance of prostitution. It's a heavily regulated but legal and obviously thriving industry. After a cocktail we walked around a bit more and ended up back at Hackescher Markt in Mitte where we had gone on Friday night. It's a cute strip of outdoor bars and restaurants under the large brick wall of a train station - the perfect place for a nightcap and just a quick metro ride (on the super efficient and easy to navigate S and U-bahn systems) from our hotel.

Check Point Charlie?

On Sunday morning we made a bee-line for Check Point Charlie and the museum of the same name across from it. The Check Point itself was, as I mentioned, totally surreal. Here you are on a normal looking city street - the drab buildings aren't anything to write home about - and there's a Starbucks on the corner as you would expect and then there it is - small and seemingly totally out of place. The museum was interesting. Not exactly a coherent exhibit and they could have used a better English translator for their displays, but they have a lot of great photos of the tunnels that were dug and the inventions people came up with over the years to try to escape as well as some of the vehicles brave helpers reminiscent of Harriet Tubman used to hide people in and then drive them through the check point to freedom.

Jüdisches Museum

Next up was the Jewish Museum. We spent about 3 hours inside and could have easily spent more. It was so well conceived and laid out - the wealth of information it holds on the history of the Jewish people in Europe and their traditions and interactions with the other parts of European society throughout the centuries was astounding. Even more impressive was the architectural vision of Daniel Libeskind. The new wing of the museum he designed is surprisingly powerful and beautiful for being nothing more than some intersecting hallways, an empty tower and a little courtyard.

There are police guards on watch outside the Jewish Museum 24 hours a day, as there are outside every Jewish institution, foundation and synagogue in Berlin. When we emerged from the museum, feeling lightheaded after the mass of information we'd just taken in, their presence was a sobering reminder that there is still an undercurrent of anti-Semitism in some segments of the German population.

Bis zum nächsten Mal, Deutschland!

So, all in all, reacquainting myself with Berlin turned into a very cultural weekend! I felt a little guilty about not running the marathon on Sunday as seemingly everyone else on my flight back to London had, but my knees thank me. Until next time, Germany!

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