Meine Mutter besucht!


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Europe » Germany » Berlin » Berlin
August 3rd 2006
Published: August 5th 2006
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My mother is here visiting me, and we're having a great time so far. Berlin has greeted her arrival by a sudden change of weather, with highs in the mid-70s and short, but intense rain squalls at regular intervals the past couple of days. While it is perhaps slightly too cool, this afternoon has been beautiful, and we went for a walk around the Scheuninviertel, which is the formerly Jewish neighborhood in which my school is located. I'm posting a picture of small plaques that you see often in the streets in this neighborhood that note the homes of people who were deported, listing their names, and when and where they were deported to and murdered. They are a sobering part of everyday life in the neighborhood, although I think most people who have been here a while probably cease to notice them at all as they go about their pleasant days shopping in the upscale boutiques that are everywhere in this (rather chic) neighborhood today. For example, there are a few plaques in the ground just steps away from the Camper store where I bought my adorable new Camper sandals earlier this summer. So, the mundane and banal mingles with the sobering, and life goes on. We also visited a former Jewish cemetary that was dug up and destroyed by the Nazis today, and yesterday we went inside the Neue Synagogue, which was once the largest synagogue in Berlin, a reform congregation of 3200 people. It has not been as fully restored as I had thought, with the actual hall of the synagogue totally gone and only an empty space to mark it. The foyer and the domes atop the street side half of the synagogue have been partially restored on the inside, and fully restored in view of the street. But the exhibit was a little disappointing, or it just all wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I had read that the synagogue was once again used by the Jewish community of Berlin, and assumed that meant that it was actually an operating congregation. But in fact, all that means is that a Jewish association once again operates the museum and perhaps that Jewish groups use meeting rooms there. There is no actual operating synagogue there now. I guess my disappointment stems in part from my hopeful misperception that I would get a glimpse of a thriving, or at least living, Jewish community in contemporary Berlin. The area is supposedly again home to a good-sized Jewish community, mostly from the former Soviet Union, but at least in the Neue Synagogue, there is little evidence of this.

Tonight Mom and I plan to walk along the Berlin wall 'East Side Gallery,' which I've seen part of before but still have not walked along the whole thing. Then, weather permitting, I'm going to take her to the great beer garden that is near there.


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