I just got back from Berlin, and I have to say that it has become one of my favorite places that I have visited. I have been to many cities in the United States that I thought were rich in history, but this city is built with it. Around every corner, there was another building or monument reminding the people of the tremendous past this city has had through the centuries. It was as if I was walking through all those history textbooks I have read over the years. You learn about the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag and the Bundesrat, but getting to see them in person gives a whole new feeling to them. And knowing that these building have survived years of war and destruction just adds to the majesty of them.

There were several stops along the way in Berlin that I found myself taking great experiences from. The first one was seeing a standing section of the Berlin Wall. I think it was said that this section stretches for about a mile, so from where we were standing we could not see the ends. Different artists had been invited to take sections of the wall and use it as a blank canvas for their work. All of the murals were breathtaking. But even with the artistry, the Wall was still a massively opposing force. The Wall's height of 12 feet was extremely oppressive. The height along with the sheer sides made me wonder how people would even begin to climb a section of this barrier. But standing next to the wall, I was overwhelmed with this feeling of being trapped, even though I knew that I could easily walk far enough to an end to get around it. For someone living at the time in East Berlin where there was no freedom, I coudl see how just the hope of a better life would drive someone to take the challenge of crossing over the Wall.

The next impressive monument to me was the Holocaust Memorial of Berlin. At first glance, it seems like a sea of gray concrete blocks, which in actuallity it is a sea of 2,711 gray concrete blocks. But when I was walking through the monument, I understood what the monument was trying to achieve. The area fills you with a feeling of loneliness. Even though we all entered as a group, we quickly lost each other. I easily became disoriented, being turned around several times and not knowing which way to go next. I would turn a corner and run into someone, both people I knew and didn't recognize. After a while, seeing someone else, regardless of who they were, became frightening. And it was so cold in the monument. Although it was not a particularly cold day out, the concrete blocks amplified the chill, and there was nothing to do to escape it. I appreciate the fact that the monument was left to be ambiguous by the designer who clearly gave no explanation to what the blocks were meant to represent or what the viewer is meant to feel while walking through. After walking through the monument and speaking as a group, everyone had their own interpretation of what it all meant, and I believe that is the point when speaking about the Holocaust. It still invokes many different emotions in people based on what their experience with the events were, and there is no way of telling anyone how to feel about their experience or tell them how they perceive things is wrong.

Finally, I found the Jewish Culture Museum of Berlin to be one of the most moving museums I have visited. The tour of the architecture and the emotions they stirred was so powerful, I am still trying to make sense of all of it. Of the three pieces we toured, the Memory Void piece touched me the most. The sculpture is made up of hundreds of steel pieces layered on the floor of the museum in a hallway that runs for 200 or so feet. When I saw the steel pieces, called the "Fallen Leaves", I immediately saw faces (as most visitors do). Then we were encouraged to walk down the hallway that leads to a dark wall. When the first person took a step, the immediate impact of the piece was felt. Each step made a metal clanging noise, and with many people moving all at once, the noise grew louder and louder. Because of the design of the room, it became disorienting with sounds coming from all directions. I was one fo the people who made it all the way to the end of the hallway, but the issue soon became apparent that I would have to turn around and make the trip back to the entrance. In doing so, I tried so hard be careful where I would step. Something about stepping on the smaller faces, which to me immediately brought up images fo children, was just too intense. While I still felt uncomfortable stepping on the faces of adults, I found it to be the lesser of two evils. The second thing I realized is that many of us tried to mute the sound by stepping softly on the different pieces. For me, this only made the situtation worse. Instead of having the collective "cry" of many steel faces, you became focused in on one particular individual, and the tragedy became all too real. Finally, when I made it back to the entrance of the hallway, I realized how much destruction was behind me. It was as though the initial walk down the hallway was symbolizing the genocide, but the return walk symbolized the aftermath for people living in the post-Holocaust era. If I were to clean up that room, I wouldn't know where to begin, and I believe that is how many must have felt after the war. For Germans, it would be an issue of how to come to terms with what occurred and moving on. But for the Jewish community that survived, it would be a matter of sifting through the destruction to find loved ones and make sense of everything that had occurred. Part of my family is Jewish, and my great-grandfather left Europe right before the Third Reich came to power. However, the family has always wondered if anyone in our family was actually affected by the Holocaust. We have no way of knowing, and we would not even know where to begin to find information. That sense of hopelessness was brought up when looking at all the faces. While each one was unique, in a sea of hundreds they all looked the same, and it would have taken hours to locate an individual one. Mutiply this by the millions of people killed, adn the hope of finding information on any particular person could be lost forever.

While my impression of these monuments make it sound like I had a fully depressing time in Berlin, I must say I fully enjoyed every minute of it. We ate at one of the most unique restaurants with a woman whose life seems almost too spectacular to be real. We experienced Berlin nightlife which has an indentity unlike any other in the world. And as a group, we made memories together that I think will last us a very long time. So thank you Berlin for all you had to offer this weekend.