Berlin, Germany Days 1 & 2

After another chaotic night before our trip and maybe two hours of sleep, we woke up at 4:30 am for another long day of traveling, which consisted of two flights and bus rides. The total hours of travel accumulated to approximately 17 hours, but who can be sure? Regardless, we were all pooped out of our minds. The 7 hours of sleep we had in our first night in Berlin felt absolutely useless, but the incredible breakfast (which we get to have until Wednesday!) helped wake us up.

Our first day out in Berlin was a cold one. We spent the morning on a walking tour, which included seeing the sight of the first synagogue in Berlin and a 350-year-old Jewish cemetery. The cemetery was desecrated in 1945 as the land was used as a battleground and the tombstones were used to reinforce the German soldier’s trenches. Though miraculously the only headstone still standing is Moses Mendelsohn’s, a prominent figure in reformed Judaism.

The most significant part of the walk was seeing our first stumbling stones. Stumbling stones are small gold plates near places that Jews lived all over Berlin. They have the person’s name, date they were deported and the place to which they were deported.

FUN FACT: You can find stumbling stones all over Germany except for Munich because the Jewish Community there didn’t want people walking over the names.

After our tour we went to the Wannsee Villa, where Hitler met with other Nazi officials to discuss “the Final Solution.”

Then we went to Track 17, a train station near Berlin that has been converted into a memorial.

Throughout the Holocaust-filled day I was constantly thinking of the March of the Living. I couldn’t help but think that my experience in Poland is unparalleled, so it was difficult to connect to these places like I did almost a year ago. However the Wannsee Villa was different. It was a different place with a different atmosphere. We were able to see the other side of the Holocaust, which was the Nazi regime.

Usually Fridays are shorter, which means they can be slightly more relaxing, but this Friday was an exception. We walked out from the hotel into the snowy bitter cold at 7:15 in the morning to meet with a Rabbi Joseph Spinner, the head of one of the Jewish schools in Berlin. To be totally honest, I was fighting like hell to stay awake, and I won that war, but unfortunately I didn’t process much of the conversation.

We then went to the Holocaust Memorial in the heart of Berlin. I accidentally deleted my notes from today, but I do recall some of them. First of all, this memorial is one of a kind. I saw pictures of it before and I searched for the artist’s intent and thought process while doing it, but I couldn’t find anything. When I asked the tour guide she gave me the most reliable answer I could find, even if it still left me with questions. She told me it was meant to be left open for interpretation.

To me, while I walked through the field of cement slabs, I felt very alone. You didn’t know when people were coming out of the corners and even though you’re right next to a busy street, the noise sounds very distant. I think the artist did a great job of evoking some of the feelings associated with the Holocaust. And for those of you who are considering visiting Berlin, the Holocaust memorial is a must see.

Before Shabbat we took a quick visit to the German Historical Museum, which was a surprising disappointment. I was excited to learn about German history beyond the Holocaust, but we just got a tour of the section from the Weimar Republic (after WWI) to the end of WWII. We hurried back to the hotel to prepare for a relatively busy Shabbat in Germany.