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23, 24, 25 August 2019
Now that Brianna was home and her parents were settling into a new life, we took the opportunity to do some sightseeing in and around Berlin.
This wasn’t our first visit, so we had covered the more popular sights, and we were on the lookout for sights that weren’t in the top 10.
We found the Museum of Communication Berlin on Leipziger Strasse which is the oldest postal museum, established in 1872. It was rebuilt after World War II. We concentrated on the wonderful postcard collection – some naughty, some funny and some terrifying.
After a hard day walking and sightseeing, we returned to our favourite authentic German restaurant Metzer Eck on Metzer Strasse. Their menu is limited, mostly schnitzel with coleslaw and potato salad or Bratkartoffeln – pan-fried potatoes, bacon, onions, and seasonings which has become our firm favourite.
Cemeteries are fascinating in Berlin, perhaps in all of Germany. Massive monuments remember the dead, but they are peaceful places, often with playgrounds, community gardens and even bee hives.
The next day we ventured beyond the market and cafes of Hackescher Markt and found the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum. No photos inside but we were shown around and told stories of the Jewish Berliners who were able to escape and others who were arrested, deported and murdered.
The building was built in 1866 and was saved from destruction in November 1938 by the intervention of courageous police officers. It was later used by the National Socialists for their own purposes.
As a stark reminder of the holocaust, as you journey around Berlin you come across the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones). These are 10cm by 10cm stones laid in the pavement in front of houses where Jewish Berliners had lived, as a reminder of their fate. The project was devised by the artist Gunter Demnig in 1996 and by 2019 70,000 stones had been laid around and beyond Germany.
