Monday Night

Sunday we traveling around Berlin! We went to Platform 17 which is a train station in the middle of a very wealthy neighborhood in Berlin, from where the Nazis deported the Jews from Berlin. (I am still unable to upload the pictures to the blog, but will do that upon return with captions) The station is still a working station and from the outside it is designed like a welcoming German cottage. Overrun with ivy and shaded by tall majestic trees. But as you look to the right you will find railroad ties that mark the beginning of the memorial. What makes this memorial unique is that the impetus for the memorial started with the people in the neighborhood petitioning the German government for the establishment of the memorial. As we traveled throughout the city, most of the memorials that we had seen we not started by the government, but by grass-root neighborhood organizations who wanted the remember the local victims. The German government for decades after the war were unwilling to confront what happened in the holocaust, it has been the German people how have demanded of their government that the recognition take place.

We continued on to the Wannsee house where 15 high ranking Nazi officals met. I always thought that the meetings outcome was the plan for the "final solution" I learned that was not the complete story. The final solution by this time was taking place in the ghettos, transports and camps. Another intent by Heydrich was to insure that these 15 leaders of various Nazi governmental departments were all on the same page and organized to work for the success of the final solution. As we pulled up to this mansion that overlooks,a beautiful lake your mind begs the question:How in the mist of such beauty that engulfs your senses,men who were so desensitized to their fellow human beings could plan the intentional distruction of a whole group. These contrasts are a constant assault to the mind in this trip.

The Jewish Museum was our next stop. It explores the history of the German Jews. The Nazis destroyed it but in the 1980's efforts were made to reestablish it again.
There is one exhibit that will forever change your life. The museum is designed with empty spaces in mind. You can interpurate that however you wish. In this one oddly shaped empty space a Jewish artist created out of iron thousands of discs that were about 3 inches thick and were various sizes. in these discs the artist created faces.
The goal of the exhibit was for you to walk on the discs and experience in the sound a feeling of walking on these discs. Being surrounded by concrete the sound of walking on iron discs filled the space. I walked up to the opening to step on the discs and couldn't. I look down at the variety of faces and it was if an invisible force held me back. All I could do was to bend down and touch the discs gently and tenderly. You could not helped but to be moved to the core. Others on the trip could walk on the discs, others who started out walking on them stopped and as quickly as possible stepped off the exhibit. Words are so inadequate for this.

So much more I could share.

Monday we left for Poland....on a bus for 9 hours arrived at Lodz to go through the Lodz ghetto, another RR memorial and the largest Jewish cemetary in Poland. More to come on all of that.