Come to the Cabaret: Berlin

I opened the door to the hostel room where fun goes to die and was greeted with a cheery "heya".  And with that, my last two days in Berlin were brilliant.

Angela was a fantastic partner in crime.  We developed a habit of ordering beers much too large for us to conceivably finish during meals and that incredibly easy conversation that sometimes comes with travel.  You know, when you feel as if you've known each other for years and dispense quickly with the small talk.  After a dubious baked potato surprise meal at a highly graffitied cafe, we returned to our dorm to find it alive.  The two meek German girls had found their voices, or more accurately, their giggles.  The energetic Montrealer had returned and was working the room into a frenzy of laughter, as befits his day job as the warm-up for Cirque de Soleil.  The new guy, another Canadian, was adamant we all go out.  So we did: Hello Kreuzberg.



Inside the Jewish Museum
You walk across the metal
circles which are actually
screaming faces.



Despite the late night and random taxi rides all over town, we awoke early enough to accomplish some late morning touring.  Okay, very late morning.  In fact, technically afternoon.  I started at the Jewish Museum and didn't even scratch the surface in my two hours there.  The entire space is designed with awkward angles and uneven floors to keep you off balance.  The memorial gardens and rooms are simple and stark, leaving you to construct your own meaning.  It was intense and sobering.



Memorial Garden inside the
Jewish Museum



Angela and I met at the Brandenburg Gate to firm up our plans for the night: a performance of Cabaret in a tent in the park in front of the Reichstag.  After sorting out tickets, we decided to visit the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe and its underground museum.

Berlin is an incredible place for its honesty.  It acknowledges all parts of its history in meaningful and thoughtful ways without diminishing its less than savoury role at times.  Hitler's bunker where he spent the final weeks of his life is kitty-corner to the memorial.  All that remains is a small sign - and a parking lot where the neighbours bring their dogs out to, ahem, relieve themselves.  Fitting, that.  It was critical to Berliners that there be no opportunity to memorialize the man or allow for others to do so.



Book Burning Memorial at Bebelplatz
The empty shelves symbolize the books
that no longer exist.




War Memorial
This sculpture of a woman and
her dying child stands alone in a
large stone room.



But the underground museum is powerful because it puts human faces on the Holocaust.  The first room gives the history through a series of placards.  It was embarassing to realize how much I didn't know, or that Jews were transported from as far away as Greece and Macedonia.  Entering into the dark of the second room, the only light comes from a series of backlit glass tiles, each inscribed with words of victims and survivors.  Some bring laughter, but more strike silence.  The third space consists of four interior walls emblazoned with family histories from every corner of Europe.  The photos are haunting, the obituaries painful to read.  Room four reverts back to darkness with benches placed in the centre.  Here, the names of all known victims and their brief stories are spoken aloud.  It takes more than eight days to go through the list.  The last room is made up of tall screens and wall-mounted phones.  I sat at one and listened to accounts from eight different camps.  The scope of the horror is overwhelming - and personal.  Angela and I sat for awhile in bleak silence on the stone blocks of the memorial outside in the bright sunlight.  It's easy to embrace the vibrancy of the new Berlin, but you can't recognize the fragile power and hope it contains without touching its past.



Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe



Cabaret was a spectacular way to end my Berlin sojourn.  The tent was designed as a decadent supper club complete with complimentary bubbly.  The voices were superb, the acting solid, and it mattered not one iota that we didn't speak German.  We almost danced home.