DAY 10: (Dec30) Sun Jewish Museum
We woke up around 8:30ish and there was sun in the sky, again! We got an early start, rushing and managed to beat the other couple in the apartment to the shower. The other couple staying at the apartment, Klaus and the chick from Latvia were in the kitchen when we were done showering.

I quickly ate a couple of pieces of bread and yogurt and talked with the other couple whilst Jason showered, shaved and primped and did whatever else it takes him to do an an hour each morning.

The couple was nice, although Klaus, from Bochum, in Western Germany, didn't know much about Berlin and came across as kind of arrogant. For example, he didn't see Berlin as having a City Centre. I mentioned the area from the Brandenburg Gate to Alexanderplatz.

"That's on the East Side and that doesn't matter," Klaus said. I asked myself if he had been in a bunker for the past 20 years and didn't know that wall had come down.

Klaud also didn't feel that Berlin had diversity in architecture. No old and new like, in Paris. I wondered if he had ever seen the ultra-modern Potsdamerplatz.

JEWISH MUSEUM

We packed up quickly and grabbed the U-Bahn to Hackesches Tor and walked the 10 minute walk to the Jewish Museum. Outside, it looked pretty cool.

There was no wait when we arrived inside, but a line quickly formed behind us.

The architecture was fantastic, dramatic, emotional, chose your word:





I liked the exhibits. They were well chosen, interesting and interactive. Oh, and in perfect English, as well as in German.

Some say the museum is too "Americanized" or "too politically correct," I would say it differently, that the material was presented in a way as to not be polarizing. All in all, the tone was good, with a consistent "story" as you walked through:

we have culture
we tried to assimilate
we have had no home of our own
we were persecuted throughout history
we were nearly wiped off the European continent by the Nazi machine



The later point was an important one and was poignantly present, as it should have been. Honestly, having been to the museum in Auschwitz (Poland,) I'm extremely aware that there is no shortage of horrific, grafic material. The museum chose the material and amount of material wisely. (Later on, Jason questioned whether there might have been some type of third party who helped keep the museum from being too one-sided, too sensational, etc.)

Still, I would not be surprised if some Germans hone in one the one aspect of the exhibit, even though from a space perspective, it was pretty modest.

There were subtle items on display. In particular, one postcard really affected me. In German, it was an anonymous tip from a concerned German, who told how previous residents from the building were hiding upstairs. Paraphrasing, the person thought the one Jewish woman was "fresh" and "snooty" and that they need to make her "disappear." - it was signed "Heil Hitler." This made my stomach turn thinking how people could be so blatantly hateful and cold-hearted to another person.



Another part of the museum really got me thinking. It was a room with a series of pictures and stories in little boxes in the air. Each was a story of a Jewish child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, in post-Nazi Germany. It must have been an incredibly uncomfortable period of healing and facing the truth.

The holocaust was chilly and without words said a lot:



By the time we left, there was a line of easily a couple of hundred people in line outside the museum. Good we got there early.

Commonsensical Travel tip: When you are interested in a popular touristy museum, get up early and do it first thing, go straightaway.



We traveled to Schönhauserallee, in hopes of finding a certain gay owned Italian restaurant (good to support the ol' community. Said restaurant was closed, but there was a gay-owned Thai restaurant across the street, "Golden Budda." The atmosphere was basic, but nice and the food was without spice, but not a wash.
- posted by Matt @ 6:21 AM