History wise, Berlin is easily the most interesting place I have come across. So many huge events have occurred here over the last century. Our bike guard said he was having a coffee with a 90 year old woman who has lived here her whole life and has never left. Gees she has been through some interesting times.
Holocaust Memorial
The holocaust memorial fascinated me. It looks unreal from so many angles. I took heaps of pictures. Rach just said behind the Star Wars exhibition this memorial is the most I’ve taken pictures of. It has just over 2,700 stone blocks making up the memorial. It has been quite controversial for a few reasons. It only commemorates Jews. Hitler killed many other people including disabled, homosexuals and generally any one that didn’t follow his thinking. Also the company contracted to apply the anti graffiti coating to the rocks was the same company Hitler used to manufacture the gas he used in his gas chambers. There was a massive public uproar and as a sign of trying to mend the past, the company supplied the coating all free of charge. For pictures of the memorial click here.
Berlin Wall
We were over the top of where Hitler’s bunker hid metres below, where he committed suicide. At first, surprisingly there was not a single marking or note of the massively historical site that laid beneath us. But the more I’ve been here the more I hear about how the Germans are really trying to distance themselves from what happen, as well as they don’t like talking about their dark history. Apparently Hitler was not even liked by the majority of Germans when he was in power. It’s a shame that you can’t go underground to see it but I respect why there is nothing mentioned any where about the site.
Victory Tower
There is this really funny huge tower named the Victory tower. It symbolises some Victory over the French. It really is a big “Ha Ha We Won!” to the French. It is metal is made entirely of melted down guns captured from the French. It has canons around it that were all captured from the French. It has gold plated bits that yes again, were captured from the French. It also has a statue of someone pointing in the direction of France too 🙂 Apparently the French don’t like it. I can’t see why? 😉
At any Jewish religious site there are policemen 24 hours a day. Not because there is a high chance of being vandalised but more that on the very unlikely chance that vandalism were to occur. It’s there to prevent any bad publicity as you can imagine the media would make a frenzy of it world wide.
I highly recommend seeing the DVD titled “Downfall”. I saw it just before we left. It was a new release from VideoEzy. It’s in German with English subtitles. It’s about the last week or so of Hitler’s life. After hearing from the guide, the movie is very factually correct. I thought the movie was very interesting. Hitler was really insane. Towards the end he never listened to any of his top Generals that they were to crumple. One woman was so passionate about Hitler that she could not think of a world without Hitler in power. So in Hitler’s bunker she killed five of her six children and then herself. Even after top raking Generals urged her that there was still time to escape before the Russians arrived. She just though life without Hitler was not worth living. One word that comes to mind is “fanaticism”.
