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Saturday 16 May 2015

Moving out of East Berlin

We spend our days wandering around East Berlin on foot.


Two days ago we visited the reconstructed Synagogue on Oranieburger Strause. The street is known for ladies of the night who all wear plastic Barbarella costumes and pay for health care like any other worker.


One memorial lists the names of 56,000 Berlin Jews who were deported during the war. There are 4,600 names in a lighter color who are known to have survived.


The synagogue was badly damaged by bombing during the war.


They built a glass outer enclosure around the shell of the building.


Graffiti on an older abandoned building in East Berlin.


The Brandenburg Gate was in a "no-man's land" until the wall came down.


Berlin has colorful bears everywhere like Tampa has plastic cows. This one is in the window of the U.S. Embassy.


The Jewish Memorial, near the Reichstag, has 2,000 concrete pillars as a memorial to the 7,000,000 Jews murdered in Europe. Around the city, imbedded in sidewalks are 25,000 brass plates with the names of Jews who lived in the buildings where each plate is located. It is said that schoolchildren take on the purchase of these plates and researching the lives and names of the victims.


Potzdamer Platz was also a wasteland near the wall. It has undergone a blitz of high-end development, including the Sony Center shown below.


Another Potsdamer Platz building.


We see this statue in several places. I think it is about totalitarianism. Note the raised right arm and goose step stride.


Relaxing in our new hotel in West Berlin.


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