Berlin Day 2

The first thing we did today was make a quick stop in this park where the Berlin mission home used to be.  We learned about how this area was bombed, and Brother Minert shared a couple stories of how members' lives were spared miraculously.  It was a beautiful, sunny, but CHILLY morning.

Next, we headed up to the "Victory Tower".  We got to climb 261 spiral stairs to the tip top and look over the city.  Each level has cannons...French cannons, British cannons, ummmm other cannons. I don't remember them all.  It was moved to the middle of this square for the Olympics, and another level of cannons was added to make it taller.

Next stop: an apartment in town...this apartment housed a bunch of Latter Day Saints over here in East Berlin (the bad side).  The Russians were being very bad and targeting young women for a couple weeks.  This house with missionaries and members put an American flag out front so the Russians wouldn't mess with it, because they were on good terms with the Americans.  One day some women were on the porch, and some Russian soldiers saw them and realized they had been lying.  They stormed in the door and up the stairs and tried to find the women, but they were hiding under a ton of blankets and pillows on a big bed.  Roger got us into this apartment and we climbed up the stairs imagining the scary soldiers running up them.  This building is exactly as it was back then.

Last church history site: this memorial was put up for those executed by the Nazis.  One of those was a member of the church.  I honestly was sleeping on the bus during the story so that's all I've got for you.  I think his name was Helmut Hubner.................. but this memorial was built in honor of those killed on some certain cite... sorry parents.

LUNCH was next!!  OKAY today is a huge national holiday!!!  We celebrated the reunification of Germany, the fall of the Berlin wall in 1990!  So...there were people EVERYWHERE in the main city square.  So many shops, and Poizei, and a stage and band.  We wandered around to get lunch.  I wasn't too hungry, so I got my first CRÊPE!  Mmmm, with cinnamon and sugar.  Next time I'm gonna try one with applesauce...!  It was amazing.

we love these bubble guys. so pretty!

We got to go to the Holocaust Memorial.  This was definitely a highlight.  It is a piece of art!  Rather than having a statue that nobody notices, or a plaque...an entire block is dedicated to the lives of those lost in the Holocaust.  These cement blocks cover the whole area.  The ground is uneven, and so the blocks get taller, like maybe up to 15 feet or so.  We had a while to just wander through them and think hard about things.  It was really impressive.

Next we visited: the place where Hitler died.  He had a bunker underground, under where this parking lot now is.  There is no memorial, just a parking lot.  There was a plaque with a map of his bunker, but that was added only recently.  So he lived in this bunker 100% of the time for the last months before he killed himself.  He knew the war was going to end.  He was really sick, and aging.  He married Eva Braun on April 30, 1945, and that same day they both killed themselves.  She took cyanide, and he shot himself in the mouth.  His guards took his body above ground, where the Russian soldiers were only maybe a football field away, and they covered his body his gasoline and lit it on fire.  Shortly after, a bomb was dropped right on that area...and all his bones and remains were scattered, so a body was never found.  This led the US to think that he wasn't really dead, and they went searching for him in other countries, and never found him, and searched Berlin again, and finally they put efforts into finding evidence of his death, which they did find!  They found his jawbone which was identified for sure by his dentist.  So crazy.

in this photo, under our feet is where the room was (probably) where Hitler killed himself

interesting

Last stop in the city for today: another memorial.  This one for Stauffenberg.  He was a Nazi soldier (Tom Cruise in the movie Valkyrie) who tried to kill Hitler.  He bombed him in a meeting but it didn't work because he thought the meeting was going to be held in a cement room...but they had the meeting in a wooden house, so the power of the explosion was released out the walls and windows, and Hitler was barely hurt.  This memorial is to honor Stauffenberg's courage.

It was really really cold all day, mainly because of the wind.  We were happy to be able to go back to the hotel for our 2 hour break where we got warm in our beds, and took some quick naps.  We went down the street for dinner--Lexi and I grabbed some noodles from a cute noodle place.  for 4.50 we got to pick our noodle (penne) and our sauce (pesto) and one topping (fresh parmesan).  SO YUMMY.  (iPhone pics)

We left to meet an older couple in the ward here, and they led us on a casual tour around the city at night!  They showed us this secret thing that they said most tourists don't realize because they always look in the streets for big things.  So way back when, property taxes were based off of how close to the street the front of your house was, so the apartments right on the street were super expensive, but then you can walk through these alleyways, and there are secret little squares in the middle of almost every block!!  People had their houses in here.  Today they are cute cafes or shops, or art galleries.  We went at night because there were cute lights hung up in the trees and across the tops of the alleys!  I didn't bring my camera because I was cold and wanted to enjoy it more.  I'll steal some of Monika's pictures later.  It was really really awesome though.  We stopped and got some over priced ice cream and hot chocolate...I got coconut hot chocolate...it was so thick and creamy that she gave me a spoon with it haha it was like a syrup. SO GOOD.  The ice cream was like a flower....hard to explain.  I just have some iPhone pictures from the night time walk.

The Iron Curtain

2 October 2013 Wednesday

Today was special.

We were able to go to the temple in Freiberg first thing in the morning.  We did baptisms for the dead for Brother Minert's German relatives.  It was an awesome morning to say the least.  And this temple is teeeeeny tiny.  Like same size as a stake center.

There is a tunnel going from the basement of the temple over to the hostel, so we didn't even have to go outside!

We stopped at the grocery store again to get anything we would want for lunch, and I got another piece of bienenstich, natürlich.

The first museum we hit this morning was about three hours away into BERLIN.  It is the museum of the history of the Jews.  The layout is insane in that place...it was designed by this crazy architect who is a kind of artist I feel like.  The building structure had a lot of meaning and installations and interactive art/history things.  I loved it.  There were areas that were open to the sky called "voids"....kinda hard to explain.  Here's a crummy picture to do so for me.

So this was one of the "voids" for example:

It was cold and quiet and echoed.  It was completely empty.  It symbolized the hole left by all those that were killed in the Holocaust.  We got to just stand in there and be silent and think really hard about what happened there.

This void had a "garden" in it.  There were pillars, and at the top were planted Russian olive trees!  You could just walk through them on the stones.  Another interesting feeling linked to a history museum...

the staircase inside....the architecture was nuts

crummy photo of a quote about religion I really loved

Next stop was the BERLIN WALL.  There are chunks around the city that are still standing, which is awesome.  It took all day to learn and understand the history of the wall and what really happened.  So the Allied forces (mainly the US, Russia, Britain, and one other...) were all fighting not necessarily "together", but in the same cause against Hitler and the slaughter of innocent people.  Once the war ended, Russia kinda went back to their own area, but started adopting some communistic ideas...I don't know if that makes sense or if it is even quite correct but the Soviet Union (Russia) started claiming land west and west-er...Poland..into Germany, and then they wanted Berlin.  East and West Berlin were already pretty different I guess, and so they split the city in half with the wall.  It was smaller than I thought it was..........but I learned that it was guarded like CRAZY!  They had the wall, then a ditch, then another fence, then guards, and watch towers, and lighting at night, and there was no way to escape.  It is crazy to think that they thought they could have this much power to force people to stay in an unhappy area.  It is still pretty confusing to me.

Below the wall, by another secondary wall, there was a museum-like setup just out in the open for free talking about the history with tons of pictures and other visuals (all from 1933).  We read a bunch, but also talked to Jordan a lot about the history.  He is a WWII major or something.  It all makes perfect sense in his head and he is good at explaining.

here are Jordan's eyes.  They're beautiful

Mara & Jordan

something about the eyes in this sun! 

After exploring and learning and discussing politics for a bit, we found dinner...

or should I say DÖNER...

Finally, we went to the museum "Check-Point Charly".  This is at the site of one of the checkpoints at the wall.  The museum was full of information about how people escaped from East to West Berlin!  They hid in cars, they built tunnels, they boated, they flew in a hot air balloon!!!  Many made it across the border, but many were killed, too.  I never knew how intense the wall security was!  Or how unhappy the people were in East Berlin.

on the Berlin Wall...we were walking so fast and my camera was being weird but it said "SAVE OUR PLANET"

We checked into a nice hotel!  Fancier than where we have been staying.  And the wifi (it's called WLAN here) is wonderful.  More of Berlin tomorrow!