Category: Germany

I’m typing this on my train from Düseldorf, Germany, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, thinking this is a good time to reflect on my visit to Germany.

Background: Astrid and I became friends over 31 years ago in a Baby and Me group soon after our older children were born. Given her parents were born in Germany and Astrid’s many aunts, uncles, and cousins still live in Germany, we have planned, for over 30 years, for her to show me Germany. With children, jobs, and life’s many twists and turns, 2022, we decided, was the year! This year, following her family reunion and her family trip to Scotland, she and I would meet in Düsseldorf and explore Germany with two of her cousins, Barbara and Jutta. I left the US on August 8, arrived in Germany on August 9, and enjoyed Düsseldorf for a couple of days on my own so I could recover from jet lag and be fully refreshed when I met Astrid and her cousin Barbara on August 10. Astrid, quite tired from her journeys, rested at Barbara’s house while I walked around Hehn on August 11. On August 12, the three of us drove to their cousin Jutta’s house in Warburg. It soon became apparent that Astrid was not just tired but had corona… After 30 years of planning, we needed to pivot to Plan B. Astrid stayed in Warburg with Jutta’s wonderful husband Hans-Juergen taking care of her; Barbara, Jutta, and I hopped into Barbara’s car and drove to Jutta’s flat in Berlin. Our plan for Astrid to show me Germany evolved into her connecting me with her cousins who shared Berlin with me. Life is a series of Plan B’s…

Berlin: I know, I know…I should have done my research before this trip so I better understood the history and culture of this city. But I didn’t. Instead, I experienced the nuances and complexities of Berlin through my own uninformed eyes. We visited Jewish sites, Berlin Wall sites, modern neighborhoods, monuments, plazas, fountains, restaurants…much that Berlin has to offer. We took public transit and WALKED – all in 90 degree heat! What I imagined when planning this trip was to see modern Germany through the perspective of current citizens. This is EXACTLY what happened! Jutta and Barbara were FABULOUS tour guides, showing me a wide variety of sites and reflecting on their experiences as Germans, women, educators, mothers…

The Holocaust: Never forget. Throughout my ten days in Germany, in both large cities and small towns, the Holocaust is remembered and memorialized. Stumbling stones allow walkers to pause and reflect on the life of the person mentioned on each stone. Signs on lampposts in Berlin highlight laws against the Jews. Formal monuments, memorials, and museums remind visitors of the lives of so many who were murdered. It seems to me that this is a country willing to face its past. It is also a country that, while acknowledging the past, wants – needs – to move forward. Speaking to Barbara and Jutta, they expressed that Germans today do not want to be held personally responsible for the Holocaust. They were not alive and, therefore, did not participate in that catastrophe. When I think about the atrocities of slavery and the treatment of indigenous people in the United States, I can relate. For example, I did not own slaves, so why should I personally be responsible for slavery? This does NOT mean that I cannot – that I should not – do what I can to help mitigate the effects of slavery, racism, and oppression. It does, to me, mean I should remember the past and do what I can to help create a better now and an even better future.

My “aha” moment: Jutta’s husband Hans-Juergen (HJ) fled East Germany when he was 20 years old. Since HJ speaks many languages, one of which is not English, Jutta told us HJ’s story while we shared dinner on our first night in Warburg. She kept using the term “frontier” and I kept thinking “the wall.” My very naive perspective was that Germany was divided into West and East Germany after WWII with Berlin being in the middle. The wall, in my mind, ran straight through Berlin and split the country in two. Wow! Was I wrong! At the Berlin Wall Memorial, it finally dawned on me – especially after seeing maps of sectored Germany and sectored Berlin! The frontier was the border between East and West Germany and ran north to south down the middle of the country. Berlin, a small dot on the map of the entire country, was deep into East Germany. The country was partitioned into four sectors – Soviet, American, British, and French. Berlin – the small dot within the large area of East Germany – was also divided into four sectors. Anyone from the west, even if they were going into their own section of Berlin, had to travel through East Germany. This is why Jutta and Barbara showed me watchtowers from the Auto Bahn on our drive to Berlin even though we were still so far from Berlin! The frontier where HJ crossed was nowhere near Berlin – it was much closer to Hamburg! The wall is not just one wall, but it’s two walls with a zone in the middle. So much became clearer after experiencing the Berlin Wall memorial!

Until next time: There is so much more to see in Germany! Next time, I’d like to see Munich, hike in the Alps, and explore the Rhine on a bike…and NEXT TIME, the pandemic will, hopefully, be behind us, so Astrid and I can share this country together.

Düsseldorf

 

Hehn

 

Warburg

 

Berlin

 

Brüggen

 

 

For my last full day in Germany, Astrid, Barbara, Hermann Josef, and I went to Brüggen, a small town in Mönchengladbach and only a few kilometers from Barbara and Hermann Josef’s home of Hehn.

Here, we walked around, had a delicious lunch, and explored more.

Photos from this last wonderful day are below.

Brüggen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prost!

Our final full day in Berlin…

We began today’s excursion at Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing between the American and Soviet sectors in Berlin.  Given my “aha” moment yesterday, this site made so much more sense to me than it did before this trip.

From Checkpoint Charlie, we meandered down Friedrich Straße and enjoyed cold beverages at a cafe.  Yep, another hot day – and even hotter than the previous days in Berlin!

After relaxing at the cafe, we visited the French Dome, German Dome, and Konzerthall (Concert Hall) on Gendarmenmarkt.  Next stop:  the chocolate shop Rausch with models – made out of chocolate, of course, of Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag, and the Alexander Platz TV Tower.

We then continued down Unter den Linden, a boulevard running from the City Palace to Brandenburg Gatethat is named after the linden (lime) trees that line the grassed pedestrian mall on the median and the two broad carriageways.  In this neighborhood, we saw a statue made by Käthe Kollwitz of a woman cradling her dead son.

One of my favorite activities in Berlin involved climbing the 270 steps up to the dome on top of the Berlin Cathedral and being rewarded with a 360 degree view of the city.

Our final activity in this part of the city took us to Alexander Platz where we saw the famous TV Tower, the Red City Hall (Rotes Rathaus), and the World Clock (Weltzeituhr).

For our late lunch, we dined at one of Jutta’s favorite Vietnamese restaurants in the Bayrischer Platz, Pho 12.

Next we wandered over to Volkspark and drank cold beverages in Laax, a funky garden cafe.

After a rest in the flat, it was time to bike to dinner:  ice cream!!!  We couldn’t leave Berlin without a final trip to Victoria Eis!

Our second full day – in again 90 degree weather – was action-packed and, I admit, exhausting.  There is so much to see and do in this fantastic and mesmerizing city!

We began the day with breakfast in a cafe, located in the Moabit district, with Jutta’s daughter Milena and Milena’s three-week old sweet baby Elior.  Elior kindly slept the whole two hours so the adults could chat – so kind of him!

Next, we went to the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauerstraße.  This is where I had my “aha” moment!  After so many discussions about the wall, West Germany vs. East Germany, West Berlin vs. East Berlin…everything clicked and came together at this Memorial.  It was here that I found a map of the country divided into four sectors – and the city of Berlin, located as a small dot in the northeastern part of East Germany, also divided into four sectors.  It was also here that I saw that the wall was not ONE wall but rather TWO walls with a frontier between them.

Other sights included Prenzlauer Berg, the neighborhood where Jutta’s husband Hans-Juergen lived before fleeing, at age 20, from East Germany into West Germany; Käthe Kollwitz Platz with powerful statues created by this strong woman; Hans-Jeurgen’s old neighborhood Wörtherstraße; and the Old Synagogue (open only on Shabbat and Jewish holidays) on Ryckestraße. 

This was all before lunch!  We had a delicious lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant Umami near an old brick water tower.

Additional locations were a beer plant converted to a cultural center, Kulturbrauerei; the Hotel Orderberger, which used to be a public bath location where Hans-Juergen would bathe weekly since they didn’t have facilities in their apartment; Hackesche Höfe, a complex of buildings and courtyards – now apartments and stores – which used to house a Jewish community; the home of the first female rabbi in the world, Regina Jonas; the new synagogue on Oranienburger Straße where the Center for Judaism (Center Judaicum) now resides; and Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), a former gate into the city.

Tired yet?  I am!

We then moved onto another emotional sight, the Holocaust Memorial (aka, “The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe). This memorial consists of 2,711 concrete rectangular slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field.  I read nothing about the memorial before experiencing it, so I developed my own ideas about the meaning behind the site based on what I saw, felt, and heard.  I sensed I could get lost…I felt visually and physically disoriented…I heard a scared young girl calling for her mother… Relating this to the Holocaust, I could only imagine how lost, disoriented, and scared they felt.  It was a truly powerful experience.

From the memorial, we walked down the street to the Parliament (Reichstag) and onto a viewing area across the Spree River where people could sit to watch a water and light show later in the evening.  We, instead, grabbed a beverage and viewed the white cross memorial dedicated to those who died fleeing from East Germany.  Feeling only slightly refreshed, we took a look at the fountains near Kanzleramt where the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, lives.

Hungry and thirsty?  Yep!

Dinner that night:  pizza!  And beer.  And two Ramazzotis (Italian liquor).  🙂

Milena, Elior, and Jutta

 

Berlin Wall Memorial where my “aha” moment occured!

 

Markers placed all over where people fled – or tried to flee.

 

Where the wall used to be.

 

Showing where an underground tunnel was located.

 

Old Synagogue.

 

Hotel Orderberger, former public bath.

 

One of the decorated walls in a courtyard in the Hackesche Höfe.

 

East German building with bullet holes.

 

Some of the many stumbling stones scattered throughout Germany.

 

The New Synagogue, now the home of the Center Judaicum.

 

Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate).

 

The Holocaust Memorial…at sunset…

 

White Cross Memorial commemorating those that died fleeing East Germany.

 

Reichstag/Parliament.

Our first full day in Berlin began with a 3.5 hour boat tour under the bridges on the Landwehr Canal and Spree River, going through several sluices due to uneven water levels.  Following a delicious lunch at Cana, an Egyptian restaurant on the Spree River,  we explored the Jewish Museum of Berlin. 

To reach the permanent exhibits – powerful alone – one must first travel through the Libeskind building.  “The building zigzags with its titanium-zinc façade and features underground axes, angled walls, and bare concrete ‘voids’ without heat or air-conditioning…Daniel Libeskind designed the floor plan based on two lines: the building’s visible zigzagging line and an invisible straight line. At the points where the two lines intersect are the ‘voids,’ empty spaces that cut through the building from the basement to the roof. The crisscrossing, oblique slashes of windows appear unsystematic and make it impossible to distinguish the individual floors from outside” (https://www.jmberlin.de/en/libeskind-building).

When we left the Jewish Museum of Berlin, a major thunderstorm burst, so we sheltered in a restaurant for dinner.  I had a traditional Bavarian meal – Pfifferlinge and Steinpilze with Serviettenknödel – along with beer and Jägermeister.

Boat Tour

 

Scenes from the boat…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade lemonade at the Egyptian restaurant

 

Enjoying one of the many decorated bears of Berlin – similar to San Luis Obispo’s cows.

 

The Jewish Museum of Berlin:  so powerful, so heart-wrenching, so emotional… It is a place that brings to light not just the life and actions of Jewish life and death in Germany but also the deep unambiguous pain of the Holocaust.  Sharing this experience with Jutta and Barbara makes the museum even more meaningful.  Seeing the Holocaust along with and through the eyes of these modern, kind, and intelligent German women evoked a vast range of emotions within me.  Remembering while moving forward, forgiving without ever forgetting, learning from the past to not allow horrors to ever again occur… So many thoughts, so many emotions…

While walking on these plates, I could hear the screams of children being separated from their parents, of loved ones torn apart, of so many millions murdered.

 

Walls and walls lined with laws persecuting Jews.

 

 

Astrid’s cousins, Barbara and Jutta, and I drove to Jutta’s apartment in Berlin for a ladies adventure in this amazing city.  After dropping off our luggage, we hopped onto bikes for a cycling tour of Jutta’s neighborhood.  On the journey, we saw signs hanging on lampposts stating laws passed against the Jews before and during World War II.  No visit to Jutta’s neighborhood would be complete, though, without ice cream (EIS) in Victoria-Louise Plaza at Victoria Eis.

Found in Jutta’s neighborhood…

 

“Only honorable people of German or related blood can become allotment gardeners.”

 

Beautiful Victoria-Louise Plaza at sunset.

 

Getting the first of several ice creams!

While Astrid rested, her cousins Barbara and Jutta and I rode e-bikes all over Warburg, a town of about 25,000 where Jutta and her husband Hans-Juergen have lived for over 30 years.  Jutta gave us a tour of both the old and new cities.  After lunch, Barbara, Jutta, and I met Ruth, a Warburg local who leads narrated and customized tours of Warburg.  She shared general and Jewish historical stories of this town.  Below, I share my favorite photos from both Jutta’s e-bike and Ruth’s walking tours of this quaint and beautiful town.

First view of the city from the bike trail

 

Warburg was a member of the Hansestadt in 1364.  “In the Middle Ages the Hanse (Hanseatic League) was a powerful alliance of independent trading centres on the Baltic and North Sea coasts. Its aim was to represent and protect the common commercial interests of its members. From the time of the Thirty Years’ War up to the present the Hanseatic tradition has been continued by Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen in particular.”  (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/german-english/hansestadt)

 

Barbara and Jutta with the leather making statue in the Altstadt (Old Town)

 

Me helping the statue – hey, it’s hard work!  🙂

 

Close up of the statue

 

Jutta – our morning tour guide

 

Trabant (aka Trabi) – East German car made out of plastic; Hans-Juergen’s sister, after the wall fell, came with five people in this type of vehicle to visit Hans-Juergen – and they stayed for three weeks!

 

More views of the city…

 

 

 

 

 

In 1944, resistance fighter Josef Wirmer, whose father was the headmaster of the gymnasium in Warburg, attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.  He was unsuccessful, arrested, and hanged.  This monument to his bravery stands on the grounds of his father’s gymnasium.

 

Warburg consists of the Old Town and the New Town, with the New Town only being 30 years younger.  The Town Hall, meeting room shown below, is located between both sections.

 

Coat of Arms for North Rhine-Westphalia:  The white line before green background symbolizes the river Rhine, the white horse signifies Westphalia, and the red rose stands for the Lippe region of the area. 

 

Guard tower which used to be part of the city wall – the little “house” on the side is the toilet!

 

Below Erasmus Chapel is a crypt (shown in this photo) which was part of the palace of an earl that died in 1020.  In the 17th century, pilgrims sought healing in this crypt.  Fifty-two wonder healings supposedly occurred here.  The acoustics allow even someone whispering to be heard.

 

Outside the Jewish Cemetery is a list of all Jews from Warburg who were deported during the Second World War.

 

Some headstones in the Jewish Cemetery are written in German, some in Hebrew, and some in both languages.

 

Our tour guide Ruth and her friend, Irmgard Heuel, are placing stumbling stones all over the city, commemorating every Jew who lived in Warburg and those non-Jews who helped them.  They are also writing the histories of all of the individuals.  [https://www.nw.de/lokal/kreis_hoexter/warburg/23216152_Erinnerung-an-juedische-Mitbuerger-30-neue-Stolpersteine-fuer-Warburg.html and https://images.app.goo.gl/ac41c2w7FZZigLHg7]

 

After a wonderful couple of days wandering around Dusseldorf and getting over jetlag, I met Astrid’s cousin Barbara at Barbara’s mother’s home a short ride away on the tram.  Astrid joined us, and we went to Barbara and her husband Hermann Josef’s home in the suburb of Mönchengladbach about a half hour’s car ride from Dusseldof. Barbara and Hermann Josef are amazing and kind hosts!

Hermann Josef’s family for a few generations has lived in Moenchengladbach, a city of about 261,000 people and home to the football team Borussia Mönchengladbach.

We met Hermann Josef at the town pub for dinner, where he meets weekly with some of the town’s elders to hear and write their stories.

The next morning while Astrid relaxed, I walked to the church, cemetery, stadium, and fields and enjoyed capturing sights with my camera.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Ironwork decorating a local home

 

Inside the church

 

Behind the church are 14 statues of saints – the facial expression on this one impressed me

 

Behind the church in the cemetery

 

Borussia Stadium where I saw some football players enter so they could prepare for their next game

 

Near the stadium

 

The field returning to Barbara and Herman Josef’s home

 

Neighborhood windows

 

 

A quick post of my favorite photos from my exploration of the Aquazoo and Nord Park in Dusseldorf…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following a smooth and uneventful flight, including having the whole row to myself on the long flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, last night I settled into my hotel room in the Altstadt (Old Town) district of Düsseldorf.  Of course, after relieving myself of my backpack and European-sized carry-on, all I usually travel with when exploring Europe, I had to wander the streets to stretch my legs and get my bearings.  Although it took awhile to unwind, I ended up sleeping better than I thought I would.

Today, I woke up slowly and then headed over to Tourist Information.  I’ve learned that, in most cities, those that work for Tourist Information provide useful and customized itineraries – and my TI guide here met my expectations.  After asking what I enjoy seeing and doing, she gave me a walking tour map and another larger map, highlighting sites for me to visit.  Here are a few photos from last night’s and today’s walking adventures.

Along the Rhine, people hang out on the shore under umbrellas sipping their drinks of choice.

 

The water level in the Rhine is VERY LOW (more on that later…).  These barges are only a few of those able to traverse the shallow waters.

 

First stop this morning after speaking to my TI guide, Wochenmarkt op’m Carlsplatz, the oldest marketplace still in operation in Düsseldorf.  Great place to grab a small quiche and macchiato for breakfast.

 

I quickly sauntered from Carlsplatz to Schneider Wibbel, so I could see the tolling of the clock which happens only five times each day.  (Click on the photo for an ten-second video.)

 

Some street art I saw while walking.

 

Cool windows and shutters.

 

There are many Ukrainian flags and colors flying in this city.

 

Upscale shops line Königsallee.  More interesting to me?  In the middle of the street flows a canal surrounded by trees and traversed via several bridges. 

 

This photo is of the Tritonenbrunnen, a fountain depicting the Greek god Triton.

 

Impressive modern architecture in the Corneliusplatz!