Scoping Skopje: May 2014

Restaurant near Postdam Platz - a nice place to hang out and very near to the Kulturforum- a conglomeration of several art museums, theater, music hall, etc. But don't expect the average German person on the street to give you directions or know how to get there or admit to speaking English. Don't expect signs to be in English, even in the underground. German TV shows American shows but dubbed with German voices- no wonder they don't know our language!

Modern office building- wonderful modern architecture near Potsdam Platz and lots of bicycle rentals available.

They really like bicycles!

Demonstration near my hotel re: war and refugees- they are opposed to the former. Many police vans followed behind them- as many police as there were protestors- almost like Istanbul but no squads decked out in riot gear marching behind ready to tear gas as on Istaklal

Berlin shopping mall musicians interpreting "Fly me to the Moon"

Explanations about Judaism from the Jewish Museum - very excellent presentation

The Jewish Museum- exterior

Memory void space inside Jewish museum symbolizing the silence and denial of the murders

Daniel Libeskind was the architect of the museum. This "garden" - again slabs of uneven height and paths of uneven slope was just outside the museum. There was also a "holocaust tower" - a space you go into- there are just walls - as high almost as a really, really tall building of metal and almost no light and a small irregular space to stand in and contemplate what happened. No one stayed there very long.

Exhibit on creating a Torah

Paintings from gallery near Jewish Museum

atop the Brandenburg gate

The Reichstag

The tiergarten

meditating for peace in the middle of the velathon bike race- why not?

American embassy

memorial to the murdered Jews

kulturforum

gemaldegalerie- Old Masters Gallery

Old Masters Gallery

The Dutch Old Masters!

the velathon

martin luther

St. Martin Protestant Church

the Rathaus- seat of local government

The Spree River

Berlin Cathedral

Museum Island

museum island

Berlin- The Athens of ...Germany.,, Europe?? I forget but it is the Athens of something due to the columns and museums

Deck chairs for sunbathing along the Spree

gov't buildings

Connecting bridge over the river- also sympbolizes reunification of Berlin

Recreational area along the Spree. About 60% of Berlin was destroyed during the war. It has about 3 million people but is very large in space and very spread out. Lots of green space.

Day care center for gov't workers

They like coffee

Hot water infused with ginger- the new fad re: tea in Berlin

Bicycle paths on the sidewalk. Berlin has about 3 million people but is very spread out. Even taking the underground, you will have to walk, walk, walk to get anywhere. The Kulturforum is in the background.

Sculpture near the theater at Potsdam Platz (at the Kulturforum)

You may often have to take the undeground (U) to the above ground (S) to get anywhere. To change stations, you may have a long walk or have to exit the U and then try to find the S. If you don't touch and hold the green button on the doors, the doors won't open and you will have to wait until the next stop.

The Berlin underground is one of the few places where someone might ask you (in German of course) where is Rosa Luxemburg platz? - sorry, I am only visiting! Entering Germany at customs, the agent asked me if I spoke German- I said nein and he said well, why not? Why not, indeed! Hey- do you speak Chinese?? Then he wanted to know why I was coming to Berlin- I said everyone should see Berlin but I did not tell him why. On the way home my taxi driver asked which airline I was flying and I said Air Serbia. This puzzled him and then he asked if I was from London. I said, no I was from America. Then he wanted to know where else was I going- I was not flying home direct. I said I was going to Macedonia, where I lived but I was American. This satisfied him for about a minute. Then he wanted to know where in the US I was from- was I from California- I guess everyone knows California. I said no, I was from Minnesota. This seemed to really throw him for a loop, so I said really I was originally from New York. This made him very happy. He was playing some Turkish music on his radio and said something that was either this is Turkish music as in Macedonia or Macedonian music is the same as Turkish music. I decided just to agree. I then told him I had lived in Istanbul but he was not from there. I said the only thing I remember how to say in Turkish which is hello. This made him really happy and he began talking to me for quite awhile in German. It was then clear that I had dropped the conversational ball and could not even begin to respond. The rest of the time was him sighing and throwing his hands in the air re: the traffic in Berlin. My hotel, as was the Jewish museum, was in the least affluent part of Berlin- the "Turkish part" with donor kebap stores and women in headscarves. It did seem similar to the Turkish/Albanian part of Skopje.

The famous Brandenburg Tor (tower)- symbol of Berlin and the wall

The memorial to the murdered Jews (that is its name). It is a very large piece of land opposite the American Embassy and near the Brandenburg Tor (well sortof) that is a mixture of slabs of different shapes and sizes and paths of uneven slope. Berlin congratulates itself on not denying its history but is that sufficient? What is it doing now besides erecting these memorials? This memorial I found unsatisfying. it has a funhouse aspect making it less a sacred space of remembrance than an attraction to passersby. Children run around the uneven paths, people take selfies of themselves, people jump on top of the slabs to be photographed. While I was filming the memorial someone with their plastic batons from the bike race who was running around the memorial saw me and began jumping up and down and screaming to be in my "film." On the other hand, it does take up a lot of prime real estate, which is perhaps a sanction - I guess it symbolizes the irratationality and darkness and distortion and despair/unknowingness of what happened and physically it does represent that but how it translates to onlookers is, to me, not successful

Lunch in the courtyard of the Jewish museum- the beets with herring salad was delicious

The Jewish museum inside before going downstairs to the permanent exhibit. I thought the museum did a good job of tracing the history of the Jews and anti-semitism in Germany from the early arrival of the Jews and restrictions on their movements/ professions through the crusades of the Catholic church and the burning of the Jewish settlements through the plague and the burning of the Jews and expulsions through the Nazis. I did not find the museum as satisfactory re: the present day situation as anti-semitism begins to rise again and anti-semitic graffiti covers the walls of Europe.

Memory void spae

Meant to represent the victims. As you walk on the metal pieces, it makes a sort of shrieking, clanking sound and as you look up you see only gray/brown walls reaching up with no sky and just a little bit of light from some slits - I thought this exhibit was quite effective and moving