My weekend in Berlin, Germany was very eye opening. With so many memorials and historical sites, it was kind of overwhelming to be in the country where the Holocaust originated. Most of the memorials that have been created to commemorate the Jews who died in the Holocaust were more abstract and metaphorical than just a statue with some sort of tangible meeting. For instance, there is an exhibit at the Jewish Museum called The Garden of Exile. This “garden” is made up of 49 concrete pillars that stand on slightly sloped square plot. When you walk through the garden, you actually start to feel dizzy and light headed, as the goal of the exhibit is to make you feel a sense of instability. The way one feels when they walk through the garden is supposed to represent a similar experience to the Jews who were driven out of Germany: lost and without orientation. Many of the other memorials we visited, such as the Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Memorial to the Burning Book, used a similar emotional tactic in order to try and help visitors understand the pain and suffering that was experienced by the Jews. Photos of some of these exhibits can be found below:
Along with these sites, we also visited the beautiful murals on the Berlin wall and tried some German curryworst (can’t say I was the biggest fan of the curryworst, but the fries that came along with it were lovely). Later that night, we enjoyed an authentic, German dinner at a beer hall called Hofbraeuhaus. The restaurant is meant to be a similar version to a celebration held in Munich called Oktoberfest, with staff dressed in lederhosen, people standing on tables, and gigantic pitchers of beer. The atmosphere of the restaurant was through the roof, and since I was not abroad first semester, it was fun to get a small taste of what the Oktoberfest celebrations were like. The culture in Germany was very different, to say the least, but the sites I visited were certainly an experience I will never forget.
Nikki Fried In Different Cities 