Berlin Berlin

There is much to be said about this beautiful, artistic, organised and reflective city.

As we are running out of time, I`ll post part of an email I sent my Nanna Win earlier this evening.

...this city has been carefully reconstructed after the War, and every free space seems to have been utilised for art or a positive message.


For example, today we walked past the Parliament (a magnificent building) and they have constructed a glass wall down one side with the 12 árticles´(I believe equivalent to a bill of rights) engraved into it.

Andy translated, the first begins with ´the worth of no person may be diminished...´.

Of course, they have some huge legacies to get over. Today we went to an open air museum, constructed in the ruins of the old Secret Police headquarters. It gave very specific information on the organised regime of murder that Hitler, Himmler and the other top men organised.

It is amazing to think they had the whole German population fooled into thinking they were doing the right thing. Without being dramatic, from my perspective, it seemed clear these men were all very sick, at the very least, psychopaths. The regime of terror and cold blooded murder they ran is absolutely horrific, and it is stunning to think they got away with it for so long, and on such a huge scale.

In cotrast, yesterday we went to the largest Jewish museum in the world. Firstly, the building is beautiful, a modern design based on acute angles, ánd even the floor isnt flat. It is big and grand, and impeccably laid out and presented.

The exhibition presented Jews as a very proud and talented people, and also a people who have been repeatedly persecuted, right back to the middle ages!

However, I got a sense they are not a race easily beaten, and manage to move with the times to make solid communties in many different situations and areas of the world.

We also visited a museum relating to the Wall, and the many attempts (some sucessful, some not) to get through, under, over or around it. ...