Museums

DAY 59. SEPTEMBER 29. LANDSHUT

Checkpoint Sign

Museums

Berlin is a great city but damn it rains a lot. Or maybe it just rains when we are in town. Whatever the reason, today was another day of rain. So what better to do in the rain then visit a couple of museums.

First up was the Jewish Museum housing information and displays documenting the history of the Jews in Germany. Housed in a striking building that appeals to design and architecture buffs. According to the Lonely Planet, the museum itself is a "stunning work of art..a metaphor for the torturous history of the Jewish people. Zinc clad walls rise skyward in a sharply angled zigzag ground plan that's an abstract interpretation of a star. Instead of windows, irregular gashes pierce the buildings gleaming skin. Its one of the most daring architectures in New Berlin." I just thought it looked cool.

Inside is more information than someone can take in a day, but we spent a few hours trying to see as much as we could. There are some interesting aspects to the museum. There is the Holocaust Tower, which is a massive room, a few stories high that has no light. From within the room you can hear the noise on the street outside. It is supposed to give a sense of what the Jews felt in the concentration camps, being kept in the dark and hearing the outside world. There is also a garden with 48 pillars in it, each containing a tree. The concrete around the pillars is uneven and hard to walk around, sort of like walking on a rocky ship. It is designed to make you feel sick.

There were also huge voids in the museum, which stretched for fifty metres, which were supposed to represent loss. I think it was an interesting way of presenting things. There were also lots of displays and interactive sections to keep people entertained. I was glad to see many school groups touring the museum; it is great to see the German youth take an interest in their sordid past.

Next up was the Mauermuseum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie which you may have already translated to Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Situated right next to Checkpoint Charlie this museum was started in 1963, just two years after the checkpoint and Berlin Wall were created. It has been going ever since, and due to this it is interesting to see how some displays are presented. Many of them were exhibited during the East/West division and so people's names and faces that were associated with escapes are often blacked out so they do not get into trouble. In fact the museum, being in such a strategic position was often used to help people escape to the West. Through a small window escapees were looked out for and helped and warned if they were going to be caught.

Much of the museum is dedicated to the ambitious escapes that desperate East Germans undertook to get into West Berlin. There are some very poignant photos of familles being separated, people being shot and left to die and euphoric people surviving the escape. Some of the more audacious and successful attempts included being smuggled out in car engines, suitcases, speakers, surfboards or making submarines, hot air balloons, light planes and chair lifts. All of them are on display along with the stories associated. There were stories of eighty year old men digging kilometre long tunnels under the wall, of people driving through the wall or of people designing fake Russian military costumes and just walking over.

One sad tale was of 18 year old Peter Fechter who whilst attempting to cross was shot at by an East German guard, he fell down into no mans land where for fifty minutes he laid in agony before bleeding to death. All the while, the public watched and urged the guards to help him but they wouldn't. This is all captured in photographs and he became a martyr to the cause. In all over 5000 people successfully made it over the wall whilst 995 died in the attempt. Some of the attempts have been made into films. It really was a fascinating museum. What made it all the more interesting was that I could clearly remember the fall of the wall and the subsequent celebrations so it is very recent history. I find it more compelling than seeing a painting from 2000 years ago as it seems much more real.

Having had enough of the rain and museums, it was time to leave Berlin. We were making our way to Landshut, 45 kilometres north east of Munich. Originally we had no intentions of visiting Landshut and in fact had never even heard of the place until just before we left for this trip my mother told me she was born there and her parents were married there. So we thought we would check it out and see if there were any statues of these events or streets named after her. Maybe a plaza.