More Berlin

Today we spent most of our time outdoors.  After breakfast, we went to Kaiser-Wilhelm Church which was bombed in WWII and not rebuilt.  It is a great reminder of the cost of war.  However, it was not open and we were unable to go inside.

Later we went to the story of Berlin, which is a nice museum dedicated to just Berlin.  We also got the chance to tour a atomic bomb shelter there and see what it could have been like.   After this we went to the Tier Garten which was not too exciting and is full of bugs.  However we did see the presidents palace, and a few other statues.

We then visited the Sony Center and grabbed some food and ice cream.

After eating we viewed the Topography of Terror which was by far the best and most gruesome exhibit on WWII so far.

  It was built on top of the former SS Headquarters.

After this area, we went to the Jewish Museum.  They didn’t solely focus on the Holocaust which was nice and Lindy and I both learned a lot.  The museum was great, but we had a long day and got something to eat.

I also got Anne Frank’s diary today, 10 Euros!!

Lindy’s Comments

Today we woke up to a sunny day!  We ate the buffet breakfast for 3.50 Euro a piece and headed to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachnirkche.  This is a church that was mostly destroyed in WWII except a large portion of its bell tour.  Well it was supposed to be open, but it wasn’t, so we didn’t get to go inside the church to see the memorial.  We then walked to the Story of Berlin, this is a mondernish museum about the history of Berlin and also included a tour of a nuclear bomb shelter.

  The shelter was really neat but the museum only so-so.  Parts weren’t in English and it was hard to follow.  Then we walked through the Tiergarten, lots of trees and little bugs, and saw the victory column in the center and also the Presidents House, which was beautiful!  We then went to Derek’s choice of location, the Bendlerblock.  This was in the recent movie Tom Cruise started in Valcarie, and was where a group of men that tried to assassinate hitler were murdered.  There was a pretty small memorial there.  From there we headed to Potdamor Platz and to the Sony Center where we ate lunch and admired the sites.  After eating, we wandered to the Topography of Terror.  This is an open-air exhibit chronicling the terror of the Gestapo, SS, and SA of the Nazi regime.  The location was chosen because the site used to be the headquarters of the SS.  The exhibit was really good, but had some really intense photos.  After this we walked to the Berlin Jewish Museum.  It was a really awesome building and covered the history of the Jewish people in German from when they arrived to present day.  The exhibits were good and easy to follow.  We ended up leaving at 8 when it closed.