48 Hours In Berlin

No other city seamlessly straddles a strained past with an all-accepting present in the way Berlin does.

- Vaishali Dinakaran

OF TERRIFYING TRIBUTES

That Berlin has a rather bloody past cannot be denied. But instead of shying away from it, Berlin pays a fitting tribute to it all, without condoning or glorifying the past, instead using it as a reminder of just how wrong things can sometimes go. A visit to Berlin is incomplete without a trip to the Eastside Gallery, the largest chunk of the Berlin Wall that still stands. The murals painted along the wall all speak of freedom, the need for peace, and the consequences of war. They are powerful and moving all at once. For those of you so inclined, a visit to the BlackBox Cold War exhibition at Checkpoint Charlie will allow you to gain great insight into exactly how the Stasi - the terrifying East German secret police - managed to keep a close watch on the state’s hapless citizens. It’s a very detailed (and more than just a little unpleasant) look into life in the GDR, but worth a visit for history buffs. People who don’t quite like the idea of such horrors, can pick the slightly flippant and amusing alternative - taking photographs with actors dressed as soldiers who are stationed at what used to be the most popular crossing point between East and West Germany.

There’s more. The Topography of Terror, close to Checkpoint Charlie, is a museum that details the tremendous atrocities carried out by the Gestapo during the Holocaust. It’s located where the Secret State Police Office and the Reich Security Main Office once stood, which makes it just that much more terrifying. There’s also the Holocaust Memorial or the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is a grim reminder, via a series of grey stone blocks that represent graves, of just how many people were murdered by Hitler.