Sunday, July 20, 2014

The Cold War

Today we spent the day discussing the cold war. It seems to me, that Berlin is soaked in the past of the wall and of this war. Almost similarly to how Munich was still covered in WWII. I can't help but think about how this cold war things has almost made the holocaust less prevalent in the city itself. Munich was trying to leave it's fame for the perpetrators behind, but Berlin seems to be taking pride in the reunification after the cold war almost everywhere you look. WWII seems like an afterthought in almost a completely different way. We went to this small exhibit with artifacts of the time and it really allowed me to piece together the time before the wall came down for both East and West Berlin.

Perhaps my favorite part of the day was hearing Greta (our amazing tour guide) talk about her experience when the wall came down. She stood over a monument which documented the hours before and told us what was going on politically and what she was doing. When she heard the wall was coming down, she thought it must be some other wall in another city. It was cute to see it from a child's perspective; not knowing that these are unusual circumstances, thinking there must be so many walls in so many cities.

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