Berlin / Germany
“Forget not the tyranny of this wall…Nor the love of freedom that made it fall…”
(Graffiti on the Berlin Wall)
Jewish Berlin - Past and Present
Highlighted City: Berlin
A city filled with connections to the past and a respect for the history it holds. Throughout this metropolitan giant there is always the question of enough time. Walking tours reveal a city that continues to grow while forever remembering its central role in World War Two. In the city center the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church has been preserved forever displaying the aftermath of the British bombardment. Just beside the Brandenburg Gate you can see the Gypsy Holocaust Memorial in the Tiergarten at the foot steps of the Reichstag building. A trip to Berlin would not be complete without visiting the remains of the Berlin Wall and Check Point Charlie. Museum Island sits in the center of the Spree that flows through this city. A modern hot spot of fashion and art there is something for everyone in Berlin.
Day 1
Introductory city tour
Day 2
Orientation and welcome at Tiergarten Park, one of Germany’s largest urban gardens.
Jewish Museum of Berlin - History of Jewish life in Berlin.
Checkpoint Charlie - The famous crossing point between East and West Berlin during Communist rule.
Find out why it’s called ‘Charlie’.
Grosse Hambuerger Strasse - Historic hub of Jewish Berlin.
Centrum Judaicum- Neue Synagogue
Bebel Square - Site of the Book Burning Memorial commemorating one of the first steps in the Nazi plan. They destroyed thousands of books by Jews or containing ‘Jewish ideas’. Heinrich Heine, the German Jewish poet, famously wrote, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
Topography of Terror - Site of the former SS Headquarters.
Day 3
Gleis 17 (Track 17) - The main Jewish deportation center, in the Grunewald neighborhood. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
The Holocaust Memorial - Opened 60 years after the end of the War, Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial
- one of the world’s largest and most powerful -consists of 2,711 concrete slabs. Underground it houses the names of victims.
Day 4
East Side Gallery - An international freedom memorial. The gallery consists of 105 paintings by artists from all over the world, painted in 1990 on the east side of the Berlin Wall.
Brandenburg Gate - Berlin's best known landmark, now a symbol of the city's reunification.
The Reichstag - Home of the German Parliament.
*On a tour like this, there will obviously be time for winding down and processing.
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