Written by 10:44 am 2012 • 2 Comments

Berlin II

We had a later start than anticipated so we bypassed Museum Island and went to a couple of WWII sites. The first one was the Soviet war memorial. The Soviets lost 20 million plus people in the war which is a staggering amount of people.

Below is the famed T-34 tank which was a major contributor to the Soviet victory.

We visited the Holocaust Memorial which was very good. It had a surprising amount of walking space. My understanding of the lay out is that as you enter the memorial the space goes down and represents the descent into the chaos and destruction of the Holocaust and as you walk through it you begin to ascend out of the chaos.

Here are the last remnants of the Berlin Wall.

My favorite site in Berlin was the Topography of Terror museum which was outdoors and traced the rise of Nazism and the SS as well as the downfall and the rise of the East German secret police. An outstanding site.

We’re off to Prague, about a 4.5 hour train trip which should be fun. My father’s parents emigrated from the Czech Republic in 1912 (then part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire) and it will be my first trip to the country.

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