By mommie2zs — Aug 7, 2018

Berlin Sunday

We had great plans for Sunday. The heat had broken finally and there was a lovely breeze blowing through the city. We headed out to enjoy our last full day in beautiful Berlin.

Buds took some lovely shots at the Jewish Cemetary near our apartment.

Then we were off to Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, and the Victims of Tyranny and War memorial.

Checkpoint Charlie:

The Berlin Wall and the secret Torture Chamber foundations that were excavated by students in the late 20th century because they didn’t feel the West German government was doing enough to memorialize the evil past that happened around this city:

Buds and Mom took a fair amount of time to read through the exhibit to learn and understand. Buds is amazed at the speed with which the Nazis were able to gain command and power.

We were able to step off public transportation at Humboldt University so we could show the children where the burning of 20,000 books took place in the plaza here.

This haunting memorial below ground shows rows and rows of empty book shelves.

May 10, 1933 here in Orpenplatz in Berlin.

There’s also a quote that touched all of us:

In 1823, Heinrich Heine wrote the words, “Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen,” or “Where books are burned, in the end, people will also be burned.”

At one point Buster put his arm around me and said, “Mom, I know #45 is bad, but Hitler…”

And the silence stood between us.

We made sure to show them St. Hedwig’s church:

Then on to my favorite memorial so far:

After viewing this, Buster turned to look for me, came to pat me in that way our children do when they know my heart is tender and he said, “This was so much more than I expected.”

I love his tender heart and soul.

We stopped for doner kebap & doner buckets with chicken and fries for everyone’s lunch.

Since the weather was so beautiful and this was our last full day in Berlin, Mom, Yessa, Buds, and I headed out for museum island after we revived with lunch.

We took the tram for fun and I tried to emulate a billboard we saw:

The museum where we hoped to visit the replica of a Roman market was sold out for the day, but walking around on the beautiful grounds was worth the trip.