Tag: Berlin

Column Eye

Within the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany.

Lovely details in the lamp and columns.  But the best part was Goddess’ description of the gaggle of high school aged kids who were all staring at me, trying to figure out what was so interesting.

Guess they’ll never know.

Cubism

Defined.

Sometimes it’s just about shapes.

Tones.

Lines.

OK, a lot of lines.

Goes back to a comment made about me several years ago – “Bill is a line whore”.

And I can’t deny that assertion.

Historical

Time to step away from the Berlin Holocaust Memorial for a bit.

But we’ll go back.

One of the diamonds in Berlin’s museum crown is the Pergamon Museum.

Go ahead.  Read about it.  But come back, ok?

Certainly a place to contemplate.

Like this gentleman.

Deep in thought.

But if you knew how crowded this museum was, especially on this raw, blustery winter day, you’d know that I had but just a brief moment to capture this.

And I couldn’t resist.

Etz Chaim

Holocaust Memorial aka Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, Germany.

Etz Chaim is the Jewish interpretation of the Tree of Life.  Very appropriate in this location.

Not quite the composition that I wanted, but there was a wire wastebasket immediately below this frame.  And the basket was firmly bolted to the ground.  So I had to work with what I had.

But at least I had that opportunity.

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For a continuation of this post, based on comments below, please read this.

Raphael, Auschwitz Deportiert

Germany is full of memorials of the Holocaust.

Some subtle, some not so subtle.

We were standing over these before we noticed them.  Three brass memorials in place of cobblestones on the sidewalk.  At an entrance to a courtyard where apparently the Raphael’s lived.

All deported to Auschwitz.

After we found their memorials, we found several more while walking through Kreuzberg.  A very multi-cultural, lively quarter of Berlin, chock full of clubs, bars and phenomenal food.

Definitely gives pause.

And if you’re interested in the Raphael genealogy, take a look here.

Mauer Path

Cobblestones marking the location of the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany

Berliner Mauer

The Berliner Mauer is the German name for the Berlin Wall.

Quite a lot of history and quite a lot of emotion associated with that name.

Goddess and I made our first (of what will likely be several) trips to Berlin last weekend.  We had a long weekend, so we took advantage of the Intercity Express (ICE) trains, which are high speed, but thanks to connections and stops, still take about the same amount of time to get there.

But I’m fairly certain that the law frowns on me enjoying a beer while driving.  So we let the conductor do the driving.  But not really for that reason, although it is a nice reason.  We chose the train because when Goddess and I see a city, we see a city.

Mainly on foot.

Down back alleys.

Off the beaten path.

For 12-15 hours each day.

And that gets exhausting.  So throw a 5-6 hour drive on top of that and it’s almost too much.  So the train saves the day.

I’ve already started posting images from our trip and there will be plenty more to come.  In the three full days of canvassing the city, I shot “only” about 300 images, which is not much compared to previous trips.  By comparison, a three day trip to Kyoto, Japan was worth about 1,200 images.

Of course, not all are keepers.  But in both cases, I still came out with quite a few.

Mostly black and white.

Because that’s how I saw the city.

And if not black and white, the colors were very muted.  It must have been the cold, cloudy German winter days that helped generate that mood.  But I’m certain that the history had something to do with that too.

Here’s a four-shot image of the view out our very modern hotel room.  The stitching is sloppy, mainly thanks to the very wide 10mm lens.  But I’m sure I can get the point across.

If you look closely, you’ll see a brown line.  It’s actually a line of cobblestones, two wide.  And the line traces the route of the Berlin Wall.

Coming from the west, right down the middle of the street, before turning south into a field.

Berliner Mauer

So as I hung out the window and looked, I couldn’t help but think about what it was like 22+ years ago.

Our hotel was on what would have been on the East Berlin side, the apartment complex directly across would have been in the West Berlin sector.

So I was explaining to Goddess the image that I remember seeing as a kid, one where the father was holding up his very young baby in a window across the wall so that Grandmother, looking through a window and visible only as a silhouette, could see her grandchild.  It was likely the closest they ever got.

I sure wish I could find that image.  It’s not in Life Magazine’s archive.

But this one is in their archive and it captures the mood that I felt when leaning out the window into the cold winter air, watching the small snowflakes get whipped around in the wind.

Could you imagine living like that?

Be grateful for what you have.