gegen Nazis in der Mitte

As the U-Bahn was striking, my feet had to take me towards Alexander Platz and I stumbled across this:

reminiscent of the pre-war signage throughout Germany.. but instead of Kauf nicht bei Juden (don't buy from Jews), this time it's Kauft nicht bei Nazis (don't buy from Nazis)

(no Nazis in our street - in Berlin - in Germany)

(We're against Nazis in the 'mitte' - area of Berlin)
and then found this telling me finally what it was all about - so a clothing store opened with brands that neo nazis like wearing and the whole people of Berlin are against it. Whole cinemas have stopped advertising their movies and instead have 'No Nazis in our street' plastered across their banners. Again this belongs to Berlin's fighting nature. The present and the past are so inextricably integrated.

three strikes...

Walking Jakob home from Kumon the other day, we were forced to wait for 20 minutes before we could get to our U-Bahn station - reason? The police and fire services were striking. (A little ironic that the striking policemen had to be ordered around by.. well, policeman, who were working at crowd control). Thursday night I had to go underground to get to the shops I needed to for carnival costumes because of, you guessed it, a strike in Alexander Platz. Yesterday's strike ,however, beat them all as, without any warning (at least the DB let's you know in advance when they are about to cut all train connections), the BVG, Berlin's public transport system, entirely shut down. No busses, no trams, no U-Bahn. The city couldn't function and my feet are now very sore! I guess it is this fighting spirit that tore down walls and reunified countries, but sometimes I wish they would just go to mediation and talk it out..

As four year old Paulina put it: "Die wollen mehr Geld für wenige Stunden? Donnerwetter sind die Faul!"
("They want more money and less hours work? Man are they lazy!")

getting political

"Where in the world has one ever seen a nation that erects memorials to immortalize its own shame?" said Avi Primor, the former Israeli ambassador to Germany, at an event commemorating the Holocaust and the liberation of Auschwitz on Friday in Erfurt. "Only the Germans had the bravery and the humility."

And as you look around Berlin and see entire city blocks devoted to striking, thought and discussion provoking pieces, memorials to a past designed by its future, you can only admire the honesty in their recognition of all that has gone before. Is admiration enough, though, to wash away truth and replace it with feel-good-warmth? Can tonnes of concrete and stone, arranged artistically by talented artists truly depict forgiveness and not just glorify, beautify, make more interesting, something so utterly horrific? Do these monuments just become some form of a symbolic Mecca: once reached, forgiveness is granted for all sins gone before.

I watch Jakob as we take the tram from the Berlin Wall museum (school) back to our apartment block, as his eyes follow the TV tower, as we ride through the death strip, as we see the stones dedicated to escapees from the East who were shot, and I wonder whether any of this will strike him at all, or will he just see them for their aesthetic beauty and nor place any weight on their symbolic meaning?