Today we started off by looking for evidence of a culture of memory in the Hackescher Market section of Berlin. Here we found several Stolpersteine (stumbling stones), spotted some centers for potential exploration in the days to come (namely, an Anne Frank Center and the Otto Weidt Center), and briefly visited a Jewish Cemetery Memorial that was desecrated by the Nazi’s but restored for the purpose of visitation in 2008, albeit without the missing headstones. (The 18th century philosopher Moses Mendelssohn is buried there.)

We then met my friend and historian Christian Marx at the Trains to Life, Trains to Death Memorial at Friedrichstraβe Station. He took us to his neighborhood, the Steglitz area of Berlin where we got to see more evidence of the decentralized culture of memory – namely the Spiegelwand (Mirrored Wall) memorial, more Stolpersteine, a recently changed street sign (to remove it from honoring a very influential 19th century antisemite), and an unmarked memorial tree acknowledging the return of a student, after 65 years, to the elementary school she was forced to leave when her family fled the country in the early 1930’s.

The Spiegelwand was striking and interesting. Prior to today, I had not heard of it. The mirror aspect was designed to force people to look at themselves when they come to inspect the memorial. It would also require anyone set on defacing the marker to see themselves in the act of vandalism. My interest in self-deception fits well with the design of this memorial.

We ended the day by being invited into Christian’s home where we met his wife (Ulli) daughter (Rikki) and were treated to coffee and cake. We ended up spending over three hours there! Lots of laughter and cultural comparisons took place. See pics from the day below.

Tomorrow we go with Christian to Brandenburg-on-the-River Havel to learn from the euthanasia memorial and education center that is located there. It will be our first venture out of Berlin.