Chapter 3: Day 3

This morning I went to Checkpoint Charlie. It is a very ugly and badly put together museum but holds loads of information on the Berlin Wall. The highlight of the museum is all the escape stories and the radical ways that people crossed the border from east to west. After reading all these heroic stories of survival and courage I was really touched. People were doing so much to get the freedom they deserved.

After that, I went to the Jewish museum. Don't go there. It's expensive and and analytical. To the point where I was really disgusted. It was a poor excuse to say sorry to the Jewish population who was persacuted here. The building had cool architecture and some beautiful symbolism to it. But that's where it ended. It's high time that Germany fess up and say they are sorry. The museum told the cute little history of Jewish people. My arse. Basically analyzing them like they were a species or something. The smallest part of the whole exhibiton was the part on the Second World War. I didn't see a single photo of a tyrant named Hitler or a single swastika. Ok, cool, if you don't want to be offensive. But they hardly even wrote anything down about that troubled period either. Completely turning a blind eye to the situation and diluting the truth. First of all Hitler was Austrian and second of all the Nazis are hated practicaly world wide. Museums are allowed to show the truth in print and phtoography. Thats what they are there for: To help us document history in accuracy and get the facts straight.

After that I went to the Bauhaus Design School expo. Pretty darn interesting. It was one of the most influential art schools of the 20th century to the point where even IKEA got pointers from them. The likes of Klandinsky and Klee tought there. Although the art was pretty cutting edge for their time, it was all too similar. The work was new for the 1920's but within the school it was basically one body of work made by different wannabe artists. And that is where they missed their mark. A lot of art and architecture that we see today is thanks to Bauhuas.

To end my day I went to the East Side Gallery in east Berlin. This is where 1.5 km of the Berlin Wall still stands and have been transformed into paintings depicting peace. Even when the Wall was all still standing artists were flying into Berlin to paint in protest against the wall and its seperation. There is one painting by a Quebec artist but it really sucks. Im glad that some of the Wall still stands because it is a reminder of how greed over people and eventually world power makes some go mad and crazy. And thus, creating inhuman and disturbing oppression. There is nothing more evil then greed and power.

Well goodbye, after the bank I'm off to Lunebourg ( half an hour south of Hamburg) to see the cousins.