UKC

Our younger lad is in Berlin for the week-end, seeing the sights. He sent us a text earlier today saying that he'd been to a museum where the Gestapo was featured. By all accounts a lot of what is there is quite disturbing and I think he found a lot of it quite moving and upsetting. Apparently there is part of the Berlin Wall nearby.

He was also upset by the antics of a group of school children, all of whom were yelling and shrieking and seemed to regard the Wall as some sort of climbing frame. They seemed to have a total disregard for the significance of either the museum or the Wall - not a thought for the fact that so many had been shot for so much as approaching it.

I asked him what nationality they were. Embarrassingly they were British.

In reply to mypyrex:

There's nothing uniquely British about that sort of behaviour. When I visited the memorial to the murdered jews of Europe in Berlin there were all ages and nationalities running around yelling, jumping between slabs or using them as picnic tables or to change nappies.

Treat the whole experience as a lesson in the stupidity and thoughtlessness of the human race.

In reply to mypyrex:

I go to Berlin a fair bit and it’s not exclusive to British.

In reply to Ridge:



I work in Berlin a lot and pass that in the taxi to the office and its full of selfie-takers clambering on the blocks. However one side of me thinks the whole point of it being an open public space, and not something roped off in a museum means that its going to become part of life with people having picnics etc. However different people react in different ways. I don't think I've ever been as emotionally affected by a museum than when I went round a holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Lots of poignant things about Berlin are fairly mundane until you notice them. Lots of parts of the wall are not obvious until you notice a long straight piece of parkland etc. We did a bike tour of the old wall and it was quite eye opening.

A few things that stuck with me was the house still pockmarked with bullet holes as the conscript germans desparately tried to hold off the advancing Red Army.

Small metal plaques dotted around with the details of deported Jews.

The famous buildings like the Reichstag and the opera house look really dirty from pollution but its actually ingrained soot from the raging fires from Allied bombing. It's impossible to remove because its permeated right into the stone.

In reply to yorkshireman:

I do find the Stolpersteine quite moving when you come across them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein

In reply to Removed User:



Thanks for the link, I'd forgotten the name (my German is atrocious).

In reply to yorkshireman:

Quite interesting is that the childrens adventure playgrounds are a direct result of using the altered landscape from Allied bomb runs, you can see the track of the fire at times.

In reply to Ridge:


When I visited the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France a year or so ago, there was a group of teenagers climbing up the figures between the pylons.

They were French.

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/french-flanders-artois/memorial-canadian-national...

In reply to mypyrex:


Quite often school kids get taken to museums when they have no interest in the topic and didn't ask to go. In which case it's hard to blame the kids for wanting to play instead. I can certainly remember plenty of school activities that I had no interest in.

Maybe visits to museums should be opt-in voluntary for the kids.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

On the other hand lies the risk that none would "opt-in" and hence would not have the opportunity to learn something which might prove valuable to them in later life.

In reply to Ridge:

I'm sure you're right

In reply to mypyrex:

It was dark day when Berlin wall was taken down and the dark forces of capital were victorious through the 5th columnist Gorbachev.

In reply to mypyrex:

Because Berlin is now a major draw for young people, of all backgrounds, you get to see the full cross section. I've worked there a bit and socialised & done the sightseeing stuff too. I'm generally struck by the respectfulness shown in the main to the memorials to a grim past.

In reply to mypyrex:
I agree. Even though those kids might have reached the limit of somber depression that a kid can take in a day, I bet they learned something overall. Even if it was a tiny thought about the dangers of Nationalism, it was well worth it for one less UKIP voter.

In reply to mypyrex:

I still remember (and therefore learned) stuff from school trips I went on as a youth - even if I was acting like a complete toerag at the time.