No Roughhousing at the Holocaust Memorial

Klaus Zynski Invades Europe, Part 3

Berlin is our liveliest City of the Dead. I’m at a corner table in an Antifa bar where the beer is cheap and the conversation is loud. The air in this place is thick enough with cigarette smoke that I suspect I will not want or need a zyn by the time I leave. It’s called Oberbaumeck and I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve been here five minutes, I stick out like a sore thumb, and I dig the hell out of it.

Touring began in earnest today. Hopped a crowded bus towards the city center at around 9:30. I still haven’t been asked to pay for anything related to public transit¹. Long may it continue.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has four or five rules. One is no loud noises, one is no jumping from one concrete slab to another. I saw both broken, albeit by children. That sort of rule is difficult to enforce in the first place, doubly so with kids. German teens aren’t that different from their American counterparts. They’re also too cool for the big class trip to the capital. Saw a girl give another girl a piggyback ride.

There’s a Starbucks² across the square from the Brandenburg Gate. Bismarck is spinning his his grave. Lots of prominent former Berliners spin in their graves at the modern state of the city. The rotations of authoritarian colonialists and actual Nazis could probably run the city’s power grid. It is a City of the Dead, inhabited by party people. Say what you will about the Bohemian Babes of Babylon Berlin but they’ve taken the right lessons from their history. When your town has been about to EXPLODE for roughly a century it makes fast living less of a risky proposition.

Am I monster if I kind of understand why those SS cats made their last stand inside the Reichstag? Like obviously it’s a government building and all but it’s also a highly cinematic place to die. Fascists are essentially death-obsessives in the first place. Mishima understood this. The idea is to die dramatically in service of your ideals, however shit they may be. It’s a beautiful building and I’d rather a flag I like fly over it instead of a flag I hate.

Politics become fairly simple when reduced to sex, death, and aesthetics.

Highlight of the day may have been the Communications Museum. It wasn't even in the itinerary, is the funny thing. Lessons there. The Germans are superlative at filling a room with stuff to gawk at. Throw in some old Asterisk comics and the original Enigma machine and you have a very compelling exhibit. Vintage cellphones and postage stamps can be very compelling if properly curated. We also enjoyed our first conversation with a local, about the Commodore 64, of all things.

Readers of this missive who plan to visit Berlin may be advised to skip the Trabi museum³ and maybe only make a brief stop at Checkpoint Charlie if you’re also dealing with full schedules. Not bad per se but both sort of grow tourist traps like mold. Lots of gift shops full of cheap crap. Better stuff to be seen. Buy tickets to the Bundestag dome in advance. Give yourself time to get lost in train stations. Learn from my mistakes.

Had an early dinner at a restaurant under the train tracks which shook to and fro as trains passed. Was like a Marx Brothers bit, very charming. Schnitzel kinda goes. Had several large beers, rode a crowded train back, took a late nap.

1. Feel compelled to say we did actually buy passes for transit everywhere we went. But I was never asked to show my pass anywhere. Fines are steep for fare evasion, particularly in Austria. Roll the dice as you see fit.

2. I’ll go get the picture for proof if people want it. Just ask.

3. Liz does not agree with me on this. She liked it a lot. It is, frankly, like three rooms with some cars. Was not helped by its proximity to the far more comprehensive and professional Communications Museum. Call this a Hold rather than a Sell. If you’re a DDR-head you’re going regardless of what I say.