First we take in Amsterdam, then we take Berlin
We got off to a bad start, we and our South African guide in Berlin. Undeterred by unmistakable signals that his views were not in receipt of a sympathetic audience, he held on doggedly to his assertion that Helen Clark had outstayed her welcome as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. Not so our waiter at the Hard Rock Café in Amsterdam who, on learning we were from New Zealand, offered, without prompting, that Invercargill seemed like a nice kind of village. He was, we learned, an enthusiastic fan of The World’s Fastest Indian, somewhat refreshing that he knew of a New Zealand movie other than Lord of the Rings.
But back to Berlin. Just as Philip, our guide in Ieper, was enthusiastic and keen to share with us his knowledge, the South African seemed keen only to expose us to his opinions. After giving his, by then predictably negative, view of the German school curriculum, he questioned whether we were teachers in the sort of accusatory way that suggested we were probably personally responsible for any failings of the New Zealand curriculum whether or not we were teachers.
Checkpoint Charlie, between the East and West of the cold-war Berlin, is a major anti-climax, our guide continues in his deadpan way. He tells us that it is nothing more than the original checkpoint, and that the adjacent checkpoint museum is disorganized and stiflingly overheated. Most definitely to be avoided if you are at all menopausal, he says, looking Marty directly in the eye.
The coup de gras, after a treatise on the need for German trade unions to lessen their stranglehold on the German economy, was the inevitable question of what we did for a living. Kaelene’s response, delivered with more than a glint of menace, that we are trade unionists, was not an answer but a challenge. Undaunted, our man offered his view on the value of the internationalization of labour unions, but was rather surprised, or perhaps disbelieving, that university staff would want to be involved in unions.
Notwithstanding, it was a fascinating excursion: the sight of Hitler’s bunker, the ruins of the Gestapo, SS headquarters and Reich security main office, Goebbel’s propaganda ministry, Checkpoint Charlie, remains of the Berlin wall, museums, churches, embassies, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, and the Jewish Holocaust memorial. All from the comfort of a warm van with the outside air temperature reaching, at best, minus 6 degrees, from on overnight low of minus 18.
Two days earlier we left Dusseldorf under heavy snow, a blanket which spread across most of Germany and Holland providing quite a stunning winter wonderland and weather cold enough to force us into extra layers of clothes and Kaelene to purchase a Russian fur hat. In a way it was quite fun to wander the streets of Berlin in the snow and ice.
Of course, in Amsterdam it took me all of my time to prize Kaelene away from the streets where scantily-clad young women appear to work as window mannequins, a variety of shows offer live displays of interesting human contortions, and a five-story museum of erotica provides the anthropological context. We also learned that 14 coffee shops have had to stop selling marijuana because of their proximity to schools - the result of anti-smoking regulations rather than a problem with the drugs. Aside from that, Amsterdam was just as it should be. Bicycles, canals and just a great place to get around, but no doubt better in summer.
Next stop, Luxembourg.
Yes, they mention the war
On the serious side, both Amsterdam and Berlin have excellent memorials and records of the Second World War, provided in a way which pull no punches and are particularly poignant. Ann Frank’s house in Amsterdam is fascinating, with displays containing short excerpts from her diaries and audio-visual interviews with her father and other people involved in the hiding of her and her family from the Nazis. The house, a hiding place at the back of the Frank’s business, is preserved as it was, right down to the original markings on the wall recording the height of the children as they grew.
In Berlin, the ruins of the Gestapo headquarters and the Holocaust memorial give a good historical context and provide a blunt record of what actually occurred. The systematic way in which the persecution of the Jews and others gained momentum, the gassing of thousands with car exhaust, and with the deaths at Auschwitz described generally as murder, rather than the victims dying, or being killed or executed. The barbarism of Himmler in particular is described and that Goebbels gave all seven of his children Christian names starting with H out of respect for Hitler. A good parent, he eventually poisoned all seven to death before he and his wife topped themselves.
We got off to a bad start, we and our South African guide in Berlin. Undeterred by unmistakable signals that his views were not in receipt of a sympathetic audience, he held on doggedly to his assertion that Helen Clark had outstayed her welcome as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. Not so our waiter at the Hard Rock Café in Amsterdam who, on learning we were from New Zealand, offered, without prompting, that Invercargill seemed like a nice kind of village. He was, we learned, an enthusiastic fan of The World’s Fastest Indian, somewhat refreshing that he knew of a New Zealand movie other than Lord of the Rings.
But back to Berlin. Just as Philip, our guide in Ieper, was enthusiastic and keen to share with us his knowledge, the South African seemed keen only to expose us to his opinions. After giving his, by then predictably negative, view of the German school curriculum, he questioned whether we were teachers in the sort of accusatory way that suggested we were probably personally responsible for any failings of the New Zealand curriculum whether or not we were teachers.
Checkpoint Charlie, between the East and West of the cold-war Berlin, is a major anti-climax, our guide continues in his deadpan way. He tells us that it is nothing more than the original checkpoint, and that the adjacent checkpoint museum is disorganized and stiflingly overheated. Most definitely to be avoided if you are at all menopausal, he says, looking Marty directly in the eye.
The coup de gras, after a treatise on the need for German trade unions to lessen their stranglehold on the German economy, was the inevitable question of what we did for a living. Kaelene’s response, delivered with more than a glint of menace, that we are trade unionists, was not an answer but a challenge. Undaunted, our man offered his view on the value of the internationalization of labour unions, but was rather surprised, or perhaps disbelieving, that university staff would want to be involved in unions.
Notwithstanding, it was a fascinating excursion: the sight of Hitler’s bunker, the ruins of the Gestapo, SS headquarters and Reich security main office, Goebbel’s propaganda ministry, Checkpoint Charlie, remains of the Berlin wall, museums, churches, embassies, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, and the Jewish Holocaust memorial. All from the comfort of a warm van with the outside air temperature reaching, at best, minus 6 degrees, from on overnight low of minus 18.
Two days earlier we left Dusseldorf under heavy snow, a blanket which spread across most of Germany and Holland providing quite a stunning winter wonderland and weather cold enough to force us into extra layers of clothes and Kaelene to purchase a Russian fur hat. In a way it was quite fun to wander the streets of Berlin in the snow and ice.
Of course, in Amsterdam it took me all of my time to prize Kaelene away from the streets where scantily-clad young women appear to work as window mannequins, a variety of shows offer live displays of interesting human contortions, and a five-story museum of erotica provides the anthropological context. We also learned that 14 coffee shops have had to stop selling marijuana because of their proximity to schools - the result of anti-smoking regulations rather than a problem with the drugs. Aside from that, Amsterdam was just as it should be. Bicycles, canals and just a great place to get around, but no doubt better in summer.
Next stop, Luxembourg.
Yes, they mention the war
On the serious side, both Amsterdam and Berlin have excellent memorials and records of the Second World War, provided in a way which pull no punches and are particularly poignant. Ann Frank’s house in Amsterdam is fascinating, with displays containing short excerpts from her diaries and audio-visual interviews with her father and other people involved in the hiding of her and her family from the Nazis. The house, a hiding place at the back of the Frank’s business, is preserved as it was, right down to the original markings on the wall recording the height of the children as they grew.
In Berlin, the ruins of the Gestapo headquarters and the Holocaust memorial give a good historical context and provide a blunt record of what actually occurred. The systematic way in which the persecution of the Jews and others gained momentum, the gassing of thousands with car exhaust, and with the deaths at Auschwitz described generally as murder, rather than the victims dying, or being killed or executed. The barbarism of Himmler in particular is described and that Goebbels gave all seven of his children Christian names starting with H out of respect for Hitler. A good parent, he eventually poisoned all seven to death before he and his wife topped themselves.
1 comment:
Bring the guide home. I can keep him as a pet... Sounds much less obnoxious than the dog the kids want and I wouldnt have to pick up pooh. Tp ;-)
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