Riot police in full gear were everywhere in Berlin on Saturday with many streets blocked off.  There were several simultaneous mass demonstrations occurring causing our sightseeing to be stymied.  We sat at lunch watching hundreds and hundreds of people marching together.  Many were young and the large service workers union was widely represented.  A young Turkish store clerk said that this was a pro-Nazi demonstration.  Apparently, the protesters were expressing their attitudes against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open door” migrant policy.  Clearly, every police officer in Berlin was on duty today.  As the walk and subsequent demonstration was winding down near the Brandenburg gate at 6 pm, we saw the police regrouping and heading into the subway stations en masse.  At times, because of the blocked streets and heavily changing environment as the demonstrators regrouped, moved about, etc., we were wondering if we were going to be caught up in a real mess.

We did manage to make our way to the very crowded and popular DDR Museum.  This “interactive” museum offers an in-depth insight into the realities of daily life in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).  There is actually a GDR apartment within the museum and many original artifacts ranging from cameras, typewriters, kitchen goods, etc.   The motto of the museum is “history to touch & feel” whereby the exhibits require you to open doors, press buttons and pull levers.  While the museum got excellent reviews, we felt it was geared more towards a younger crowd.

In her research of Berlin museums,  Lesley came across a small little-known museum called Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind.  In 1936, Otto Weidt, the owner of a small broom and brush factory, employed mainly blind and deaf Jews.  This hard-to-find museum depicts many life stories (some had good outcomes but most of the stories ended tragically) of Otto’s efforts to protect his Jewish workers from persecution and deportation.  He bribed SS officers and found places for his people to hide – one of these hiding places was in a secret room behind an armoire within his 2nd floor factory.  Otto was truly a heartwarming hero.

Berlin has been interesting.  We stayed and visited mostly in what was East Berlin.  You can differentiate East from West Berlin by the differences in the walk signals; and, the tram system is only in East Berlin.  The section of West Berlin that we ventured into was not as “new” as the East.  This is a result of significant development required in East Berlin after unification.  As previously mentioned, Berlin is a lot about the the war and the Holocaust.  The Germans have not tried to mask over these horrific events but have been extremely forthcoming in their depiction of the atrocities of this time.  We are leaving for Poland (Warsaw & Krakow) on Sunday.  Some of our visits in Poland will also be to other horrific memorials but we are looking forward to visiting these new cities.