We started off the morning by going to a boat tour of Berlin
on the Spree River. Although we got
lost and were an hour late, we got some beers on the boat that made up for the
lost time. Afterwards we got lunch in the GDR museum that was right on the
river.
Graffiti on the Berlin Wall
where's this damn boat!
The menu was a little sketchy but the most interesting item
was the sugar pasta. Not necessarily the best diet and tasted exactly as you would
expect. Many of the foods/meals created
during this period were due to the lack of commodities that flowed into the
city and their diets were much worse than the west because of it.
The museum was pretty gimmicky, but the next stop, the German Historical Museum, was great. We
specifically went to see the Color of the Republic, Commissioned Photography on
Life in the GDR. The exhibit on socialist photography was quite interesting,
but the propaganda was interesting with respect to the fact that it did not
necessarily portray the image that the party wanted to create. The workers
looked disillusioned and one of the quotes said, "I’m a worker, who is
more?" Another photo was of the vertagsarbeiter,
or contract workers who stayed in Berlin for 2-5 years from young national
states. The photo was meant to show citizens of Mozambique properly integrating
into the GDR workforce, but the Mozambique workers were not following
directions of the brigadiers and looking different directions of the rest of
the woman showing the disconnect between the people in the workforce and the
culture. (No photos form the actual exhibit)
Security told me to get naked for a better pose
German Historical Museum
After that exhibit we went to the target exhibit, of
military shooting galleries and what they made their targets. It was
interesting to see what different nations perceived as the enemy. Deutscheland
had a black man as one of their target
-which I wonder was an inherent racist sentiment against African
Americans or my perception of being overly aware/sensitive growing up as an
African American in the US.
There were two photos in particular that stuck out to me.
First was of a battlefield with a soldier with his legs blown off and the
second photo was a soldier with the skin from half his face being peeled off.
Throughout the exhibit were many different quotes and one that truly stuck out
to me was one on the second floor by a soldier that said “war is the chess game
of politicians and we are the figure.” There is truth to that statement and to
the regular civilian, it is hard to understand the life of a soldier in
Afghanistan when we only hear about them as a number killed or wounded on the
news.
The first exhibit was very informative, yet was contingent
on reading the explanations. On the other hand, the second exhibit released a
visceral feeling of emotion when moving through the exhibit, appealing more to
our human nature. Maybe that was the flaw of socialism because everything was
staged and didn't appeal to the humanity of the individual.
After the museums we trekked on over to the 1936 Olympic
Stadium. When approaching the grounds there were gigantic square columns with the
Olympic sign hanging in between them. The cement used to make the columns of
the stadium that lied beyond the gates were square and the harsh right angles
gave the entire premises an imposing feel. After some exploring, we squeezed
through a fence and made our way over to the Olympic Torch. Then I went down
the stairs and ran a lap around the track with Juno. Its incredible to think
that I ran a lap on the same ground that Jesse Owens won the 100m sprint and
long jump and took his iconic photo of black solidarity.
#selfie #1936olympics
Laps
Main Stadium
The Bell
I'M ON A BOAT,
JR
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