Poor, but Sexy

You'll have to wait for an explanation of the title, but I'll give you a hint: it doesn't refer to me.

I spent five days in Berlin, from May 16th to May 20th, which is nowhere near enough. If you want to understand the events of the 20th century, then you have go to Berlin because that's where it all went down. I doubt any other world capital has had to rebuild itself so many times. This is the city where the First World War was lost and the Second was born. During the Great Depression one trillion Reichmarks was worth one US dollar and couldn't buy a loaf of bread. In desperate times people turned to extreme politicians promising extreme measures. Goebbels burned thousands of books and organized the "spontaneous" anti-Semitic riots of Kristalnacht. In the Reichstag, people passed the laws that institutionalized anti-Semitism and murdered my relatives. Hitler killed himself in this city, buried in a shallow grave by terrified junior officers trying to get out ahead of the Red Army. They could feel the ground shake as millions of Soviet soldiers marched into Berlin amid the ruins of the Third Reich. After WW2 colonialism began its slow death, in part because the war nearly bankrupted the Great Powers of the 20th century. East and West stared each other down at Check Point Charlie for forty years, the Berlin Wall and its "Death Strip" became the definitive symbol of the Cold War's divisiveness, cruelty, and paranoia of "the other." And it was East Berliners who stormed checkpoints and tore down the Berlin Wall, ushering in a new era of unification and peace for Europe (except the Balkans), but also an era where wars between countries gave way to savage wars and genocides within countries from Kosovo to Rwanda. So if you get Berlin, then you get the twentieth century.

I visited a concentration camp. It was an emotionally exhausting day, but I got a lot out of it. I count myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit a concentration camp and the trans-Atlantic slave forts in one year. The Holocaust hit European Jews like a tsunami - fast, violent, and devastating. The slave trade was more like erosion. It took smaller amounts of people at a time, but over 400 years it shredded the soieties of West Africa. Both showed me what happens when one group of people thinks that another is sub-human.

But I greatly admire Berliners' ability to remember. They don't try to gloss over the terrible things that happened in their city, nor do they sweep them under the rug. I have never been to a city with so many memorials. And Berliners are very careful about which memories they emphasize and which ones they keep in the background. The Holocaust memorial takes up a full city block and never fails to spark the interest of passers-by. Not coincidentally, it is a stone's throw from Hitler's bunker, which is covered by a parking lot and only marked by the smallest of signs. The German government has decided against allowing people to enter and excavate it, fearing that it might turn into a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis. There's a used clothing collection box on the corner where Hitler's body was found, and no kind of plaque or recognition. This juxtaposition shows very clearly whose memory Germany intends to honour.

I went out a lot in Berlin because I have friends there and because it's so cheap! Berlin doesn't tax alcohol, so a bottle of good wine costs between 4 and 5 euros. If you really wanted to splurge you might spend 15 euros on wine. My favourite night out took me to the Maria Club in former East Berlin. The Maria Club is an old warehouse on the Rhine that has been converted into a haven for electronic music lovers. Actually, all of Germany is a haven for electronic music lovers. Whenever the cigarette smoke got too intense I could just go to the little patio and breathe the air from the river. I don't think Europeans got the memo about smoking being deadly.

I walked past the East Side Gallery to get home. The East Side Gallery is the largest remaining segment of the Berlin Wall and it's covered with colourful, artistic graffiti. It wasn't lit up at all and I almost missed it. I suppose the fact that the Wall is dark at night is one of the most potent signs of the Cold War's end. Only 20 years ago it would have been flood lit so that armed guards could shoot anyone attempting to escape.

Today, Berlin is a hip, vibrant city that I didn't want to leave. It discusses its problems - both past and present - with a frankness and vigour that's very refreshing, and then they usually do something about their problems. Berliners today don't earn much compared to the rest of Western Europe, but they love their city and they don't seem to desert for higher wages. They say that they are arm, aber sexy - poor but sexy. Who couldn't love a place like that?