Horrors of Nazi Germany

My last full day in Berlin was left to explore the atrocities of Nazi Germany. The ‘Topography of Terror’ is an open air museum based at the site of the old Gestapo/SS headquarters, now demolished. The new museum is still being built & in the meantime, they’ve established a pictographically history along a path on the site. Museum entry was free to all visitors.
I was moved to tears - a powerful introduction to the monstrous crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. And while wandering along & reading all about the history, I couldn’t help but think about the news story I saw only a few nights beforehand about the rise of the far right extremists in Hungary trying to clamp down on the Roma (gypsies) who they blamed for the crime sweeping the country. It all sounded far too familiar. How in trying times we continue to blame the ‘other’ for all of our problems. We still haven’t learned from history.
Then on to the Jewish Museum, which was an incredible architectural building. I had always wondered why the Jewish people had been the target for so much hatred throughout history. It was while I wandered through the Jewish museum that I finally understood why. How myths & lies and the fear of difference had built a severe intolerance to these people. And it was here that I also finally understood why the Jewish people needed to have their own homeland after being denied assimilation again & again in so many countries - never permitted to completely fit in anywhere.

Free Berlin History Walking Tour???

I’d read my Lonely Planet guide the previous eve & had picked out my must sees & circled them on my Berlin map. It had also mentioned a free tour - yes, that’s a FREE tour - that departs outside Starbucks at Brandenburg Gate at 11am.
I had a look at the Reichstag, the parliament house where Hitler came to power. It was almost overpowering in its stature. Unfortunately the dome inside was closed to tourists on this day, so I decided not to wait in the line for an hour to get in. I then went & had a look at the memorial for those that had lost their lives trying to escape East Berlin - a simple but effective memorial.
Then I wandered over to Brandenburg Gate & found Starbucks just in time to get a ticket for the tour. Deal was, if you were happy with the tour guide, you tipped them at the end. The tour would take us past all the key points in the city centre, & Nikolai (a man whose Bulgarian parents fled the east for NY when he was a child) was our guide & provide much insight into the history of this place. He explained that Berlin was the site for the declaration war for both WW1 & WW2, as well as being the site of the end of the Cold War - WOW!!! And you can really feel the depth of history here - it permeates everything.
We visited the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Jewish Holocaust Victims Memorial, Hitler’s Bunker (also the site of his suicide), the headquarters of the Luftwaffe, the Berlin wall/s (actually two that ran parallel to each other a few metres apart), the Berlin University, Book-Burning Memorial site, & the old palace, amongst other things. The tour ended up taking 4½ hours, & I was exhausted after it. I met a couple of Aussies on the tour, & one woman, Anna, & I went to the Pergamom Museum after the tour. Our focus was in viewing the Gates of Ishtar which supposedly were from the ancient city of Babylon.
After the museum, we went & had a drink before heading our separate ways back to our temporary homes.