Me and Partho had already reserved our respective departures from Berlin late tonight. Our booking at the hostel was supposed to expire at 10 in the morning. So we packed up, deposited our big rucksacks in the luggage room (2 Euro for a medium locker and 5 for a large one), and made our way to Alexanderplatz.
I wanted to get on the TV tower but a dense fog had instructed the view of the tower. Had I climbed that, I wouldn’t have seen anything.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
After the usual breakfast routine of coffee and some form of burger, we headed towards the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It wad near Potsdamer Platz. Rows of steele were erected over a wide area. Underneath, they have a display. I got an audioguide from the reception for 3 Euros. It was one of the better guides I have heard. There was still a lot of supplemental information that had to be seen, interacted with and read.
Johann Georg Elser‘s memorial; one who tried to murder Adolf Hitler (unsuccessfully) in 1939. This is a few hundred meters away from the memorial site.
Six Jews who represent the diversity of the people who were victims of anti-semitism.
The room of names where individual artefacts are displayed.
The room of families where each column bore the stories of families.
The distribution of concentration and extermination camps. Although most of it happened in East Europe, most memorials are in the western part.
The Field of Steele of the memorial visible above ground.
Partho doesn’t like visiting these memorials and went to the Mall of Berlin nearby. I caught up with him in a couple of hours and we had our lunch. I was also checking for the Berlin Ethnological Museum, where Partho wanted to see the Quipus but we pieced together from info on Google Maps and the English and German Wikipedias that it was permanently shut and would open only in 2019. There wasn’t much to do, so we walked in and around the mall and wasted time.
For all the days I had been in Germany, I was looking for Rotring Rapidograph and Isograph pens. These were pretty renowned refillable drafting pens. Most places stocked everything by Rotring other than these two. Finally, it was an architecture student working in Galeria Kaufhof, a mall in Alexanderplatz, who told me that Rotring had ceased production of both the models which is why they aren’t available anywhere.
Sometimes later that evening, we collected our stuff from the lockers and headed back to ZOB. Partho caught a Stuttgart bound bus while I took one headed towards Brussels. It was going to be a twelve-hour-long journey. I must say that Partho had helped me a lot in the two cities of Germany that I have stayed as well as gave me tips that were invaluable.
It snowed briefly in Alexanderplatz.
En route, the bus stopped at Hanover. This set of upside-down cars was an interesting installation near the bus stop.