Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Berlin Reborn
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Travel Journal:
Every day in Berlin is Easter. A rebirth. A resurrection.
The city is in constant renewal from the scars of aggressive hot wars, the Cold War, ideological combat, religious and racial animus, mass persecutions, people destroyed, politics broken, dictators and demagogues. Everywhere Berlin’s redemption is on exhibit. A city of shiny futures, risqué modernity, cosmopolitan optimism, youth, hope, festivals, film, nightlife.
I can’t avoid it. I can’t deny it. I don’t want to do either. And, neither do Berliners.
Before Hitler ruined it, for thousands of years across diverse religions and cultures swastikas signified fertility and good fortune. Thus, in ancient times, wearing a swastika was a fashion-forward statement. In modern times, it mutated into a criminal cultural appropriation.
Neo-Nazi skinheads still degrade and dirty themselves, but thirty percent of Berlin’s residents are foreign born. Turks, Arabs, Vietnamese, Afro-Germans, Muslims, Jews, Catholics. So much for ethnic cleansing and Final Solutions.
Today, the remains of the Berlin Wall have been transformed into open-air, art galleries for graffiti and public murals. Once, two resolute political theories about the good life kept a city, a nation and the entire world on nuclear war footing for a chilling forty-four years.
German Expressionism, including full-throated anti-war themes, is inside the Neue Nationalgalerie. The museum building by architect Mies van der Rohe speaks with an expressive, sweeping openness. In the galleries, a cacophony of bold, colorful artworks are Wagnerian arias on canvas.
Berlin’s museums—the most heavily subsidized in the world—are awash in art and artifacts. The day I explored Museum Island, a group of picnickers in jeans, laughing and teasing, tossed a frisbee on the sprawling lawn in front of Berliner Dom. On a bench along the Spree River, a couple embraced with enough passion to procreate more Berliners.
For a respite from artworks and antiquities, I need a walk. Parks, gardens, forests, lakes, plazas and green spaces comprise forty-four percent of Berlin’s territory. That much greenery—plus Germany’s official ‘quiet hours’—makes for a tranquil urban holiday. Bullying Brownshirts are unwelcome.
In the park, I watch a group of parents busy hiding colorful Easter eggs under bushes for a children’s party. The Easter Bunny tradition originated in pre-Christian Germany. Before the Christians invaded, the Pagan Goddess of Fertility was symbolized by a hare.
To wrap up my day, to collect my thoughts in serene quiet, the café at the Museum of Communications is a traditional, high-ceilinged Austrian coffee house. In the company of a latte and pastry, I am writing this journal entry.
A few tables over, an elderly, balding man wearing an austere, black sport coat with brass buttons is reading the conservative Die Welt. Like Berlin, he has a knack for disappearing into himself, then reappearing to look straight through me. Without a common language, ‘mutually assured’ opaqueness is the best we can do.
There’s a fluttery twitch in my stomach, down deep as if my bowels know something that I don’t. I wonder what he did, what he saw, what he ignored, during the Third Reich.
