02.04.2016

East vs. West

One of the strangest days I have experienced in Berlin to this date, this was quite the start to my journey through Berlin. Within five minutes of arriving at the Brandenburg Gate, a pillow fight flash mob erupted in the center of Pariser Platz less than 50 feet from where I sat waiting for the rest of the class to arrive. I later found out from our tour guide that it was International Pillow Fight Day as I pulled feathers off of my clothes and out of my hair.

As we walked through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe I felt the sudden and overwhelming urge to hide my Saint Francis necklace that I had been wearing since the beginning of the trip under my shirt. I watched as the Berliners around me casually sat on top of the tomb-shaped pillars eating lunch, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes. It wasn’t until after leaving the site that I began to think about why my response to other peoples’ interactions with the memorial were so judgmental–how could I think others weren’t behaving appropriately when I couldn’t even articulate how I thought I should operate in this space? Huyssen’s essay on museum culture clouded my mind for the rest of the tour.

Standing above Hitler’s final bunker in which he shot himself covered my entire body in goosebumps and filled my head with unsteady emotions that I couldn’t make sense of. As the group moved forward and out of sight, I spat on the ground that held invisible pieces of this person I had been taught to despise before I could fathom any other way to feel about him. I thanked my grandpa Homer for fighting in WWII, a moment of uncharacteristic patriotism that unnerved me for the next several days and still interrupts my consciousness from time to time.