LOUISIANA: NEW ORLEANS, Part 2 - National World War II Museum and New Orleans Museum of Art

November 6-10, 2019 

I visited two really good museums while I was in New Orleans: The National World War II Museum and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

1. The National World War II Museum

At the end of a long day of conferencing, I grabbed a taxi (Uber was SUPER slow in New Orleans, but a cab was always waiting at the hotel) and headed to what Congress designated in 2003 as America's official National World War II Museum. The museum's website states, "The National WWII Museum tells the story of the American experience in the war that changed the world--why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today--so that all generations will understand the price of freedom and be inspired by what they learn."

Originally called the D-Day Museum, the museum opened (appropriately) on June 6, 2000. It is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and is worth much more time than I was able to give to it. Since its opening it has had many expansions and added many new exhibits. It is a must-see museum, whether your are a war buff or history aficionado or neither. Just go.

I started in the European theater section, and was reminded that the United States lost far fewer of its service members than its enemies did.

The war was also NOT a popular cause in the early years.

BERLIN PART 4: ODDS 'N' ENDS

Germany depends on nuclear plants for about 25% of its power, but according to our guide, the Fukishima Japan nuclear meltdown jolted Germany into action, and they have announced plans to shutdown all seventeen of their nuclear power plants in the next eleven years.  Eight are already closed. That's amazingly fast action!

A nuclear plant on our drive into Berlin

I can't imagine just eliminating that much nuclear energy that quickly in the United States, but Europe can get by on a lot less energy than we can for many reasons.  For one thing, they put us to shame in the areas of efficient public transportation, innovations in the automobile industry, and bike riding.

I particularly admired these bike stands we saw in Berlin and in many other cities we visited.  For 8 to 10 euro and a credit card deposit, anyone can grab one of these bikes for a day, see the city, then return it at any of the numerous bike stands all over the city. Impressive!


It would be fun to ride a bike around this Victory Column, erected in the 1870s to commemorate several recent Prussian victories:

. . . or the Furnsehturm (television tower), which, at 368 meters (just over 1200 feet), is the tallest structure in all of Germany by over 100 meters. (Shocking, isn't it?  No colossal skyscrapers there?) It was built by the East German government in the 1960s and is still in use today:

. . . or perhaps through the alleys of  the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, located just a couple of blocks from the Brandenburg Gate. Completed in 2005, sixty years after Germany surrendered in World War II, it covers 4.7 acres with 2,711 unmarked, crypt-like concrete boxes laid out in rows.  While uniform in color, length, and width, each box varies in height according to no apparent pattern, and the ground has swells and valleys as well (and even a few staircases), giving a sense of undulating instability, almost like a ship being tossed on the sea. There was an macabre feeling to it all, and the visual imagery presented a marked contrast to groups of happy, picture-taking tourists and lunching Germans.

It would be fun to pretend to be an escaping East Berliner and ride a bike through Checkpoint Charlie. During the Cold War it was the only crossing point between East and West Berlin that could be used by foreigners. Now it is a kitschy tourist trap, complete with a reproduction of the original hut and "soldiers" who will gladly pose with any tourist who has a few dollars to spare.

All that riding would definitely make me hungry, so I would want to stop at this doner kebab place.  Again, we followed Andrew's food recommendations and had a pretty wonderful meal here:

However, the art, a very poor Salvador Dali wannabe, left a lot to be desired:

On the other hand, I liked this mural on another wall of the kebab place.  That's a great photo of the Soviet flags in front of the Brandenburg Gate and the graffiti-covered Wall as seen from the West Berlin side.

One must replenish one's spent calories. No bike ride would be complete without a stop at this yummy creperie, and at only 1 euro, probably the best deal in town. (Just looking at these pictures makes me drool.)

Of course, I would have to work off those extra calories.  Maybe I could ride my bike around the cobblestone yard of the Charlottenburg Palace, a baroque and rococo castle built in the 1690s and redesigned and expanded several times over the next century.  Unfortunately, we were not able to go inside as we had used up all of our time and had to head back to our ship.  In any case, I didn't see any bike racks there where I would have been able to return my rental.

 

For some reason, my mother was not very fond of this city.  Perhaps it was because she was a Southerner, and the Northern Germans look down their noses at the Bavarians.  It definitely feels different in Berlin than in the Black Forest.  I think I'll have to disagree with her this time.  There was so much to see in Berlin, and I hope some day to return.

Next Up: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Lunch at Peggy Sue's Diner in Southern California

BERLIN PART 3: REMNANTS OF THE WALL

As previously mentioned, our first stop in Berlin was in transit to Denmark.  Our second stop was part of the cruise portion of our trip later on in our journey.

"Wait!" you might say. "Berlin is not on the ocean!"  Yes, that is true, which is why we spent two hours driving each way from the port city of Rostock to Berlin and back.  Yes, we were VERY glad we had taken the opportunity to explore on our previous stop in Berlin.

On this visit, instead of just seeing where the wall had been, we actually got to see remnants (and/or representations) of the Wall itself at several different locations around the city.

Potsdamer Platz is a famous square at the center of Berlin that was bombed to smithereens during the war, then later bisected by the Berlin Wall and left completely desolate.  After the Wall came down, it was redeveloped and is now a major commercial center.  Pieces of the Wall have been left up as an interesting kind of public art:

 

Berlin's "East Side Gallery" is a 1.3 kilometer-long section of the Wall that was left standing and painted by 117 different artists.  We drove past this in our bus and didn't stop.  It is one of the places I would like to return to.

This famous painting of Brezhnev kissing East German Chancellor Erich Honnecker has been very controversial.

This observation deck allows visitors to get a clear view of a segment of the Wall and the Death Strip behind it.

The concrete wall was on the West Berlin side, and residents could walk right next to it.  On the East Berlin side, however, was a second fence that prevented East Berliners from approaching the Wall. The completely barren area between the two walls, known as the Death Strip or No Man's Land, had anti-vehicle trenches, guard towers, and no cover for anyone trying to approach the wall.  Some areas were strewn with land mines and barbed wire, and at night the area was swept by spotlights.

One of the 120 guard towers along the Berlin Wall

Few of the Death Strip through a crack in the concrete wall.

A Wikipedia photo of the Wall and the Death Strip from around 1960.  Note the extensive artwork on the West Berlin side.  Berlin is currently one of the key cities in the contemporary art scene. Perhaps the emotion-charged paintings on this wall are part of the foundation for that movement in Berlin.

An outdoor museum in this area gives the history of the Wall.  The picture below shows how churches were razed to make way for the Wall and Death Strip.

West Berliners looking over the Wall, trying to get a glimpse of loved ones:

Markers show where people attempted to flee and the date of their escape:

The top of the wall was rounded and slippery with no hand hold anywhere to aid a person trying to climb over:

There is a quote painted on one section of the Wall that we did not see but which I've seen in pictures: "Many small people who in many small places do many small things can alter the face of the world."   I admire the courage of the East German people who did not give up, who remained Germans and did not become Soviets, and who finally, after 28 years, 10 months, and 27 days, took that Wall down piece by piece.

BERLIN PART 2 ADDENDUM

My sister Angie commented on my last post, "The most moving image of November 1989 for me was Rostropovich playing the cello, surrounded by the rubble of the just-demolished Berlin wall."

I had not seen that impromptu performance, nor even heard of it, but of course YouTube had!

Note: The end of the video shows West Berlin Mayor and future Chancellor Willy Brandt making his way through the crowd and joining an East German official atop the Wall.
 
In an interview in the last year-and-a-half of his life, Rostropovich told a French newspaper reporter:
"When in 1989 I saw on television that the Berlin Wall was being torn down, I took the first plane to go play there. When the taxi left us out in front of the ex-Berlin Wall, I realized that I needed a chair. I went to knock on the door of a house, and someone recognized me. Within 10 minutes, there was a little crowd, and a television crew came passing by. I played the most joyous Bach Suites for solo cello in order to celebrate the event. But I could not forget all those who had lost their lives on this wall in trying to cross over it. Hence, I played the Sarabande of Bach's 2nd Suite in their memory, and I noticed a young man crying."

I enjoyed reading this BBC report about Rostropovich's death at age 80 in 2007.  He was quite the man.  The opportunity to see his grave in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery means even more to me now.

That's the interesting thing about education.  You learn or experience one little thing, and then along comes another piece of information or another experience that builds on and enriches that first piece, and pretty soon a minor curiosity has grown into something of importance or significance in your life, and you start to be more aware of what you might have otherwise overlooked.

Thank you, Angie, for adding another piece!

BERLIN PART 2: BRANDENBURG GATE

Our final stop on our first pass through Berlin was the place I had been most looking forward to seeing: the Brandenburg Gate and the former site of the Berlin Wall.  Again, we were amazed by the number of Germans out having a good time.  We saw the Brandenburg Gate again on our second pass through Berlin, but during the daytime. I am so glad we saw this at night, with the sharp, almost glowing outline of the Gate set against the deep azure velvet of the night sky, and the suprisingly quiet yet still party-like atmosphere created by young people walking around and sitting together.  It was truly magical.

Compare those night shots to this daytime photo from our second visit to Berlin

When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, the Gate, which was just inside the Wall in East Berlin, was closed. President Kennedy visited this gate in 1963 before giving his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at another location in the city.  For that visit, the Soviets hung red flags across the gate to prevent Kennedy from seeing into the Eastern sector.  It was at this spot in June 1987 that Reagan boldly spoke the famous words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Over the next two years, one event led to another, and in November of 1989, the Wall was torn down, but by East and West German citizens, not by the Russian government. Thousands gathered at the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate (see an interesting news story here), and on December 22 the Gate itself was reopened. 

Photo from Wikipedia

In 1989 I was 29 years old, a mother of three young children, and living in Redlands.  I remember well the events of that extraordinary week.  Now almost twenty-two years later, it is wonderful to be part of the institutional memory of such a historic shift in world politics.

There are several other interesting things in the immediate vicinity of the Gate, including the Reichstag Building just a block away. From 1894 until it was severely damaged by an arsonist's fire in 1933 it was the seat of the German Parliament. It was partially rebuilt in the 1960s, but without its cupola.  After the reunification of Germany, it was determined that the capital would be re-established in Berlin, and plans were made to gut and remodel the Reichstag for use as the parliament building.

Before construction began, however, environmental architect Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude received permission to wrap the Reichstag in over 100,000 square meters of aluminum-coated polypropylene and 15 kilometers of rope.  The project took two weeks, was on display for two weeks (during which an estimated 5 million visitors saw it), and then was removed.  See the wrapping process here:

Christo claimed that this and other "wrapping projects" were for aesthetics only and did not have any deep, hidden meaning.  However, one can not overlook the symbolism this project must have had for the suppressed and then freed East Germans.  One art critic called it "revelation through concealment."

When the building was finally reconstructed, it included a beautiful transparent cupola where the masonry dome had once been:

Dusk on our first Berlin visit

Daytime photo taken on our second visit to Berlin

Visitors can walk a spriral ramp inside this dome and see both beautiful views of the city and the workings of the German Parliament below, symbolic of the now "transparent" German government.

On the street between the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag is a double line running through the pavement that shows the former location of the Wall.

On our second visit to Berlin we saw these two brick lines in several other locations in the city, a tangible reminder of what once was and hopefully will never be again.

Last Saturday, August 13th, was the 50th anniversary of the building of the Wall.  (See a BBC article and video about the anniversary here.) Walking down beautiful Unter den Linden Street, which leads through the Brandenburg Gate, it is impossible to envision that ugly blockade there.

A road sign near the Gate shows just how much has changed since Hitler was in power:

Besides the Kennedy Museum, I found the bottom sign interesting, translated to read: "Memorial for the Persecuted Homosexuals during the Nazi Era.")

After all of that monumental history, I found this photograph in the hotel restaurant where we ate breakfast the next morning almost comical:

Bob and Bryce Canyon

Next: Remaining pieces of the Wall