Four out of five ain’t bad

The waspy café a few doors up from the hotel (where I had a less waspish pasta – indoors – at lunchtime yesterday) had its doors open, but wasn't open – as I was rudely told when I wandered in. So they didn’t get my breakfast business, not will they ever again.

Instead I strolled the other side of the hotel, to an altogether more pleasant establishment, where coffee-making is clearly a passion. In fact, I had two – and a croissant - the while planning my day. After breakfast, I managed to time leaving the hotel with the heavens opening – rather wide – and a gale blowing. In the two minutes it took me to walk up the road, realise how stupid I was, turn round and run back, I, my jeans, jumper and hat were soaked.

I swapped wet jumper for dry jacket, and tried again, just as it was easing. In point of fact, my coat was essentially a nuisance to carry for the rest of the day, but life is perverse like that.

Where I was heading before the abrupt wardrobe change was Bernauer Strasse, which in 1961 found itself on the front line, as it were. The houses on one side of the street were in the East, and the pavement was in the West, as the border was enforced overnight. People jumped from windows, three to their deaths, here. The houses were later bulldozed by the DDR, but there is still waste ground where they stood.

I then took a stroll to the old Schultheiss Brewery, now a cultural centre called – perhaps unsurprisingly – the Kulturbrauerei, but there wasn’t much to see. Architecturally interesting, but that was about it.

My third point of call was some unfinished business from last year. You may recall I went to the site of one of the checkpoints in the Wall, and tried to work out where the hospital was where I had been treated in the winter of 1978. Only thing was, I got the wrong checkpoint. So today I was off to the right one, which is to say Invalidenstrasse. Which I found, and I’m pretty certain the large building which is now a Federal Ministry was the hospital. Back in the day it was for Party officials and other privileged people, including, it luckily turned out, the children of British diplomats who happened to have an abscess in their middle ear.

I then did one of those unfortunate things … not being completely certain I’d got the right building, I took a picture and thought, “I’ll show that to Dad and ask him, he’ll remember,” until, of course, I remembered myself why I couldn’t. This still catches me out, once a week or so.

No video this time.

From there I took U- and S-Bahn trains to Orianenburger Strasse, to visit the Synagogue. It was a cutting-edge modern building when it was built in the nineteenth century, with under-floor heating, clever illumination of double-glazed stained-glass windows by means of gas light and reflectors, and a beautiful and innovative onion domed-roof. Burned and smashed about in 1938, it was more or less finished off by Allied bombing in the war, and what was left was demolished by the small Jewish community that still existed in the East during the Cold War years. But since reunification the front third or so, including the façade and dome, have been restored using as many as possible of the recovered original parts (some of which were found buried in new floors). It reminds one a little of Pompeii, inasmuch as there are original bits held together by plain modern bits: for example a ceiling painting will have patches of original, with the outlines of the rest drawn in; or there will the base and capital of a column, with a plain modern column between.

It seems rather sad that there is a permanent armed police guard outside, and that to enter you have to pass through a complete airport-style security check.

However, the building contains a must-see exhibition of the history of the Jewish community in Berlin, and of the building itself, including tapestries, lamps, scrolls and other religious artifacts. The remainder of the structure, the important worshiping bit towards the back, has not been – nor ever will be – rebuilt. It stands, or rather doesn't, as a constant reminder.

After a delicious coffee and cookie nearby, it was now a little too late to visit the fifth place on my itinerary, so that can wait until tomorrow.

Coming back through Friederichstrasse Station, I recalled that this was essentially another border crossing in the Wall, although very much in the East, because, with the right papers, you could travel from here to the West by train. The catwalks high above the tracks at either end of the station canopy or roof are still there, and I can remember seeing armed East German Grenzpolitzei, or border guards, patrolling up along them. Back at my hotel, it’s cooking up a storm again outside.

I’m going to have a little sleep before dinner, and see if it goes away.