If I take a peek into my own telescope of retrospect, I see visions of American soldiers fighting the German soldiers with their strangely shaped helmets and screams Achtung Achtung! These were from a collection of black and white comic books which my uncle, a botanical professor, used to treasure back in India in 1975.
Now that I’m within hour’s flight to that nation where those comic book drawings were actual life, I decide to see it for myself using my Easter vacations.
As well suspected, the travel agency had booked us a hotel at the cleaner side of Berlin. So we decide to go bit further looking for traces of the history. Well, all we saw were new buildings, very unlike Europe. They say that 70 % of Berlin was destroyed during the war. True, but shouldn’t there be traces of it? Like dead tanks, airplanes watchtowers or buildings… none! Ok, then how about museums… hmm. So we head for the History of Berlin museum. 10 euros and we get to climb three stories of a building with history of Berlin from medieval times to present. 1932 to 1943, where the most of the gruesome but yet powerful part of the German history was compressed to a wall of one of the rooms of the museum. A room measuring less than 70sq meters in size.
The Holocaust museum. aah.. There should be something that I’m looking for, like the dungeons, cells, or tools used to torture. Hrmmm…. Well, you are still in Germany though, so one shouldn’t mention the war.
At the Holocaust museum, we spend half a day learning the history of the Jewish community in Germany…. WTF!!???…
The place did surely make me smarter by learning that Albert Einstein was a Jew and half the world still hates Jews. The latter conclusion was based upon an interesting opinion-survey-gadget located in the Holocaust museum. The question was “do you have a friend that hates Jews”. Now that is a politically corrected version of “do YOU hate Jews”. Now, all you had to do is press a discrete red or a green button. Astonishingly, in a Jewish museum surrounded by Jewish guests, the percentage of people who said YES was 46% and 54% said no. Assuming the fact that at least 30% of the people who voted “NO” had lied, I had to ask someone… “WHY?”
Now a few blocks away were the “guarded” remains of “The Wall”, because the rest of the wall has ended up in souvenir shops, at CHECKPOINT CHARLIE.
CHECKPOINT CHARLIE, another Mecca for tourists, is so extremely overrated. So overrated that I believe that ranting about it is a pure waste of time.
Now, I had spent almost a week in this concrete jungle searching for World War 2 traces, fuelled with DUINKIN DOUGHNUTS and STARBUCKS COFFEE, which apparently is at every street corner. But back at the hotel, TOM CRUISE and RENÉ ZELLWEGGER ware made to talk German in Jerry McGuire for German television. And not many television channels to opt from though.
The war might have been over, the surveillance equipments might have been put to rest, the control post might no longer exist, the city might have been cleaned of the blood and damage, but I could still hear the eerie whistle of German mind control. Mr Faulty make perfect sense to me when he mocks the German tourist by saying “but don’t mention the war”