My first - and last - trip to Berlin

Berlin’s dark past is doing marvels for its tourism

IT TOOK me until 46 to go to Berlin; that’s 28 years in real travelling terms when there were any number of times I could have easily hopped on a plane for a mere 90 minutes, paying less than £100, to visit what was fast becoming one of Europe’s coolest cities. I even had a friend living there in a spacious loft apartment for seven of those 28 years who emailed invitations every few months, listing the bars and galleries she’d take me to or a great new restaurant that had just opened, enclosing links to deals from Ryanair with flights costing less than a one-way train ticket from London to Manchester. And still, I didn’t book.

I didn’t have a reason not to visit Berlin per se. My family’s roots were further east, in Poland and Russia, but the idea of visiting a city where the extermination plan was hatched and once housed — and revered — the most evil perpetrators of crimes against Jews in modern history never appealed.

But then my 20-something nephew went with his girlfriend and they came back raving about it.

Not just because of the eclectic nightlife and hyper-cool restaurants — although they did rave about them too — but more because they’d learnt so much about Germany’s dark past from its museums and memorials and felt enriched by this deeper knowledge of our Jewish history.

And so I booked with a friend and boarded a plane. I was nervous but curious too. What would it be like to hear the harsh, guttural sounds of German; a language that until now I had associated only with the cruel barking of orders, uttered by those consumed with the pursuit of our misery and death?

But then we landed and the sun was blistering hot and the sky a confident blue and I barely noticed the accent of the officers working in passport security, so excited was I to head out into the sunshine.

Hitting the streets of Berlin and walking amongst the scores of tourists only added to our excitement.

The city was buzzing; the people so young.

We’d booked a two and a half hour tour and were blown away by the passion of our tour guide; a former secondary school history teacher from London, who confidently navigated us to the main sites of historical interest.

And there were so many; the deliberately non-descript car park that was the site of Hitler’s bunker, the floor plaque in front of the Humboldt library marking the spot where the thousands of books on politics, religion and philosophy which didn’t align with the Nazi cause were burnt; the haunting Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, with its 2711 rectangular concrete slabs arranged in a grid on the site of the former headquarters of the SS that somehow made you feel humbled and lost and disori- ented all at the same time.

There was so much history; so much to be sorry for.

It was clear Berlin was ashamed of its troubled past and was doing its best to convince us they would never go there again.

Why else would the Humboldt University students set up a permanent book sale right opposite the site of the famous book burning? Or the Memorial to Murdered Jews be constructed right under the nose of the current Government?

But the cynical side of me couldn’t help notice the swarms of tourists — both being led by tour groups and walking the sites alone — and marvelling how raking over the hot coals of its ‘dark past’ was doing wonders for the Berlin economy.

I spent the next two days flipflopping from one emotion to another; from guilt to anger to pleasure then immediately back to guilt.

At the Jewish Museum, I entered the cold concrete walls of the Holocaust Tower, eyes filling up as I gazed at the slither of sunlight in the ceiling and tried to imagine what it was like to have hope beyond your reach.

But then, hours later, I’d find myself laughing, enjoying a glass of vegan wine in Cookies Cream, a fine dining vegetarian restaurant that had received fantastic reviews online.

Was it OK to laugh and spend money in a city that had spawned the worse of mankind there is? I’m not sure.

Berlin is one cool city, that much I know. From the ashes of evil comes a youthful energy and unique sense of purpose that no other European city I have visited so far can match.

But will I go again? No. Once for me is quite enough.