Berlin's Empty Library

"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."
“Where books are burnt, people will eventually be burnt too."
These words were written by the German Heinrich Heine (1797- 1856) in 1821, referring to the buring of the Qur'an during the Spanish Inquisition, but they were quite foretelling. In the Bebelplatz, on May 10, 1933 Nazi students burned 25,000 books by Jewish and politically undesirable writers- the elite of contemporary German literature, such as Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Erich Kastner (who watched in disgust). It is impossible to be in Berlin and not remember and give homage to the past. While WWII ended more than fifty years ago, it has only been twenty years since the Berlin Wall came down. To be at Checkpoint Charlie and enter the museum that showed the lengths that East German Government went to keep their people out of the West and the engenuity of the West to help people escape was amazing. As my friends (Sara and Christine) and I toured the city, it wasn't far from my mind what price the world paid for Hitler and his war.
It took awhile for me to get to enjoy the city. It is very large, but easily accessible with public transit. We stayed a hotel in the Charlottenburg area. Once the car was parked, our travel was on the buses and subways. Saturday was spent seeing the interesting sites. These included the Brandenburg Arch, the Neue Wache- the bronze of a mother and her dead son (which commemerates the Victims af War and Tyrrany), the Televsion Tower, KaDeWa Department Store. Most of these were on the Bus 100 line- recommended by the Berlin City Tourism Board.
While Schweinfurt has its pigs, there were many bears in Berlin. The above bear signifies the city center "mitte".
On Sunday, much to my delight we found a flea market, reommended by the hotel staff. It is in Maur Platz (Wall Park). It was great- from the very old junk to new fashion. My way to spend the day.
Berlin is about a 4 hour drive from Schweinfurt, so I do plan to visit again.