SUNDAY, JULY 14
Some days are just bent on destruction. Chloe and I fought…a lot, with an intensity that increased as the sun got warmer. Our anger was somehow compounded by feelings that everyone around us was enjoying themselves.
An over-priced brunch in a pretentious, hippy restaurant started the day. A buffet of cold eggs, soggy pancakes, wilted salad, and cold potatoes were eaten around picnic tables with “cool” young people. It made us laugh.
We were feeling okay when we got off the bus at Potsdamer Platz. Walking through the Tiergarten, the fighting started again. Chloe just wasn’t happy…with anything. I wanted to enjoy the beautiful garden but nope.
The Soviet War Memorial, across Bundesstrasse near Brandenburg Gate, presented a welcome diversion. Surrounded by groups of Russians and lots of information to read and think about, it shifted our focus. “It feels like we’re in Russia,” said Chloe. Russian, not German, was the language most everyone was speaking. The memorial, built by the Soviets near the Reichstag, was located in West Berlin, and thus was strangely off limits to Soviet citizens until 1989.
The Soviets wrote the text and selected the photographs describing Russian involvement in WWII and it was interesting to read about about the war from their perspective. For instance, one poster asserted that the Nazis’ first and foremost goal was to destroy Communism.
22,000 Russian soldiers died in the war’s final, ten-day battle in Berlin. In total, the Soviets lost more than 25 million people during WWII. The numbers are staggering.
The fact that the Memorial was off limits to Soviet citizen was similar to the situation regarding the subway after Berlin was divided. With West Berlin like an island surrounded by the Soviet Union, train stations in West Berlin were closed, and the train carefully monitored so that no one could escape to the West. It did run, but very infrequently and only for special transports. The train wasn’t allowed to stop in West Berlin for 20 years and cobwebs came to cover stations.
Strange things happened in post WWII Berlin…like the Banana Bunker. But more of that later.
WALKING ALONG THE SPREE
We left the Memorial, headed to the Reichstag and walked along the Spree on this perfect day with temperatures just right for a T-shirt, but we were arguing so much, the only thing that could stop us was silence. Sullen faces. Frowns. (So silly!)
Not sure where we were going or why, we came upon the most curious building. An abandoned bunker, maybe? A large stone was pushed up against one door. Another door was propped open with a small piece of leather. Someone walked in. I followed. Chloe was saying…you can’t just go in there. Oh yeah, I can, and I did.
SAMMLUNG BOROS COLLECTION
It was a creepy concrete building, and when I got through the first passage, I came upon a room with a sculpture (I’m not sure of what…but made of various pieces of metal that looked almost like paper mache). The concrete walls were painted white, but not everywhere. Behind a cut concrete wall, a stylish woman sat at a desk. What is this? I asked.
“The Sammlung Boros Collection.” I’d never heard of it. I asked if we could see it. Well, maybe, she said. I went back to the street to get Chloe. We were given a gift…no doubt about it. This happens often. We are soooooo lucky. Turns out they only give private showings of the collection, which is housed in a bunker (with a history of its own), by appointment and for small groups. Just so happened that two people who were supposed to be on the next English language tour of the collection hadn’t shown up…and it started in five minutes.
“If they don’t show up you can go,” said the woman at the desk. Chloe told me later that she had looked into this collection, and tried to see if we could go, but it was booked solid for months.
THE COLLECTION AND BUILDING
The collection consists of 400 pieces, about 100 on exhibit at a time. It changes every couple of years. All the artists are relatively young, some political. A few artists presented pieces that commented on the digital age, in a much more compelling way than we had seen the day before. Some artists considered a favorite artists’ subject, time itself.
The tour began with us sitting in chairs, an old train schedule, with blacked out flipping cards, behind our tour guide, a 6-foot tall, extremely thin, young woman who looked like a model, a contender for an Addam’s family child, and spoke in this wonderful, affected, self-consciously provocative style. She wore white sneakers and a black tight fitting wrap-around dress that split to show her skinny legs. Near the end of the tour, she skipped away to get her “jumper” a tiny white, thickly-woven cotton cropped sweater with strings hanging from it. Lots of theatrics and fun!
The tour took 90 minutes, and in that time, we learned the bunker was designed for use by bankers who worked in the adjoined building, but ultimately protected more than just those who worked there. Constructed to accommodate 1,000, at times during the war up to 3,000 people would squeeze into the four floors of low ceilings and thick, concrete walls.
After the war, the bunker was used by the Soviets as a prison and then later to store bananas. In the 90s, for a few years, it was converted into the hottest club in Berlin. Eventually the Boros family bought the building and turned it into a setting for their art collections — taking down walls to create large rooms for larger works, and cutting holes in places for views from different floors.
The collection itself is eclectic and all the work is cutting edge. Our tour guide was brilliant at describing the works, history and quirks of various artists, and had a tantalizing ability of leaving the right questions unanswered.
We left walking on clouds. Thank you, Berlin!
