And this was all from... Actually the day before yesterday, even. Can you see a pattern here? Sadly enough I didn't go out today or yesterday so I either have to go out into the heat tomorrow or come up with something else...
But today I still have what I visited two days ago to write about.
I started, actually accidentally(this also seems to happen a lot with me), going to the Nikolaiviertel which is a wonderful mix of fancy, old, and kitsch. The Nikolaiviertel is the oldest living area in Berlin and also home to the oldest church in Berlin, the Nikolaikirche.
Somewhat more relevant, though, was near the church at Nikolaikirchplatz 7
This is about where Gotthold Ephraim Lessing lived from 1752 till 1755.
Lessing was an important writer of the Enlightenment and a very good friend of Moses Mendelssohn (you do not know how hard it was for me not to write THEY WERE BFF but... now I did anyway, didn't I?).
The two met while playing chess, apparently, and although their backgrounds couldn't have been more different they hit it off pretty well. Someone really should make a comic or movie about the two of them, if it hasn't already been done- there are some really good scenes in their friendship. (and, if it has been done, please for the love of all that is holy show me)
Lessing was especially interested in religious tolerance and found in Moses a brilliant example of how anyone, despite belief or history, could be a wonderful person and Lessing went on to base Nathan from "Nathan der Weise" on Moses.
Lessing also, as this sign so nicely says, finished "Minna von Barnhelm" here, the only work of his I have actually read. (something I probably should do something about one day)
Here's a sign that was close by that gives a bit more and better information about Lessing
After that I went on to get lost a bit more and ended up, again by pure luck, finding the Neue Promenade which is where Abraham Mendelssohn's family lived between 1819 and 1825. There isn't terribly much to see there, but it was very neat to see the place I'm supposed to be drawing in my comic- turns out it looks very different so I'll just hope that it looked a lot more different in the 19th century so I don't have to redraw the whole thing...
And, for my final stop I got lost on the way to the Große Hamburger Straße, which is where Moses Mendelssohn is buried.
As a note for anyone who happens to visit the graveyard there, there is a fence around it and there's a gate that tends to be closed- you are allowed to open said gate and go in. There were a bunch of people standing around there who didn't seem to have read the signs there stating that. The sign also tells you to be respectful and all that... also if you happen to be a guy you need to cover your head when you go in there. There's an information board in the graveyard
and a neat picture of Moses
As you can see, the graveyard is pretty empty and, in fact, the only grave standing is that of Moses Mendelssohn. That's because the graveyard, that at one point was the final resting place of around 3000 people, was destroyed(that's putting it lightly) by the SS.
Moses' gravestone its self has been replaced around 4 times and is more a symbol there now, at roughly the spot he would have been buried.
Next to the graveyard is the Jüdische Knabenschule (Jewish boy school) that Moses Mendelssohn co-founded (I believe originally the school was at a different place, though, but I could be mistaken). There's a plaque on the school in memory of him
("Search for truth, love beauty, want good, do the/your best" - MOSES MENDELSSOHN - Philosopher and Friend of Lessing - Founder of the first jewish school in Berlin - Born on September 6th 1729 in Dessau, died on the 4th of January 1789 in Berlin)
And, back to the depressing topics that one cannot avoid here, the school- along with a now-destroyed jewish nursing home, were both used as "Judenlager"(basically Jewish Storage) under the Nazis. The Jews were held there under, one probably doesn't even need to say it, inhumane conditions until there could be transported to the KZs. In front of the graveyard there's a memorial for it.
In and around the area there are also a lot of so-called "Stolpersteine" (roughly "tripping stones" or "stumbling blocks") which are 10x10cm bronze plates in the walkways which have names and birth dates of people who were deported and murdered under the Nazis, placed in front of where they lived. There are roughly 400 in Berlin
The whole place gave me a really... Odd feeling. I won't actually say depressing, though right now it's making me rather depressed... It was more just a wow feeling. When you live here you know what all happened here, it's impossible to get away from it most of the time, but I found the Stolpersteine really made you think about everything more...
To end this on a slightly less sad note, I had planned on going somewhere else that day but after 4 hours in the sun getting lost I decided it would be best not to tempt fate, so I went home. Since it's going to stay hot for the next few days I think the next time I go out will only be for a very short trip. I plan on going here:
(though it's not quuuuite as awesome as it sounds)
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