Rebirth of a City — Modern Day Berlin

Gregg Alpert
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read

September 22, 1866. The New Synagogue opens up in the Oranienburger Strasse of the Mitte neighborhood in Berlin.

“For numerous Jews, the New Synagogue served as a site of contemplation, reflection, and prayer. It operated for 74 years. The last religious services were held there on 30 March 1940.”

On a recent visit, I took time to wander the city, learn about the history, take in the sites and experience Berlin for a second time. Following my first visit, I needed more time in order to truly grasp Berlin. I experienced cognitive dissonance as I wandered through the city streets. Berlin is now known for it’s cultural diversity, tolerance, acceptance, creativity, street art and cutting edge, trend setting nature. All of this is occurring inside of the same physical space as hell on earth just a short 70 years ago. Hitler and the Third Reich ran their operation from Berlin, crafting and executing their plan to exterminate people with different views and values (members of their community) and to dominate Europe. Even prior to WWII, Berlin played a pivotal role in WWI, WWII and then the queen chess piece in the long cold war. For most the 1900s, Berlin was not free, it was not accepting, it was probably one of the least likely candidates to become the European hub of diversity and culture. However, against all odds, that is exactly what has happened.

Macro-economics, geo-politics and hate paved the way for Berlin and Germany to become the hell on earth that so many of our ancestors experienced. 11 million plus people were systematically killed and countless millions more lives’ were ruined and completely altered due to the execution of the final solution by the Third Reich. As a Jew, this is not just a historical event; Jews and others affected by the Holocaust continue to carry this horror still today. We are reminded of the Holocaust constantly. Even for me, I don’t have any direct links in my immediate family, they left Eastern Europe prior to WWII. But, my community was desecrated by this atrocity. My friends do have direct ties and my family has experienced antisemitism along the way in the US.

This brings me to the cognitive dissonance I felt in Berlin during my last visit. The city is absolutely wonderful. It is filled with culture, diversity and history — terrible, horrible history as well as triumphant history enabling a city to become free. The story of the Berlin Wall creating a divide is relevant for modern day society where cultures collide physically and philosophically. In America, we have a huge barrier forming / formed between the right and left, Republicans and Democrats. Each group has such strongly held beliefs that they are unable to see the opposing sides’ viewpoints or keep an open mind on their perspective. This isn’t quite a fair comparison due to the external factors of Russia’s interests for occupation of Europe and the spreading of Communism and the West’s interests to spread Democracy. However, there is a battle of philosophies in America between public and private, capitalism and democratic socialism. Rather than go into the merits of each of these systems, I think it’s important to learn a valuable lesson from Berlin.

Today, Berlin is a thriving cultural capital of Europe. It is compelling citizens from all over Europe to move there and travelers from all over the world to visit to indulge in their diverse ways. In 1933, students burned more than 20,000 books from authors with different backgrounds and ideas from the Nazi’s. These authors opinions were labeled as “un-German.” The Nazi’s wanted to stop the spread of alternative views to their own. Let that sink in for a minute. The Nazi’s believed that their perspective was the one TRUTH. So much so, that they couldn’t bear the idea of other perspectives being accessible to their population. Thankfully today, we have the internet and it is much harder for most nations to suppress alternate viewpoints. There are some shining examples of this — North Korea, parts of China, Cuba until the last year, places in the Middle East. The internet also provides a tool to amplify messages of hate and intolerance but it also provides the opportunity to spread new information, to enable those to access education and learn to see beyond negative messaging that may have only been accessible in the past, prior to the internet.

On a historical tour, my guide made this comment (paraphrased): “Education is the silver bullet. The more you learn and understand history and what happened to enable the rise of the Third Reich, the more you are able to understand how wrong it is. Xenophobia and censoring of alternate viewpoints is wrong. Silencing different opinions eventually led to the removal of other rights, the mistreatment of Jews and other minorities and marginalized peoples and eventually the Holocaust.”

Today, Berlin has been reborn. Through Hell, a new city with scars apparent throughout, has been reborn with a new heart. The city is full of love, life and light. I believe Berlin is a great example of acceptance, tolerance and diversity. The world can learn a great lesson from the evolution of Berlin.

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Gregg Alpert

Written by

@AffordableLearn, Pearson Affordable Learning Fund, Education Pioneers Alum, EdTech, CU Leeds, UVA, Live in Denver, Colorado.

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