Berlin...and Dachau

I lived for a too-brief time in Europe during the 1960's. Going to "college" at Loyola University in Rome during that time allowed for quire a bit of travel time throughout the Continent.  And my favorite city in the world during that time -- was Berlin -- a choice of many a weekend train ride from Italy. This was the time before the Wall came down obviously, and I used my many trips there to walk nearly the entire city -- from barricade to barricade.  

The zoo, the Kurfurstendamm, the night clubs, the history, the theatre, the life, the food, the beer-- were all much suited to me.  It was in Berlin that I first noticed the easy mixing of races in couples in countless social settings. In Berlin I first noticed the wildness of sexual experimentation and conquest. In Berlin I also first understood "history" -- for good of for bad -- with the bombed-out cathedral there, the many indicators or WW II, and the frank and horrible admission of the Holocaust.  But only later when I visited Dachau did I really understand the fight in Europe in WW II. The large scale pictures and remaining buildings at Dachau are burned into my memory in a visceral and permanent way.

I don't feel at all superior to the acts portrayed and indicated there -- I feel sorry, on behalf of humanity, for all those who died -- and for all those who were "guilty."  We were all as guilty as those German military leaders who instigated the pogrom -- the world was complicit by willful ignorance and cultural stupidity. We chose not to know...