Europe ‘25-26

The inspiration for this particular trip was to meet up with some Seattle friends in Berlin, one of whom lived and worked the Irish bars here back in the 80s. The weather was spectacular so we explored the city by foot (and a few metro rides) during the day on our own, then met the group in the evenings to visit some of our friend’s favorite haunts and take in beer garden culture—the world definitely needs more of that!

Heard some crazy stories about what it was like to travel to/through Soviet-controlled East Berlin territory. History is everywhere yet strangely feels like a mirage… almost the entire city had to be rebuilt after WWII and the Soviet occupation, and the population at the time very much wanted to put those dark periods behind them. Understandably so, but I couldn’t help but wonder what the collective consciousness loses as a result.

One of the more stark and moving reminders are Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”)—small brass plaques, sometimes one by itself, sometimes a group, set into sidewalks through the city in front of buildings where victims of Nazi persecution were last lived. Each one is engraved with the name and fate of a person abducted, sent to a camp, and most likely murdered for being declared to be “asocial.” (https://www.visitberlin.de/en/stolpersteine)

As a first-time visitor to the city, it drove home the reality and scale of the atrocities in a very different way than visiting a designated historical site or monument. It’s hard not to see a corollary in the USA, only to immigrants and citizens that look like immigrants. Will there be stumbling stones like these someday, scattered through America?Read more