People say that Berlin is a 24-hour city. That may be true in the centre, but it's not true in the western suburb of Moabit at 6.00am on a Saturday morning. I saw very few people and cars at the start of a slightly extended 10K which included the perimeter of most of the Tiergarten – Berlin's largest and most famous park.
The route that I planned was almost completely flat. And I ran at a relaxed pace. So this was a good way to get back into training. An early run leaves the rest of the day free for sightseeing with the family.
The eastern section of the Tiergarten, up to the Brandenburg Gate, is sealed off and closed to traffic and pedestrians so I had to retrace my steps at one point. Something big must have been planned. I later discovered that this was the state visit by President Macron of France.
Running through the city is an efficient way to see the sights. The Tiergarten has many monuments. One of these is to Goethe, the great German writer. But what really got my attention was the Memorial for Gays and Lesbians Persecuted by the Nazis. This is a closed small oblong block. There is a window at one end. Looking through this you see a video loop lasting about two minutes showing first two men kissing, then two women kissing, against a revolving background of persecuted images. Apparently the loop is changed regularly.
The impetus for this memorial was the opening in 2005 of the huge Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe just to the east of the Tiergarten. As the Visit Berlin website puts it, this:
…led to increased discussions about national memorials to all the other victims of the Nazis. In 2003, the German parliament decided to build a monument for the persecuted homosexuals. The initiators of the project chose a design by the Scandinavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. Their work picks up on the slabs of the Holocaust Memorial and uses the medium of film to create a link to the present and visualise the subject in a special way. The memorial was ceremonially opened on 27 May 2008.
Many minorities were persecuted under the Nazis. Their daily lives were made difficult, they were oppressed, persecuted and murdered in concentration camps. Homosexual men had to be very careful. In 1935, the criminal code was changed, with section 175 penalising kissing in public with a stay in prison or a house of correction. Their tormentors also imposed castration. In total, 50,000 sentences were passed. Lesbians were pursued by the Nazis as antisocial elements. In concentration camps, homosexual men were made to wear a pink triangle and lesbians a black triangle.
The monument to the homosexuals persecuted by the Nazi regime is a symbol against intolerance, discrimination and persecution of homosexuals all over the world.
I recorded a video of the loop playing and at some point, if my technical skills are up to it, I will edit this and upload it.
and katieglover
