BERLIN STANDS WITH BLACK LIVES MATTER

The Berlin chapter of Black Lives Matter organized a demonstration on Saturday, May 30, 2020, to protest the murder of George Floyd.  The word went out on Facebook and the plan was to meet in Pariser Platz, behind the Brandenburger Tor, in front of the U.S. Embassy.  When I arrived, the plaza was pretty empty, (no tourists in Berlin yet, which is as novel as the virus), but I followed some people carrying signs to where the protest had been moved, just a block away, across from Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews, sometimes called the Holocaust memorial. You can see a little bit of the Memorial peeking through the trees below. 

 Here's a better photo of the memorial, taken in late Fall, courtesy of my husband.

The Memorial consists of 2,711 polished concrete slabs of varying heights arranged in an undulating, claustrophobic grid covering 19,000 square meters of prime downtown commercial real estate, an entire square city block. If that’s not putting your money where your mouth is, I don’t what is.  I found the protest's change in venue wholly appropriate:  1930s German racism meets 2020s American racism.  Does anything ever really change?

May 30 was also the first day outdoor demonstrations with social distancing were again permitted in Berlin after our lock down.  Most, but not all, protestors wore masks and we each tried to give the other space.  It was a decent-size gathering, about 2,000 people according to the papers, and the rhetoric was fierce.  The first words out of the mouth of the opening speaker, a black woman, were, “I see there are a lot of white people here today.  Please look around you and make sure you aren’t standing within 1.5 meters of a Black person.  We aren’t going to put any more Black lives at risk here today.”

Amen!

Here are some photos I took at the May 30 protest.  In the first one, you can see Brandenburg Gate on the right in the distance. 

 

Last Saturday, June 7, was the BIG demonstration, or "demo" as the Berliners call them, "Nein zu Rassismus" (No to Racism). It convened in Alexanderplatz, the former East German urban planning showcase of the wonders of Communism.  The 50,000 square meter plaza is now a giant shopping center (Does anything ever really change?) and a transit hub for the S-bahn (there's one of the red and yellow trains below) and Deutsche Bahn regional trains.  

  

According to the police count, there were over 15,000 protesters at the demo. Descent from the S-bahn platform was slow; the escalators were crowded, and there was a sea of people inching toward the several exits.  Once outside the station (above) it got no better.

I  may have seen more tats than masks, but I wore mine, as did most people.  We were packed into Alexanderplatz like thousands of sardines swimming  s l o w l y against each other’s current.  The dress code was black, but the mood was upbeat.  The protesters were polite and peaceful, but their message was unequivocal and uncompromising.  Some had climbed up onto a kiosk to make sure their message was heard.

The police were visible, but they were not intimidating.  Nobody was taking names.  Nobody was a jerk. The protesters weren't throwing bottles, breaking windows, or lighting fires, and the police weren't firing pepper balls, cracking heads open, or cuffing with plastic ties--at least, not while I was there.  According to the press, however, after the demo broke up, Berlin police were required to respond to a series of altercations against officers. Ninety-three people were arrested and 28 police officers were injured, three of whom required hospitalization.  Very glad to have missed that and very sorry that happened.

As I said, during the rally the plaza was really jam packed, and after about a half hour of trying to make my way through the throngs to meet up with a friend, I decided I’d had enough Covid-19 risk for one afternoon and headed back to the S-bahn station.  On the way out of the plaza, I cut through the Galeria Kaufhof department store and went up to the first floor where I knew I could get a better view of the crowd.  Jeez Louise!  It was bigger than Trump's inaugural crowd!  But smaller than Obama's. (Just kidding.)  I took some of these next photos from the ground, some from inside the Kaufhof, and one from the S-bahn platform.  Other photos—the sweeping aerials—come from the local papers.   

Here’s what it looks like when Berlin stands with Black Lives Matter.

 

Going to the protest wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, given that we're in the middle of a pandemic and I'm over 70, but how could I stay home?  Black Americans risk their lives every day by simply leaving the house.  It seemed the least I could do was to stand with them in Berlin.

Keep it real!  Wear your mask!

Marilyn