Berlin Day 3. September 26

The Third Reich walking tour was first on the agenda today.  After our next door coffee shop breakfast and Internet check in, we made our way to the zoo subway stop to meet the group. Our guide, Kevin from Manchester UK, armed with a Phd in history and a thesis on fascism proved to be an excellent professor of the subject.  He took us from the early rise of discontent among the WWII vets to the Cold War, walking past the many sites such as the place of Hitter's underground bunker, the various Nazi ministry buildings, East German sites, and the Museum of Terror. A few blocks away we viewed Checkpoint Charlie, now a garish tourist site. after a soup stop, even though we were thoroughly spent at the end of an emotionally difficult day, we walked a few miles to our hotel.

The highlight of the trip so far was going to Simhat Torah services at the New Synagogue. A small room is the sanctuary to this eclectic collection of Jews, many Israeli as far as I could tell. They had some prayer books in English (conservative) . The Rabbi is a cheerful, enthusiastic 40ish woman and the cantor a middle aged man with a lively step and pleasant voice.  The hakafot (parades around the room carrying the Torah) were crowded and fun, with children, teenagers, and parents carrying kids on shoulders. After the 4th circle, the candy throwing began and the adults enjoyed throwing as much as the children loved collecting.  At the  brief gathering afterwords, we met a German college student who was a counselor at Wisconsin Camp Ramah this summer.  This experience was the perfect antidote

to a taxing day of contemplating the overwhelming evil that happened here.