Earlier today we paid a visit to the area of Berlin that sits next to the Grunewald forest on the western edge of the city. This area is home to Germany’s movie stars, TV celebrities and bankers – there are lots of huge gated mansions around – you can think of it as being similar to the Bishops Avenue in Hampstead I suppose…
Ostensibly we were here to have a meal at Floh, the little restaurant and bar next to the Grunewald S-Bahn station run by Wolfgang and his staff, who is a family friend (it’s a nice little place for a meal by the way, and you could find yourself rubbing shoulders with the German glitterati if you visit) but we went just around the corner to pay a respectful visit to something else close by…
On Platform 17 of the Grunewald station you’ll find the memorial dedicated to the deported Jews who left this spot for the concentration camps before and during the Second World War. Along the platform edges there are 186 steel grills which indicate the numbers of people who were loaded onto cattle trucks here, and the dates on which they were sent to their deaths. It’s a very sobering sight indeed…