Berlin - tale of two banhofs

I was in Berlin two weeks ago. I know, you are saying to yourself, “Again? I have heard about Berlin already. Go somewhere else in Germany, will you?” Ok, maybe you aren’t saying that but there was a reason for my trip. One of my oldest friends, Giulia, was there from Hollywood, trying to sell movies during the Berlin film festival. I went to visit during her first couple of days in town. Kaska came along.

I have written about Berlin before, and the movie business is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. The only Hollywood news I really appreciated was learning about of the films Giulia is selling. It’s called “Zombeavers”. As you may have guessed from the title, it’s about beavers who turn into zombies and attack teenagers staying at a cabin in the woods. If that’s not an Oscar contender I don’t know what is. So, Zombeavers aside, I will write about two banhofs we got to know a little while in Berlin (a banhof is a train station).

 

The first is the Hamburger Banhof. No, it’s not a new concept in fast food. In fact, there are no burgers there at all (I can just imagine a caboose rolling by, full of quarter pounders). It’s an old train station that is now converted into a modern art museum. I don’t always like modern art or understand it as well as I think I should, but I enjoyed this place. There was a lot of imaginative stuff that made me think a little and also made me smile. My favorite was a video showing a woman who is training ducks to pull a spaceship to the moon. They were hiking around on mountains in space suits.  The museum is housed in a huge old train station. Most of the exhibits are on former platforms where passengers would board trains headed for Hamburg in the 1800s. There’s a huge main hall that would be the perfect place for a masquerade ball. And in the garages, where trains would be repaired or stored or dismantled for parts, are massive works of modern art. Things like spray-painted trees lying on the floor and entire creepy black rooms are housed here. They wouldn’t fit anywhere else.

The Hamburger Banhof

Giulia and Warhol

I only found the other station because it was around the corner from our hotel. It’s the Anhalter Banhof, or it was once. Now there’s just a façade remaining, just a grand doorway that leads to nowhere. This banhof was a hub for trains heading to places like Vienna, Prague and Rome. But it’s more memorable as the place where the Germans elderly Jews were deported during the early years of WWII. They left in small numbers, 50 to 100 per day, a few days every week. They traveled in passenger cars attached to regular trains and arrived at regular stations, only to be sent on to concentration camps.

There’s a new museum being built across the street – Berlin probably has as many museums as Washington DC, or more. It’s a museum about deportees, refugees and displaced people.

Anhalter Banhof - the facade still stands

It’s funny to think of what happens to a train station that no longer serves a purpose. These two went in opposite directions – one is reincarnated and more contemporary than ever, and one is just a shell, a monument to all the people who left. 

So far, neither is selling burgers and fries.