There was a cabaret and there was a master of ceremonies. And there was a city called Berlin in a country called Germany. It was the end of the world and I was dancing with Sally Bowles. And we were both fast asleep…
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Fremde, etranger, stranger.
Gluklich zu sehen, je suis enchante,
Happy to see you, bleibe, reste, stay.
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret!
As we sat on the train leaving Berlin for Warsaw, the end of Cabaret played and replayed itself in my mind. In the musical, Cliff, an American writer who has been staying in Berlin, is on the train leaving the city as the Emcee begins this song: the last song of the show. He had been staying with a cabaret dancer (Sally Bowles) and had been brought into her world, as the world around them was slowly becoming Nazi Germany. He had come to Berlin for inspiration and had left shaken and disappointed at what he had seen and experienced. He was heading west toward his home in America. We were heading further east to continue our journey.
Why was this song casting dark shadows over my mind, not allowing any other thoughts to enter? What is the connection I’m not seeing? Unlike Cliff, I hadn’t been disappointed by Berlin. In fact, I had found the city interesting and enticing. There is so much history, the most recent of which is still visible. I touched deep grooves of bullet holes from WWII in the walls and columns of museums. I walked through a synagogue that has only been partially restored after its destruction during Krystalnacht. I stood on the same steps Hitler stood on to deliver his most memorable diatribes. I walked freely by a recreation of Checkpoint Charlie, which maintains the now invisible barrier between east and west. I followed a brick line that runs through the city, showing where the wall once was. I stood under the Brandenburg Gate, walked through Tiergarten Park, and saw the Russian Embassy and TV Tower. I read plaques all over the city telling me what had taken place or stood there before, a history I could not see.
But it’s more than just that. It’s what the city is today. There are hippies and goth kids and skaters and trendsetters and businessmen and families and tourists. There is an underground art scene, a modern art scene, and museums filled with the classics. There are relaxed bars and there are clubs that play techno until dawn breaks and hipsters stumble home to sleep it off. There’s Versace to the west and thrift stores to the east. There are so many people who, on the outside at least, are very different but all seem to live together peacefully. A city of contradictions trying to pull itself together after nearly eighty years of divisions, whether by religion, political belief, or physical barrier. That is what I saw in Berlin. And most importantly, I saw a city that is trying to move forward, but not forget where it has come from. The city doesn’t shy from its past, but displays it (though not proudly) as if to say: ‘Yes, that was us and we know what the problems were and how they spread themselves throughout Europe and the world. We know what evil came from our city and then back to it in the form of a wall. We know all that but we are trying to change. We are determined to be better.’
And they already are. The people of Berlin are working toward accepting differences, the exact opposite of what happened when the Third Reich came to power and determined the people of Berlin’s fate for the next eighty years and counting.
So if I felt happy being in Berlin and saw the basis of change, why was this song plaguing me? It can’t be as simple as we were both on a train leaving Berlin. What then? There was no cabaret, no master of ceremonies, and I don’t know a Sally Bowles. So it must be the feeling that I share with Cliff. Berlin is like a dream. It is. Because just below that buzzing metropolis and the people passing by each other on the street, civilly moving out of the other’s way or helping a mother get her stroller on a train, there is that feeling. It’s difficult to explain, but Cliff must have felt it too. It’s like I saw what was there, happening in front of me, but I wasn’t seeing the whole picture. There is a tension at the worst and a false euphoria at the best and they seem to be pulling at each other, not sure which way to go.
Neo-Nazis still meet and there are anti-Semetic sentiments. I know because a woman at a peace rally in Frankfurt told us so. ‘Look for any man with a shaved head and black combat boots laced with white laces,’ we were told. I saw a man like that in Berlin, but could it really be? And that man waiting for the UBahn over there; he looks to be about 80 years old. That would mean he was born in 1930. If he was born and raised in Berlin, which side was he on? And what has he taught his children and grandchildren? There’s a possibility he immigrated to Berlin after the war or that he was someone whose family quietly assisted Jews to leave the area for safety. But there’s another, much scarier possibility. And I can’t let that thought escape me. Or maybe it just won’t leave. I’m not sure.
And that brick lane running through the heart of Berlin, reminding everyone where the city once stood divided. If you take the SBahn further east, you can still feel the wall. There or not, the division remains. The eastern side of Berlin is a quieter area. There is more graffiti on the storefronts. The sidewalks narrow and become uneven. It is almost solemn, as if they aren’t quite sure that communist rule is really gone. It was only 21 years ago. Change takes longer than that.
The western side of Berlin has capitalism bursting from every corner. It’s loud; it’s alive at all hours. It seems to revel in its capitalist beginnings. But the historical plaques I mentioned earlier are conspicuously placed. It’s a city willing positive changes or at least trying to show visitors how much effort it has put in. On the one hand, it has become better. But a place only changes with its people and its hard to know what they were raised to believe. It’s almost as if Berlin is a scolded child trying to prove to its parents that it will behave this time.
So I was sitting on the train leaving Berlin with this conflicted feeling not leaving me. And I think Cliff felt it to. He was living a cabaret lifestyle with the beginnings of religious persecution heading towards its apex and a world war at hand. My experience wasn’t quite as extreme or overt, but it remains. Berlin is a city steeped in controversial feelings. Beauty, light, progression, ugliness, hatred, regression. It’s all there, so I left the city feeling like I was in a dream, not sure where to look or when I’d wake up and know what is true and what was only in my sleeping mind. I suppose I will embrace the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing which way is up in the future, when the full understanding of a city like this sets in. But for now I’ll stay in the dream and try to find the good and skirt the evil.
After all, it’s the controversy and conflict that will eventually lead to the truth. If only I could figure it all out.
And the Emcee keeps taunting me: Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome…
Until tomorrow and the new adventure…
Rachel
