The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
~ Italo Calvino
I touched a piece of the Berlin Wall. I was a kid when it went up but I have some recollection of the drama involved. I've touched Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey and various old buildings in Freiburg. I'm not sure what I'm expecting, that the stone will talk to me perhaps, tell me its secrets. That it will say 'things happened here. History is real.'
I touched a piece of the building where the Wannsee Conference was held. On January 20, 1942, 15 German officials met at a house in a suburb of Berlin to plan the Final Solution, the destruction of the Jews of Europe. After walking through the exhibit for nearly 2 hours, I whispered, 'how could this happen?' The wall had no answer for me.
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