Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Zimmermeister Brunzel
Dunckerstr. 77 • Mon, Tues & Thurs-Sat 11am-4.30pm • €2 •
T
030 445 23 21,
W
ausstellung-dunckerstrasse.de • S-Prenzlauer Allee
hough it sits today on a leafy, very middle-class street, the apartment block of
Zimmermeister Brunzel
was once one of hundreds of
Mietskasernen
, or tenement flats,
that sprouted in districts like Prenzlauer Berg to house workers in the 1890s. Virtually
all followed standardized plans that were loosely based on the traditional Berlin
courtyard layout of places like the
Hackescher Höfe
(see p.12). he smartest flats
faced the street, while the dowdiest were tucked away on the top floors above the rear
courtyard. All were pretty basic, with lavatories on the common landings. Much of this
world was lost in the war and following generations of home improvements, but one
apartment has been well preserved and reconstructed to help provide, along with
Museum Pankow (see p.140), a rare social history of Berlin.
Inhabited until the 1990s, this particular flat had seen few renovations, making it an
ideal candidate for restoration and careful furnishing to recreate the past. Short tours
reveal a kitchen with an ice-powered fridge; a muted brown decor that minimized the
impact of singeing from gas-powered lanterns; and a cupboard above the front door
designed as a bedroom for the maid. Wall displays in German (some English
translations are available) explain how, despite the basic conditions, such apartments
denoted a certain social standing, with only master craftsmen and the like able to afford
them. Less skilled workers slept in poor houses or became
Trockenwohner
, temporary
tenants who rented digs in new damp new apartment blocks for the period they were
considered too wet to be properly habitable.
8
Jüdischer Friedhof Weissensee
Herbert-Baum-Str. 45 • April-Oct Sun-Thurs 7.30am-5pm, Fri 7.30am-2.30pm; Nov-March Sun-Thurs 7.30am-4pm, Fri 7.30am-
2.30pm; male visitors should keep their heads covered, skullcaps loaned free at the cemetery o
ce, to the right of the entrance • U-Bahn
Greifswalder Strasse or tram #M4 to Albertinenstr.
he
Jüdischer Friedhof Weissensee
lies at the end of Herbert-Baum-Strasse, ten
minutes south of Berliner Allee. Opened in 1880, when the Schönhauser Allee
cemetery had finally been filled, it became Europe's largest Jewish cemetery - its
115,600 graves spreading over the equivalent of 86 football pitches.
Immediately in front of the entrance, a poignant memorial “to our murdered brothers
and sisters 1933-45” from Berlin's Jewish community takes the form of a circle of
tablets bearing the names of all the large concentration camps.
Beyond here are the cemetery administration buildings (where information is
available), with the cemetery itself stretching back from the entrance for about 1km: row
upon row of headstones, with the occasional extravagant family monument including
some Art Nouveau graves and mausoleums designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and
Walter Gropius (the grave of Albert Mendel). More moving are the four hundred urns
containing the ashes of concentration camp victims (Lot G7), and the headstones on
the hollow graves of those whose remains were never found or identified. A handful of
well-tended postwar graves near the administration buildings are, paradoxically, symbols
of survival - witness to the fact that a few thousand Berlin Jews did escape the
Holocaust and that the city still has a small Jewish community (see pp.80-81).
Schönhauser Allee and around
From Senefelder Platz U-Bahn the uphill walk along
Schönhauser Allee
soon arrives at
Senefelderplatz
, previously known as Pfefferberg (Pepper Hill), but later renamed after
the inventor of the lithographic process. A statue of Alois Senefelder stands on the square,
with his name appearing on the base in mirror script, as though on a lithographic block.
he name
Pfefferberg
, incidentally, is still in use, and applies to a former factory complex
just below Senefelderplatz that features an arts centre and
Biergarten
(see p.202).
