Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TOP SIGHT
DDR MUSEUM
How did regular East German Joes and Janes spend their day-to-day lives? The
'touchy-feely' DDR Museum does an entertaining job of pulling back the iron curtain
on an extinct society. In hands-on fashion you'll learn how, under socialism, kids were
put through collective potty training, engineers earned little more than farmers, and
everyone, it seems, went on nudist holidays. You get to rummage through schoolbags,
open drawers and cupboards or watch TV in a 1970s living room. And it's not only kids
who love squeezing behind the wheel of a Trabant (Trabi) car for a virtual drive
through a concrete-slab housing estate.
The more sinister sides of life in the GDR are also addressed, including chronic sup-
ply shortages, surveillance by the Stasi (secret police) and the SED party power
monopoly. You can stand in a recreated prison cell or imagine what it was like to be in
the cross hairs of a Stasi officer by sitting on the victim's chair in a tiny, windowless in-
terrogation room.
For a taste of the GDR, drop by the museum restaurant to try a
Grilletta, Ketwurst
or
Broiler,
as burgers, hot dogs and grilled chicken were called in East Germany.
