Bullet Holes

I had a strange experience walking home tonight. I went to dinner with my dad and walking home took Hessische Strasse, the long way home through the Charite Hospital which laid it's first stones in 1750. There is a large brick wall following the curving the street, encompassing the older parts of the hospital.

It is full of bullet holes.

This was not the first time I have seen bullet holes in Berlin. I think all those other times it did not hit me as hard as this evening. There I was alone and stood there pausing every ten minutes to touch the chipped brick, tracing my pointer finger along the rounded end of where a bullet had once hit over fifty years ago. The drizzle turned into a rain and as usual without an umbrella, my hair became wet and my shoes soaked. I stood there and envisioned the exact spot during World War II, imagining the screaming, gunshots and rubble that once stood in the now almost perfect German cobble stoned street. I could smell the gunpowder and sweat, but probably not as strong as they did then.

It is quite an accomplishment what this city has done since then and I am so grateful I got to live in such a place, full of so many facets it could never be duplicated.