Reminded of the past, and to not repeat it
⭐️ a blog post

In Berlin I am confronted with reminders of the city’s every single day. Every time I walk outside I see a memorial or reminder of dreadful things, it’s normal, these reminders are ever present.

Earlier this year I was walking around, admiring some wonderful murals…

Screenshot of the GitHub Actions bot timeline entry for a deployment

…when I learned about something I didn’t know before. One of these buildings had an informational sign about it. I took a photo of the sign, but this copy on Wikimedia is more clear than my photo:

Historical sign about the Gutschow-Keller — The sign reads: ‘The early concentration camp “Gutschow-Keller” was located here.’

The greengrocers Hermann and Paul Gutschow owned the imposing building in Wilhelminian style in Friedrichstraße 17 on the opposite side of the street. Already in 1932, they placed their warehouse and basement at the disposal of the “SA-Sturmbann Ill/8”. These rooms were located here in the second courtyard of the building in Friedrichstraße 234.
From. March to May 1933, the place was one of the first concentration camps in Berlin. Prisoners called it “Blutburg” (castle of blood). Hundreds of trade unionists, communists, social democrats and Jews were seized in their homes, at their places of work and in the middle of the street and were then abducted to this place. Interrogations, torture and humiliation followed - often for days on end.
As these torture chambers of the SA were placed in a large tenement block, the neighbourhood knew about the imprisonment and maltreatment, for the screams of the prisoners could still be heard on the street.

People were rounded up, detained, and tortured. The neighbors here saw them, could hear their screams, and they did nothing.

This reminder is here in this neighborhood because this really happened, and it could happen again.

And it wasn’t a big, flashy production by “evil people” the way most people probably imagine the history was here in Berlin. These were normal people, it was boring, it was methodical, they were instructed to do it, and it relied on everyone to just follow orders and/or just let it happen.

These reminders are everywhere here in Berlin because these things really happened, and they could happen again.