Touring the DDR Musuem

World history is "bubbling"(a word that has special significance in my life these days) with all sorts of events. Prosperity followed by a period of war hunger famine and divide. and there is so much of it and so omnipresent(please excuse me God for using this word other than to describe you) that we find it everywhere and IN every persons mind.

So I visited this museum yesterday that depicts life in the former DDR(East Germany). My visit became even better because I went there with someone who had been born and grew up in east Germany.

This is what the entrance looks like( as can be learnt from the quality of the picture, I didn't take this one). My travel companion was quick to remark on the authenticity of everything that we read and came across which made the trip more entertaining. There was talk about how the media the news the newspapers were all censored. How people could only read and hear and even express their opinion if it conformed with the tenants of socialism. 

Interestingly my travel companion, for reasons I can only conjecture, was somewhat aggrieved to see what they had made out of the life of the DDR. The person remembered things differently than what had been portrayed. We both agreed that this museum was from the side of the victor and didnt therefore depict reality in any way. 

This however was a picture I took inside. It depicts the role of the Army in the DDR. Important point to note here is the army there did what the army does everywhere.and lest I create a political furore I will not write what that is here(The DDR has effected me maybe)

I have always thought that history is to people as stamps are to a stamp collector. A memorabilia, priceless for the collector but useless for everyone else. I don't think the unfolding of events can be any different even if we learn from history.