In Monika Maron's short story Place of Birth: Berlin, she describes her love for the city of Berlin. Monika relives her childhood and youth while traveling through Berlin by train and sees all the places she frequented growing up. Each place has a memory she holds dear, even after the split of Berlin into two cities. Monika Maron was born in West Berlin but moved to East Berlin in 1951 with her stepfather, Karl Maron, who was the GDR Minister of the Interior.
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One of Monika's favorite places in Berlin is Schönhauser Allee, which is Prenzlauer Berg's main shopping area and Berlin's fifth busiest shopping street. As one of Berlin's main radial arteries, it stretches from the Torstrasse and Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz as far as the crossing with Bornholmer Straße / Wisbyer Straße. Many of the boulevards crosstreets have names with Nordic themes as Bornholmer Strasse and Kopenhagener Strasse. The busiest section is from the intersection with the Danziger Straße at U-Bahn station Eberswalder Straße until the next station outwards, Schönhauser Allee.
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The main retail "attraction" is the Schönhauser Allee Arcaden, a medium-sized indoor shopping center located directly besides Schönhauser Allee station. In the Arcaden, there are all the main store chains, but there are many unique stores along the boulevard as well. You'll find everything you need to look in vogue in one of the many stores to choose from.
Below is a video that shows Berlin's Schönhauser Allee
Below is a video that shows Berlin's Schönhauser Allee
The area is one of the more popular places to be, with most of the people here between ages 20-40. In the past few years a lot of Expats have also been moving to this corner of Berlin. Many of them artists, looking for cheaper alternatives to their expensive studios in New York or Berlin. There are a number of cafes, restaurants and bars, with the most famous one being Café Burger, which is on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, right at the beginning of Schönhauser Allee.
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Schönhauser Allee is also home to one of Berlin's oldest Jewish Cemeteries. The consecration of the cemetery took place on June 29, 1827 with the first burial at the cemetery. In the following decades over 20,000 graves and 700 family plots were laid out in the cemetery. The cemetery was closed in 1880 with the opening of the large new cemetery in Weissensee. Thereafter the only burials that took place in the Schönhauser Allee cemetery were in the existing family gravesites; the last was in the 1970s.
Bombing hits during the Second World War destroyed nearly all the cemetery buildings and devastated many burial sites. All that remains of the main portal today are the round-arched side entrance on the right and the double grille of the central entrance. In the entrance area commemorative plaques dating from the 1970s remind visitors of the fate of the cemetery. In 2005, in place of the ceremonial hall which was destroyed during the Second World War, a lapidarium was set up containing 60 gravestones whose original sites could not be ascertained, as well as illustrated charts on Jewish cemetery culture and Jewish mourning rituals.
Bombing hits during the Second World War destroyed nearly all the cemetery buildings and devastated many burial sites. All that remains of the main portal today are the round-arched side entrance on the right and the double grille of the central entrance. In the entrance area commemorative plaques dating from the 1970s remind visitors of the fate of the cemetery. In 2005, in place of the ceremonial hall which was destroyed during the Second World War, a lapidarium was set up containing 60 gravestones whose original sites could not be ascertained, as well as illustrated charts on Jewish cemetery culture and Jewish mourning rituals.
References:
Historic Jewish Cemeteries in Berlin
http://www.schoenhauser-allee-arcaden.de
Historic Jewish Cemeteries in Berlin
http://www.schoenhauser-allee-arcaden.de