In lovely September weather, I thought I would go for a quick walk in the area before the Sunday hordes of morons, acting like Corona never was, hit the streets.
One of the many new buildings around what used to be the original location of the retail flower market in Berlin, and also once of the Berlin Observatory where Neptune was discovered, between the Jewish Museum and the southern end of Friedrichstraße, is Frizz23, a “cultural co-ownership project”, with, among other places of interest Café Nullpunkt, serving delicious vegetarian and vegan food and aiming for zero waste, and Bolsos, a shop selling hand-made bags made of recyclable material.
Also in the area is the location of one of the early concentration camps – the ”Gutschow-Keller”.
The warehouse with a basement in the second courtyard of the building Friedrichstraße 234 was owned by the greengrocers Hermann and Paul Gutschow who also owned the imposing building in Wilheminian style across the street in Friedrichstraße 17.
Already in 1932, the Gutschows placed their warehouse and basement at the disposal of the ”SA-Sturmbann III/8″.
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 democrates and Jews were seized in their homes, at their places of work and in the street and abducted to this place and interrogated, humiliated and tortured.
As these torture chambers of the SA were placed in a large tenement block, the screams could be heard from the street and the neighbourhood knew about the imprisonment, maltreatment and torture.
I have, as yet, been unable to find out what happened to the prisoners subsequently. One might suspect that they were transferred to larger concentration camps and killed.
The relatively new urban garden, next to the equally relatively new TAZ Building, is coming along nicely. There is also a Sprachcafé and a DIY bike repair shop:
Hand-made shoes:
Back towards Lindenstraße, in the building to the right of the Blumenthal Academy is another new café, a branch of the bio bakery and café Beumer & Lutum. And finally, a photo of “Neighbours from Hell” as seen from the street.
