Memory in Berlin: a short walk

Extract

Last October I moved to Southampton, ‘City of the Titanic’ – what a strange way to advertise a place. The memory of the sunken ship is still very much alive. I did keep my apartment in Berlin, though, and from time to time I manage to spend a couple of days there. From a distance, the city looks and feels different. When I go shopping in my favourite market hall or for a latte macchiato in Café Atlantic, I try not to step on the stones laid in the ground beside the normal cobblestones. They are of the same size, but painted in something golden; they glitter in the sun and bear an inscription such as ‘Hier wohnte Alfred Hohenstein, Jg. 1920. Deportiert am 10.05.41 Auschwitz’.