The Relaxing Relexa and the Topography of Terror

The RIAS home base for our week in Berlin is the Relexa Hotel, a quiet businesslike hotel on the Anhalter Strasse. My room looks out on a charming mural and a blue patch of sky. It's near the ruined remains of the once-giant Anhalter Bahnhof or train station. The modern S-train station is underground and the former depot is now a sports complex. Creeper ruins are across the street from the hotel: an exhibit call the Topography of Terror marks the former location of the SS and Gestapo headquarters. It's a double dose of tyranny because the former prison cells of the SS are displayed underneath one of the few remaining portions of the Berlin Wall.
I had visited the exhibit when it was under construction in 2001. At that time, many photos from the Holocaust and photocopies of the chilling official records were displayed in the former prison cells, covered by a ramshackle wooden roof. I remember feeling trapped and homeless as I walked deeper into the partially finished exhibit on an overcast day. Now, it is an oddly sanitized experienced to walk past the cleaned-up remains of the tiled cell walls, with the photos and documents now displayed in a pristine interpretation center on the property, very informative but a much less moving experience.