“Blessed are the dead for their hands do not freeze…” (Kris Kotarski, Berlin, May 2009)

Layers upon layers of history coexist in the Reichstag, which has been home to the German Parliament since 1999.

Some coexist gracefully—for example, Norman Foster’s glass dome is a beautiful and unabashedly modern addition to the original 1882 design. Others, such as the Soviet graffiti still found inside the building, continue to cause friction (I promise a photograph sometime soon). Such is the fate of the building that once played such an important role in Hitler’s rise, and which remains a powerful symbol of German reunification.

I took the photo earlier this month when my cousin from Warsaw visited Berlin, and we both smiled at the fact that those layers of history are not so easy to figure out sometimes, even for us.

“Should we tell our grandparents that we stood on the roof on the German Parliament?” he asked.

“They probably won’t mind,” I answered.

“But should we tell them we were sightseeing?”