Just numbers. (Kris Kotarski, Warszawa, May 2009)

Spiegel probably summed it up best: “War memorials are meant to honor the dead — not lead to more of them.”

Yet, two years ago, when the Estonian government decided to remove a Soviet war memorial from the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery on the outskirts of the capital, that is exactly what happened. The protestors turned violent, a man was stabbed, and the World War II casualty list ticked up one more time.

Some, especially in western Europe, were surprised by the ferocity of the reaction. For those east of what once was the Iron Curtain, such moments are not surprising at all.

A couple of days ago, I read Boris Dolgin’s OpenDemocracy essay grappling with the politics and motives behind such outbursts. The photo represents my personal views on the matter.

It’s a headstone at the Soviet war memorial in Warsaw, a city where the Red Army stood on the sidelines as the Germans brutally put down an uprising in 1944. For that reason (and the ensuing Soviet dominance which lasted until 1989) some see such sites as a historical affront to Poland’s historical memory.

Me? I see it as fitting testament to the treatment of human beings by Stalin’s regime. #519… no age, rank, or explanation. No mother, father, brother or sister. A single red star is all that is left of him, while his commanders and their successors argue about how to best claim credit in his name…

“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?”