Berlin and I Have Changed

"I spent my 50th birthday in Berlin because I wanted to be in a city that had changed as much as I had."

Jude's passion for Berlin spans four decades: her first visit to the divided city was during a Fulbright-sponsored study at the Universität Hamburg in the 70s. Solo visits to East Berlin through the infamous Tränenpalast ("Palace of Tears") at Friedrichstrasse Station followed. She visited Berlin yearly, staying in a pension in the home of an older survivor of the WWII bombing of Berlin, and was in East Berlin just days before the fall of the Wall. She spends her visits wandering the chaotic reunited city, exploring mysteriously abandoned locales, and making numerous visits to the luminous new capital of Germany.