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secondCommon crawl en Fisher is in the Kurfürstendamm desert, the leaves are gathering on the trail. It’s November 8. The sun shines on this cold Sunday, a day before the Reichspogromnacht celebrated 83 years ago. In the worst attack on Jewish life in Germany since the Middle Ages, an estimated 1,500 Jews were killed and thousands of synagogues burned down. As a reminder, the 37-year-old Israeli fisherman, who has lived in Berlin for five years, offers this special tour of the city. “I will start directly with the days leading up to the pogroms, and as we walk, I will tell you more about the history of the Jews in Germany,” he says in English, walking towards the old synagogue on Fasanenstrasse. About two hundred people are watching it, they are not there, but they are live.
At the moment, the world can only be discovered from the couch, and what sounds like a grim new reality sometimes reveals unexpected possibilities. Interest in Berlin city guide Ben Fisher’s commemorative tour was always high, up to three hundred participants signed up in recent years. Meanwhile, the video of his first virtual tour has seen nearly 6,000 people from the United States, Israel and Brandenburg. The tour does what historians have been demanding for years: a digital form of memory culture. Anyone who follows Fisher on his hour-long tour knows Berlin from a Jewish perspective and is surprised to find that even if the virtual journey does not provide any sensory impressions, the acquired knowledge reaches the couch.
Discover Iran from home
Before Ben Fisher came to Berlin, Germany was the forbidden country for him, as he writes about himself on the website of the Berlin City Guide Alliance. “Today I think the city is the most exciting place of all,” he says in an interview via video call a few days after the tour. Like his colleagues, he has been without income for months. Therefore, offering city tours online was not an option for him until recently. It was only the second confinement that forced him to improvise, and a commemorative tour has already been planned. “I’m overwhelmed by the answer and I have to deal with it first,” says Fisher, wondering what he can learn from his first try. “Maybe you need a connection to education to get people excited about it. Classic tourism, on the other hand, doesn’t work online. “
With the selfie stick through Shiraz with Mr. Persépolis
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Image: screenshot
It is essential for any unwanted change that it takes time to find the advantages in the myriad of disadvantages. Even before the pandemic, tourism seemed to be reaching its limits: low-cost airlines, overtourism, the climate debate. Now that everyone’s freedom of movement is severely restricted, goals that were barely achievable before the pandemic are within reach. In Shiraz in Iran, for example, a young tour guide offers virtual tours. Peyman Soodmand is 27 and used to bring backpackers to his hometown. Now walk alone with your selfie stick in hand through the center of Shiraz, from the historic bazaar to the recently renovated Karim Khan citadel, which is almost a thousand years old. “For decades, Iran was an isolated and closed country,” Peyman writes on his website mrpersepolis.com, and does not address the consequences of travel restrictions associated with the coronavirus. “Thanks to new technologies, you can now discover the country from the comfort of your home.”
