Kittens

The Beelitz Military Hospital was built in the late 1890’s for the recuperation of injured soldiers. It was built in four sections that included hydrotherapy, surgery, psychiatric care and a rifle range. After WWII it was taken over by the Soviet Army as it fell on the Eastern side of Berlin and Germany. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the hospital was slowly closed down with the last Soviet military patient leaving in 1995. Recently some of the buildings have been renovated for new use: a large block is now a long-term care facility for people suffering from Parkinsons and comas, another small block is now a hotel, and a former gate house is now an ice cream parlour, with more redevelopment on the way.

This is my favorite photo. Not only is it beautiful, and not only does it feature kittens, it’s wrought with unanswerable questions. Like, why did someone smash through the wall in a place where a door should have been? And why did a military hospital with no children’s ward have a mural of cats and butterflies? It’s not particularly German or Soviet in style but it’s definitely not graffiti. There’s no reason it should be there, yet there it is.