The Russian War Memorial is in the old Russian or "East Sector" of Berlin. This memorial commemorates the Russian soldiers who fought and died in WW2. Even though the Russians ended up on what we consider the wrong side, this memorial went a long way toward reminding me that they were also fighting for their homeland.

Those markers along the side have friezes of different scenes of soldiers and people reacting to the war. They are identical except that they are in Russian on one side and German on the other. This is the view from the far end of the memorial park, from in front of the pedestal of the soldier statue that crowns this memorial park.

This statue is one of the pair that sit in front of those tall triangles that you see in the picture above. This is at the entrance to the memorial park.

This is a section of the incredible mosaic inside the pedestal of the soldier statue at end of the park.

This is the soldier statue that is the main focal point of the memorial. He holds a baby in one arm and a sword in the other. The look on his face is determined, as if he would lay down his life to protect the child he carries. This is the statue my mother said was how she thought of her father as a soldier. My Opi, her father, was in the German army. My dad's father was in the American army and spent most of WW2 in the thick of things in France.

The scenery around the memorial