Photo Gallery The First Lady in Berlin
Michelle Obama and her daughters, Malia and Sasha, are also traveling with the president during his state visit to Berlin. As Barack Obama met with German leaders, the first lady took her own tour of Berlin. Her first stop took her to Berlin's official Holocaust Memorial in the city center.
The president's daughters, Malia (in front) and Sasha, accompanied their mother to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is located just a stone's throw from the Brandenburg Gate, where their father will deliver a speech before 4,000 invited guests on Wednesday afternoon.
Auma Obama (left), Barack Obama's half sister, has also traveled to Berlin to meet the family. She visited the Holocaust memorial together with Michelle Obama and her daughters. Auma Obama studied in Germany, but she has since moved back to her home country of Kenya.
Michelle Obama's motorcade drives through Checkpoint Charlie, a former border crossing between East and West Germany.
There, she viewed the Berlin Wall panorama painting by artist Yadegar Asisi. The panorama painting is 15 meters (49 feet) high and 60 meters (196) wide.
The first lady and her guests were then taken to the Berlin Wall Memorial on Berlin's Bernauer Strasse, one of the last remaining stretches of the former East-West border. The wall divided the city for decades during the Cold War. Obama was accompanied to the memorial by Chancellor Angela Merkel's husband, Joachim Sauer (third from right). Typically, the itinerary set up for the spouses of world leaders is called the "ladies program" in Germany. Given that country's leader is a married woman, however, it now has a more contemporary moniker: the "partner program".
Gold roses for the victims of the Wall: East Germany's "anti-capitalist protective wall" once ran along Bernauer Strasse in Berlin. The doors and windows of houses lining the street were walled in one by one. Some residents succeeded in fleeing across the wall, but many died trying.
During state visits, Obama's daughters are often provided with history lessons as they visit new places. Twelve-year-old Sasha also left a flower in the wall to commerate the victims.
Here, the director of the Berlin Wall Memorial can be seen showing historical images of the Wall that were prepared for the first lady and her family.
