While living in Germany in 2008, Mehretu grew increasingly critical of American foreign policy, particularly the Iraq War and the War on Terror. In Berlin, she was surrounded by visible scars of the Holocaust and the Cold War, which pushed her to question her role as an American who opposed the war but nonetheless felt responsible for the terrors afflicted on Iraqi civilians and spaces. Seeking to develop a counternarrative, Mehretu began to incorporate techniques of erasure, opacity, and overwriting into her art practice. In Berliner Plätze, drawings of buildings mostly eradicated by bombings during World War II form a hazy gray field.