Jessie Regunberg's

Berlin Journal 

Week 1

 

 

March 9, 2008

 

 

I’m surprised that it doesn’t feel weird to be here in Germany.  In third grade we had an assignment to interview someone.  I chose my grandfather.  I knew that he was born in Germany but had to leave…that’s why all my friends would tell me he has a funny accent.  I've never been able to hear it.  In third grade I was introduced to European Jewry’s tragic and recent history.  I never wanted to “return” to Germany.  In fact, when I was younger and the world was more black and white to me, I promised myself that I never would. 

 

Yet, here I am.  I thought I would feel profoundly different the moment I touched down on German soil.  I was expecting to feel something.  Sad?  Repulsed? Guilty?  But I felt nothing besides the jolt of the plane landing on the runway.  I could have been landing anywhere.

 After schlepping our luggage up five flights of stairs to our cozy hotel, we took a walk around our neighborhood.   We ate our first German meal in a delightful cafe, and I had the best sandwich of my life--simple and perfect.  The bread! The meat!  Oh, I miss Berlin!  After seeing the street-sign memorial, some of us went to the church next to the Kaiser Wilhem Memorial Church.  This old church has been left in ruins as a memorial to war—inside it is still beautiful and has the most incredible tiled ceiling.  But the new church right next door is beautiful in an even more unique way.  When you walk into the building you definitely know you are somewhere sacred and special.  It was peaceful inside and the stained glass was unlike any I’ve ever seen before.  Maria explained that this is a church devoted to peace.  Along the wall are gifts that former enemy countries have given to Germany, to this church, as a symbol of peace and a gesture toward a better future.

 

 

 March 10, 2008

 

I am surprised that I am not constantly reminded of the Nazis.  I had such a skewed perception of the German language—I only ever heard Nazis speaking (or barking) at Jews in the movies.  My grandpa never even spoke it in front of me.  But it is such a wonderful language!  Already I can understand all the German writers and intellectuals who can only produce art in their mother tongue.  For the first time I am really able to see how language carries culture. 

 

Reichstag:

 

Transparency is the main theme in the government buildings.  All of these modern structures utilize a huge amount of glass and windows.  I admire this symbolism—I wish it were this way in the U.S.

It was a bit shocking to see the words “Dem Deuchen Volke” so large and on the capital building.  It is a bit unsettling even though we are told that it was put there only after much debate and because the font was designed by a Jew.   Every so, often I hear or see a word that I am familiar with only through the Nazis.  Volk is one of these words.  So is verboten, furher, juden…

 

At the top of the Reichstag, underneath the dome looking out at the city, I truly felt that I could feel democracy.  I know how ridiculous this sounds, but something about the architecture and the space just works perfectly.  All this modern architecture just makes sense.  Berlin seems to be very much about the future.  There are so many women security guards—Germany displays such a different persona than I would have expected!

 

Walking down Unter den Linden I really understood how every place in the city has a layered history.  This is such a vibrant, interesting place because next to a 200-year-old building will be a modern building.  All the juxtapositions of architecture make it difficult to forget the history of the city—you never forgot that the new buildings have only just been built to recover a city that was almost destroyed at the end of the war.

 

The Jewish Museum:

There is something about this architectural tour that makes me extremely uncomfortable.  The tour guide seems much too rational.  Everything she says is so intellectual and matter of fact.  This is the first time I’ve ever felt that perhaps art after the Holocaust is wrong—at least disrespectful.  She keeps talking and I don’t have time to process anything.  The Holocaust architecture is definitely working to conjure of some pretty profound feelings in me.  Mostly I’m angry and uncomfortable.  

 

I do not like this museum.  Some of this over-intellectualization and postmodern thinking is crap.  I’m sorry, but in the salvation stairway, or whatever Susanna called it, a small cross-shaped window is going to conjure up images of Christ and Christianity, even if that’s not what the architect meant.  Who cares about the architects grand ideas?  To a normal person, seeing a cross in an already religiously-charged space is going to stir up specific connotations. 

 

I do NOT feel okay about walking on these faces.  When the tour guide told us to walk on them I was very hesitant, but I felt forced in a way…everyone else seemed to have no problem with it.  I tried, but I had to turn around.  It is wrong to walk on the faces of representations of Holocaust victims—even for the symbolic sounds it makes.  Messed up. 

 

Finally we are able to walk around the museum ourselves.   I thought it was very purposefully supposed to be a space devoted to the history of German Jewish life.  Why, then, are the exhibits trapped inside of this Holocaust architecture?

March 11, 2008

 

 

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe:

 

I did not have any sort of strong reaction to this memorial.  I think Frau Hoehn’s explanations about the meaning behind the architecture were more moving than actually physically being there.  I never thought I’d be one to question whether abstract art can/should deal with the Holocaust.  But something does seem to be missing.  I guess, though, it is more of a reminder of the history than a memorial for the murdered individuals.  In this way I think it functions well.  And yet, when this reminder becomes so much a part of every day life that people no longer think about what it is supposed to be reminding them of, doesn’t it lose its purpose? 

 

Underneath the memorial is more meaningful to me.  And, the way that it integrates the architecture from the monument above makes the stones more meaningful for me too.   This is really a space for the victims.  For the people who once lived.  For me, the fact that the stories of the dead are told underground, under the stones, is very effective.  In a way it gives them the burial that they never received.  Jews don’t believe in an afterlife, but the idea that you live on in memory and through stories is an integral part of Judaism.  The victims represented in this museum often have no one to tell their stories.  In this way the museum gives them voice and a sort of Jewish “afterlife.” And, the Holocaust memorial is rooted in German soil—the stones continue underground as the Holocaust began in Germany. 

 

For some reason I feel embarrassed that I am crying, so I try as hard as I can to hide it.  The space uses multimedia very effectively.  I like that it allows you to focus in on individual stories, and yet realize that there are millions more like it.  The room with the individual families is surrounded by the names of different villages and the numbers of people deported from each village.  The numbers really are incomprehensible.

 

The Neue Synagogue:

 

This synagogue must have been so beautiful.  I like that it is not completely renovated—one is supposed to feel frustrated that one can’t see the whole thing.  That is what war does.  It destroys all that is beautiful. 

 

It’s interesting to me how focused we are on how integrated and important the German Jews were.  As if their assimilation and prosperity and contributions to society are what legitimizes that the Nazis did a terrible thing.  We focus less on the fact that they are humans, plain and simple, and more on the fact that they were important members of German society.  I think that we still hold prejudices of “Old World” Jews, or Easterne European orthodox Jews.  They are different and weird.  We don’t say it, but I think that maybe this makes it easier to accept their murder—or at least understand what made them so hated.

In Hackesher Markt I finally saw some of the memorial stones in the ground.  I expected to really like this memorial, and so far it is my favorite.  I think it is wonderful how difficult it is to forget the past here.  I am upset that I didn’t go to see the stones my grandparents recently purchased for my family who once lived in Berlin.

 

My favorite story of the whole trip was about the Catholic hospital across the street from the Jewish school.  The nuns in this hospital took in Jews who escaped the deportation site (the school was turned into one by the Nazis) and bandanged them so that they were unrecognizable.  These nuns made sure that after the War, the children who survived the gas chambers hiding in the hospital were raised in Jewish families.  They even helped many of them emigrate to Palestine.  I think this would make a great movie…

 

March 12, 2008

 

When we visited the Grunewald Memorial I kept thinking to myself that this is from where my family would have been deported.  Right here.  However, I found out afterwards when I asked my grandfather about it that his family had actually emigrated to France, only to be taken to the camps from there and murdered.  He lost his entire extended family in the Holocaust.  The most moving part of the memorial, to me, were the stones that people had placed on the ledge at the end of the tracks.  I felt that I too needed to pay my respects, but for some reason I was embarrassed to in front of everyone.  I picked a stone up quickly and put it with the others...I don't know why this was so embarrassing for me.

 

Meeting the German students in Potsdam was incredible!  I love the girls in my group.  We had lunch with them at this cute little café and it was so fun to realize that we all watch the same t.v. shows.  Anna and I bonded over the Gilmore Girls…the very last episode is airing this Friday in Berlin. 

 

Potsdam is so cute.  The red brick Dutch buildings are so pretty.  Rike walked Riley and I through the palace park before the group did, which was great because it wasn’t raining.  It was so pretty.  We all pretended to be princesses—girls our age were all brought up on fairy tales and Disney movies.  Interesting how our gendered socializations create shared experiences for us and the Germans.

 

March 13, 2008

 

 

Halberstadt:

 

In 1500 there were 1,000 Jews out of a population of 10,000.  That’s pretty extraordinary.  I loved seeing the Jewish cemeteries.  This town really made me understand why the Jews of Germany did not leave sooner.  They had such a long history in the land and they were aware that there were always waves of anti-Semitism.   It would have been very difficult to comprehend that the Nazis were anything different.

 

It was sort of annoying at the Jewish cemeteries when the boys in our group were made to put yamulkas on and everyone was taking pictures of them and pointing and laughing—like they looked so ethnic and foreign. 

 

At the koscher restaurant we went to for lunch, many of the students on the trip tried traditional Jewish dishes for the first time.  I was excited how much everyone enjoyed their meal.  I was not so happy with the Easter decorations all over the restaurant.  This is my own personal opinion, I realize that.  But, even though I am far from a religious Jew, I will never have a Christmas tree in my house, or decorate for Christian holidays.  Why should I?  Why does taking on Christian traditions mean I’m secularized or assimilated?  Many of the Jews in Germany had Christmas trees in their parlors…this did not help them escape the gas chambers. 

 

At the small museum we were told very moving stories about survivors of families who lived in Halberstadt before the war.  There was one picture of a young boy in lederhosen that looked exactly like a picture my grandpa has up in her house of my grandfather back  in Germany.  The boy in this picture has such personality--he looks extremely German.

 

March 14, 2008

 

Ravensbrück:

 

I’m sitting on the train on my way to a concentration camp, listening to Hebrew songs on my ipod with a satisfied knowledge that Hitler lost.  Just look at all these so-called “Aryans” on this trip who are so interested in learning about this past in order to find some sort of justice.  These are the remnants of his “master race.”  Instead of devoting themselves to his racist ideology, however, these young men and women are devoting themselves to learning about their history in order to make a better future—for all kinds of people. 

 

It is a strange thought that I, a descendent of German and Russian Jews would willingly take a train to a concentration camp...

 

On the walk over to Ravensbruck it was raining and my umbrella was sort of blocking my sight, and all of a sudden  I heard this nasty dog bark, and I swear I thought I was going to pass out from anxiety...I guess I've seen too many Holocaust movies, but to me, walking to a concentration camp hearing dogs was too real, and I had a few minutes of major anxiety.

 

The camp was for all kinds of "non-aryans"--Communisits, Socialists, gays, prostitutes, other asocials, Jews. (Oh, and some women were imprisoned for their pro-abortion work!). Only about 15% of the prisoners in this camp would have been Jews.  I didn't really experience the feelings I always imagined I would.  At first I was angry at myself and thought that maybe I only have the ability to empathize with Jewish suffering, and because not all of these women were Jews I couldn't relate.  But thinking more about it I think it had more to do with how we were introduced to the site and also the place itself.   There were no standing barracks, bunks, gas chambers, etc.  It was really a memorial to the land itself...they had plaques that said where the different buildings would have been, but there were not landmarks from which you could grasp any sort of human connection. I couldn't feel the history of the people, more just the history of the place.  This is, I guess, another kind of memorial, and I expect to experience something completely different when we go to Auschwitz, but I was surprised at my reactions.

 

We had a discussion after lunch with our tour guide. I thought it was great that he talked about gender and sexual stuff very openly for a long time.  Interestingly, there were prisoners who were made into prostitutes for other male PRISONERS in other camps.  Of course, the SS men would try these women out first, but then they would be brought over to other concentration camps and given to privileged prisoners...kappos and such.  That was very disturbing to me.  We learned how while there was sexual violence and harrassment of the women prisoners, mostly the SS  would not rape them because of the racial laws and dehuminization of the prisoners.  I have trouble believing this, seeing as we know that masters on plantations raped their slave women all the time...rape is about power and control, not sexual attraction.  However, this man claimed that the women were mostly raped after liberation by the Soviet soldiers (who were, as I know from my thesis research, also raping German women by the load).  It was interesting to hear all this stuff about the sexual nature of being a female prisoner, because it made be better understand perhaps why there would be such a sexualized community of survivors in the DP camps after the war.  These young women would naturally want to prove that their bodies were theirs, that they were sexually working fine (especially after all the fertility experiments done to many prisoners), and that they were fertile.  More reasons to have all those babies!

 

It was so cold and rainy while we were walking around.  I cannot even begin to comprehend how they did it with just a tiny dress on...and no food and no body fat or hair.  When we got inside for lunch someone was complaining about how cold it was...I could not believe that someone would have the guts to do that after learning about the experience of the prisoners.

 

March 15, 2008

 

 We saw No Country for Old Men at Potsdamer Platz.  Before the movie there was a preview for the new Tom Cruise Nazi movie.  It was weird to see this here.  In America I don’t think I would have given this preview a second thought.  Here, though, we American students felt uncomfortable…we were very aware of where we were seeing this.

 

Last thoughts: 

 

I really feel like a loud/obnoxious American when I’m here.  I don’t like how we are known as a people with no history and no culture or class.

 

I am so taken by the history and the culture of this country.  It seems so foreign and I keep thinking of it as their history, their language.  Who is this they that I keep referring to in my head?  Christian Germans?  Nazis?  In reality, it is also my history.  It was fun to realize that Frau Hoehn heard the same childhood songs as my grandpa would sing to us.  Of course, this makes complete sense, for up until he was 9 years old, my grandpa was as German as anyone could get.

 

I love Berlin.  I cannot believe it, but I do.   I want to learn the language and live there for a bit of time.  Everyone is so friendly and helpful.  I have never been some place where people so readily want to help tourists.  Everywhere we go at night we meet new people and after we tell them why we’re here, they usually openly talk to us about their Holocaust education, and their family’s history.  At one bar I had a discussion with someone about the “contested victimization” after the war that I read so much about.  It was interesting to actually get a first hand account from this woman whose grandmother lost sons, etc., during the war.  I think many people would have gotten upset with this compared suffering, but I thought it was mind-opening.  Her grandmother did suffer, there’s no question.  Why must we then go a step farther and compare her suffering to Holocaust victims and survivors?