Apfle strudel, Einstein Coffee house, Kurfurstrasse. Berlin
Berlin 2010. It has been few years since I was in Germany and I forgot how much I feel at home there. When I first came to Europe, 12 years ago, I've landed in Cologne, a sweet city on the Rein river. I hardly knew anybody there. It was January. First real cold weather in my life. First European winter I've ever knew. I liked it. The air was crispy. I was walking in the streets talking German Gibberish to myself. I liked the sounds, it felt familiar. My father was born in Austria and I heard him speaking to his mom in German. It made no effect on me at the time, but I was surprised to notice how everything felt so close; the images, the people, the language.
Cologne was my first home in Europe. I lived there for few month. When I went in between for a visit for my mother's 70th birthday, I met this good friend of my parents. Someone that I had always adored. He was a funny guy with a big smile, always pleasant and positive. He was the one who tought me how to wind surf so I felt close and connected. At that meeting he was cold and distant. Every now and then he sent me some strange looks but I couldn't figure out what was going on. In the end, as I approached him to understand, I was shocked by the words that came out of his mouth. It took me completely by surprise, as I was never prepared to encounter so much hatred in his face and in his voice. He asked me how could I have lived in Germany after all that had happened. I was mumbling something back about new Germany and new generation, but he looked back at me as if he would never want to speak with me again. I knew that he was in Germany during the Holocaust but I never really heard his story. His good temper and his friendliness had never revealed what was underneath. I never saw him again. He died from a heart attack in the year that followed. I went back to Germany and later on moved to Holland when I heard about his death through a phone call with my mother.
I never had an immediate contact with the Holocaust and it's survivals, but as I grew up in Israel, I heard some terrible stories and I was familiar with the horrible pictures. My father's family left Europe in 1933, just before it all had started and except for one far aunt they were all save in Israel, Argentina and the States.
The first time I've seen on television a huge tractor sweeping away hundrets of corps into a ditch, I woke up terrified in the middle of the night, running to my father, who had let me sleep with him. A year later I was already prepared and every year that followed I became more and more familiar with these images. I was feeling a strange mix of fear and attraction. My first boyfriend's parents were Holocaust survivals. It was him whom I've heard from, for the first time, about strange phenomenons; like being extremely cautious of leaving the gas valve open, never leaving the plate unfinished, or always making sure to have enough food in storage. To me his parents looked normal. But for him, life was always a constant fear that something bad was going to happen just when you at list expecting it.
When I was a teenager a famous musician in Israel came out with an album, all dedicated to his parents, Holocaust survivals from the city Saloniki in Greece. The 2nd generation syndrome became a social phenomena that everybody was talking about. The parents who survive had never spoke about the war. They wanted to protect their children from the terrible stories. The children grew up with a feeling that things were not spoken, but they could defenetely feel and react to the pain.
For me all this was present but from a distant. I was more identified with the heritage from my mother's side, 3rd generation in Israel, and not so much with European immigrated side of my father. therefor when I arrived in Berlin, I was surprised to see that my main interest in the city was the Holocaust memorial.
Occupying about 19,000 square meters of space, just a short distance from where the ruins of Hitler’s bunker is buried, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial is made up of 2,711 gray stone slabs that bear no markings, such as names or dates. Visitors may walk through the memorial in any direction as there is no set pattern to the stones. The architect has said that he hopes it will merely become a natural part of the city, blending in with its background; used for shortcuts on the way home from work or a place of peace and quiet on a chaotic day.
The design for this memorial is unique, and at first, I was not so sure how to digest it. I went through the stones which grew taller and taller as I walked in, kind of closing over me. I kept asking myself what was the architect trying to create. What feelings was he trying to provoke inside of me.
Under the stones located a museum. In a cold winter day I was surprised to discover so many visitors, with headphones plugged in their ears, walking slowly, observing the photos, reading the lines. I couldn't help to admire the presentation. The museum is utterly dark and the only light comes through the pictures which function like light boxes. At first it gives a general information about the events development from 1939 till 1945, and then it becomes personal. In the first room there are 5 portraits about two meter size each of people who died. A young man, a woman, a child, an older man, an ortodox jew. And underneath few lines; who their were, their name, where did they come from and what had happened to them. In the second room, projected from the ceiling are letter written by people on their way to the concentration camps. Terrified people, despair. Mother writing to her children, whom she is aware she would never see again but hope they would get the message. Some were writing on pieces of toilet papers trying to worn others. Others were just writing in the sake of writing, putting down words that can not express the horror. The other room is telling the stories of families from all parts of Europe. First you see them in their safe ordinary life before the war and then you can read and see the story of how the family had been destroyed.
I spent about an hour there. it was quite heavy. Only later on that day did I discover what feelings it had provoked in me. It was as if I went into the grave with all them who died. Slowly slowly by walking through the stones which were observing me and eventually swallowed me into under the ground, I found myself in a peaceful place where it is quiet and dark. I felt I was together with them. And it kind of felt nice.
That was my Berlin story where I had joined my anccestors. I never spoke with my father about his childhood in Vienna nor about his 3 years from the age of 9 to 12 when he moved with his family to Berlin. I can imagine that he felt the changing approach towards the jews in Europe. He must have felt different, or condemed. He never told and I never asked about his aunt who had died together with her family. My father also had a very nice smile, he was always very pleasant and everybody liked him. Therefor it came by surprise that he died from a heart desease at the age of 62. Quite young.
