Catching up - Trip to Weimar and Buchenwald

There've been so many interesting things going on lately that I've had a hard time sitting down and writing about it - between being exhausted and needing to catch up on work or not having enough time.

I'm enjoying a Saturday at home, first in a few weeks - and first for a while to come. This time last week I was getting towards the end of a day long tour of the concentration camp Buchenwald outside of Weimar. I'm in a fascinating and challenging seminar on Literature and Holocaust, and as a part of it we took a trip to visit Weimar and Buchenwald. The choice of location was a good combination of far enough to justify an overnight stay, but close enough that it wasn't too much, and the combination of classic German culture/literature in Weimar and then the more specific visit to the memorial for our seminar appealed to sponsors (each person in the class had to pay 20€ for the whole weekend, which covered transportation, lodging, and all meals - and we might get some of that back).

We arrived on Friday afternoon and met as a seminar to discuss an essay by Jean Amery and to hear a presentation on the problem of memorials more generally. The course is designed around the idea of looking at how the holocaust is preserved in literature - and not just from survivor's autobiographical writing, but also how it is handled in works of fiction, including what kinds of fiction are acceptable, and which aren't. Similar questions about what to put on display, what to include, how to set emphasis, whether there are taboo topics are raised in literature and in memorials.

Buchenwald is at the end of a bus line that runs from the train station in Weimar. The SS barracks are still there and used now as a youth hostel specifically for groups visiting the memorial and also other youth intervention programs. There are two barracks that were converted into apartments for families immediately after the war (there wasn't enough housing in most cities) and the apartments are all rented out today. The borders of the camp grounds are only partially visible - much of the area where prisoners were kept has been reforested. After the camp was freed by the Americans, it was used for five years as a prison for former Nazis in the Russian zone, not just the higher up officials, but also for other lower ranked but still active Nazis. Once that camp was ended, people started taking down the fences and buildings to rebuild the cities that had been destroyed during the war. When Weimar found out that people were stealing material they sent people to officially take everything down and sell it, rather than have it be taken for free.

The emancipation of Buchenwald was one of the grounding myths for East Germany, because according to legend the prisoners managed to free themselves right before the Americans arrived - a myth that is not corroborated by historical documents. Because of this, however, parts of the camp were very well preserved, and it has been a model for the memorialization of concentration camps for quite some time.

We had an incredible tour guide, very knowledgeable and friendly, but also with a demeanor that's sort of hard to adjust to - that he never got overly emotional. Which isn't to say he wasn't emotional - in fact, it was like he always had to keep a check on his emotions, but his voice kept its quiet, even tone, almost like when you're talking in a room where a child is sleeping next door, you know they probably won't wake up and hear you, but better to keep your voice down, just the same - he consistently keep that tone from when he welcomed us, told us about the number of visitors that come each year, to when he described the torture cells below the crematorium. It was unsettling, in a way, but since the whole visit is unsettling, I can't imagine now any other way of speaking more fitting.

In spite of having learned so much, I feel like we barely got started on what there was to look at. At the memorial alone there are 4 museums, and we had an hour to take a look at all of them. There were also large parts of the camp grounds we didn't look at, or only briefly. There was an older exhibt that had been on tour and is now in the attic of the classroom building that was certainly worth lingering over. There is a lot of work being done to digitalize as much of the archives as possible, including a photo archive, which we got to see for about 15 minutes. There are folders full of classroom materials that we were shown again, very briefly. It was a strange sort of dissatisfaction to come back with - it was not the case at all that there was anything we weren't allowed to look at, but just how many possibilities were opened made me feel like we had barely begun, even though we were there from 10 in the morning to 7 at night.

It was a relief that the seminar got along so well with each other. 20 students who have seen each other once a week for a few weeks - hard to know how everything will work out socially. But it went really well, and now there are 20 other people that when I see them in town or on campus, we always stop and at least wave, if not chat for a while.

More Updates

When everything is running so smoothly and so busily, it's hard to find one particular experience to use as a starting point for a blog. Before I head out for the weekend with my Seminar on Holocaust and Literature, I thought I would take some time to fill you in.

Last weekend was The Longest Chorus Rehearsal Ever. If I had made it Monday night I would have had chorus 4 days in a row. 4 hours Friday, 7 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday (including our performance) and then another 2 on Monday. When monday evening came around, I just couldn't take it (not to mention had plenty of work to do) and stayed at home. The performance went really well (about 20 each soprano and alto, 4 tenors, 6 basses). The orchestra was wonderful, and our tenor soloist did a good job, especially considering that his foot had been operated on the day before. I was also pleasantly surprised by a really good sermon as part of the service. We performed the cantata as part of the Sunday worship service at the Nikolaikirche, which serves as the university church.

I've been riding my bike much more comfortably lately. I've ridden in the rain (the helmet keeps too much rain from getting on my glasses), I've managed to stop at a stop light and put my foot on the curb rather than get off the bike completely (and then start again without wobbling any more than usual), and getting to all the various chorus things all weekend I rode my bike all over town. I am beginning to feel like taking my bike somewhere is default, and walking is the exception - the opposite of how I felt a few weeks ago. I can also make turn signals now, this is a big step up.

I needed to get some new shampoo, and saw some that was certified to be very ecologically friendly and was relatively cheap, so I took it home. I think I now know the German word for "citronella". At least bugs will have second thoughts about flying into my hair.

All of my classes are going pretty well. I am certainly learning tons. It is a nice feeling to know more of the answers than a lot of people in the class. Yesterday I was one year off on when Goethe's Werther was published (I said 1773, but it's 1774). But the rest of the class was sort of full of blank stares, so. And if you ask, I can tell you what I understood about Gadamer. But it's better if you have a web cam or ask me when I get home - I don't think I can explain without hand motions.

Yesterday I got paid 30€ for telling this young man what I thought about a website. If I could find a job where I would really get paid 30€ an hour for giving my opinion I would be set.

I am leaving at about noon for the weekend. The class will arrive in Weimar in the late afternoon, have the equivalent of two class sessions, and have dinner. Tomorrow we'll be at Buchenwald from about 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. We'll get the standard tour first, and spend the rest of the day with the director of the memorial, learning about what information they include or emphasize depending on the group who is visiting. It should be pretty interesting. Then Sunday morning we'll see Goethe and Schiller's Houses before heading back to Göttingen.

Britta is leaving tomorrow for Iceland and won't be back until the Thursday before I leave to go to Storkow for the weekend (in about two weeks). So for the next bit of time I'll have the place all to myself.

I am having a slight disagreement with my renter's and personal liability insurance I got when I came here - but what I like about it is the envelope I got today. The letter was problematic, but when the letter was out of the envelope, the inside of the envelope could be read through the clear cellophane window, and it says (roughly) "We cannot prevent you from getting multiple letters from us in one day, because putting the letters in envelopes is mechanized. Sorting out the letters costs more than the extra postage. Please be understanding." I love this because it means that so many people called and wrote in complaining about all the extra envelopes that it was worth it to them to print it on the envelope itself. Excellent.

I need to get on to packing my backpack and reading about torture for this afternoon, but thought I would write a quick note first. If you're reading this, I'd love to hear from you!

Trying to be brief

Here ar a few things from the last week or so that I want to say in the 15... 12 minutes I have before I leave for chorus.

I've been doing a lot of listening. Aside from classes, last week I went to two extra lectures - one on the work that's being done to identify books that are now in German libraries that actually belonged to Jewish citizens before they were forced to sell them. Basically it means taking every book that a library acquired from the 1930s to the 1960s in hand and looking to see if some identifying mark is there, or had clearly been removed. The libraries were very thorough both in removing nameplates with Ex Libris (Jewish Name) and all records of all books that they acquired during that period.

I also went to a lecture on "Mythos Kindler" - from the new editor of the Kindler Literatur Lexikon, in the context of a series of lectures on canon and literature. It was in the Paulinerkirche, which is no longer a church, and has been the university library since the eighteenth century. Now it only holds the oldest parts of the collection. Today I had class in the library and got to look at very old prints of Erasmus of Rotterdam's writing - the oldest I got to hold was from 1545, if I remember correctly. I was also in the 10% of class that had done the reading (that's 2 of twenty students). Good times.

Today has been alternating perfectly sunny and raining. It makes me wonder if there's someone who's have a bad day, and that's who the rain is actually following around all over the city.

I went to the botanical gardens on Friday (which were packed, since it was a holiday, everything else was closed, the weather was great, and the garden doesn't charge a fee to visit). Of all the wild and wonderful plants there, my favorite were the two dogwood trees, in full bloom. I didn't expect to get to see something so homey there. :)

The kitchen here does not have a bread slicer, the joy of my kitchen in Storkow. It does have this awesome tupperware hand powered dicer though that I use for onions, and I love it. (The german name for tupperware is tupperware said toopervahreh.)

I went to an English Stammtisch on Thursday and I think it will be part of my weekly routine - very friendly laid back atmosphere.

The amount of pollen on my windowsill right now is grossing me out and I'm trying to stay focused and finish this blog entry instead of getting up and wiping it off right now. In spite of pollen, open windows are a must (to avoid must! ha! ...ooh boy)

I'm going to chorus now where we'll work some more on the Bach cantata "Ihr werdet weinen und heulen, aber die welt wird sich freuen" (You will weep and cry, but the world will rejoice), the last normal rehearsal before our huge chorus rehearsal weekend and performance on Sunday. Hopefully the congregation will react like the world at our performance. Hm.

4 pm on a rainy afternoon

After having lunch in the cafeteria with a fellow student I went to the library at about 1 pm yesterday, planning to read all afternoon until I left for a lecture at 6 pm. I planned on taking a break at about 4, to get a snack so that I wouldn't be too hungry before the lecture. The library I use is part of the German department, which is in a huge old yellow-brick building that used to be a hospital. The back of the building is home to "Theater in the OP", based in the old operating theater, and probably not too surprisingly, performs very experimental theater. The library takes up three floors of the western-most wing, and I was spending the afternoon reading in the basement in the room for literature from the second half of the twentieth century. The rooms in the library are really marked off like classrooms, with doors that stay closed unless you're entering or leaving them - a big change from the vanderbilt library where the stacks on any given floor are open all the way through, front to back and side to side.

There are many other departments housed on the grounds of the old hospital, including the physical therapy training center where my roommate went to class. Because there are so many people there so close together, there are also multiple opportunities to get something to eat. There's a cafeteria (or Mensa) - not the one that I had lunch in, though. Cafeterias here are different, since there isn't a residential campus. They typically only serve lunch, and there are smaller ones anywhere there is a university presence, which in this case, is almost all over the city. The Mensa Italia is right behind one building I have two classes in, another close to the German department, another across the square from where the chorus rehearses, another (although supposedly the worst) at the new university hospital, not to mention the biggest one on the main campus. What's nice about the mensa that is close to the german department is that it has a little cafe beside it, where you can get a cup of coffee or tea, a piece of cake, or a small sandwich. That's where I headed a little after 4 yesterday afternoon. It was a balmy 8 degrees (46 farenheit) and was raining, just like it had been all day. I got to the door of the cafe just in time to see that it had closed for the afternoon. But, I thought, no big deal, there is a kiosk on the other side of the hospital grounds, surely I can go there - they wouldn't close at the same time as the cafe, precisely for the business people like me would give them right now. So I walked back from where I came through the gate on the other side only to find that the kiosk was closed, too. Of course, since most people get their food either at the mensa, the cafe, or the kiosk, there isn't a lot of incentive for another business to set up shop anywhere close by. I remembered that down the street and around the corner there was a bakery, and walked under the dripping lilacs and pine trees up to the corner bakery - which was doing huge business, since it was the only place that was open!

I walked in and immediately lost anything like a place in line because I wanted to see what was for sale in the display case before ordering, and walked all along the front - unknowingly standing in the "I've ordered and I'm waiting for my food" spot, so that no one behind the counter asked what I'd like to have. Getting back in line, I ordered a tea and a "Bobbes" - new to me, a pastry that's basically sugar cookie dough rolled around raisins and served in big slices. It was crowded, and although there were places to sit, there weren't enough for everyone to have their own table. I took a seat beside an older woman at a table where I could still watch the people walking by (I could also see the lighted sign of the pharmacy, which is how I knew it was 8 degrees celcius, on april the 29th, and in regular intervals, how many more minutes past four it was). It's been my experience that sharing a table in public with someone you don't know is no big deal here, you just ask if the seat is taken, and if it's not, you can sit there. You might wish the person you're sitting with "guten Appetit", and when you or they leave, say "Tschüss", but aside from that, people seem to be pretty ok with there being no conversation.

I could tell that this wouldn't be the case with my companion in the bakery, but there really was no other place to sit. My thoughts were still buried in the books I had left with a note in the library to please not reshelve, and wasn't really interested in talking, but after a polite "guten Appetit", I was asked whether my pastry tasted good. I admitted it was very good, and even seemed to have a bit of marzipan in it. Hers did, too, I was told, and that it is so nice to drink tea on a day like this. Moments like this are some of the harder ones for me being new in a city. On the one hand, I was mentally somewhere else, specifically, why Ruth Klüger is convinced that women read differently than men, on the other hand, a part of me resonated with this woman's desire just to have someone to talk to. Maybe she has a house full of family waiting for her at home, but I had the sense that this trip to the bakery was an escape into a world with people in it. She was delighted by the very tall man that was also eating in the bakery, and wondered aloud at what would be difficult about being a Giant. As another person without a lot of people here to talk to, I struggle with these conversations. Sometimes, I just want someone to talk to, too. What would happen if this woman and I met for tea every Wednesday afternoon?

I ended up finishing my snack quickly and heading back for the library - I wanted to read another chapter before 6. But I've kept thinking about it - one of the things I like about Germany is how much more time is spent in a public space. I feel safer walking the streets at night in Germany just because so many other people are also out and about. At the same time, just seeing other people isn't the same as connecting with them, and encounters like this, where I tend to brush off the possibility of really acknowledging someone else, make me wonder just how public these spaces are.

Classes are international

Now that all of my classes are meeting for the second or third time, I'm starting to get a feel for who's in them, and finding out that really, somethings about classes are true everywhere.

Somethings are uniquely German (in my experience). For example, each class meets once a week, for two hours, for example, from 10-12. However, German universities have what they call the "akademische Viertel" (academic quarter), which means that a class that meets from 10-12 actually meets from 10:15-11:45. So the actual instructional time is only an hour and a half, half of what a standard class in the states is.

Still, how you behave in class is still the same, regardless of how long class is. I mentioned a while ago that no one wants to go first here, either. Students still come unprepared to class - and because Profs here also put out materials to be read and copied too late in the week. In seminars, there is also always "that guy" - at least one, sometimes more. The one who starts every answer with a condescending "Clearly..." or "It's very easy:..." only then to keep talking so long you realize he's just repeating the same sentence on the page in front of him three times with the words in a different order each time. And you know this because he talks ALL THE TIME. And in any lecture there are always "those girls" - they usually come in pairs, sometimes as triplets - who dress alike, all out of the same magazine, and can't tell that when they talk in a lecture, everyone can, in fact, hear them. And it's distracting. And when you try and give them "the look", they assume you are passing judgment on their hair-ribbon, or something, and since your judgment clearly carries no weight, not being dressed from the same magazine they are, there's no need to interrupt their conversation. Also, Trekkies are the same everywhere. I don't just mean people who enjoy watching Star Trek - I mean the people you look at and think "I bet they watch a lot of Star Trek." Yep, they're the same here.

Aside from classes, not too much has been going on. This weekend is another holiday weekend, with Friday being May first, so there will be possibly more events to attend, but with a lot of people taking trips, too. Don't have plans yet, but it's still a few days away, something will surely come up.

The finished Burg

 

One fun part of being in Storkow was taking a tour of the Burg now that it's all finished! Here is a collage of some pictures Ines took.

One week into the semester

I have officially visited all of my classes now, and can officially start getting into a routine. Yay! So far this routine involves lots of bike riding (now with working hand brake), jogging, reading in the library, and volunteering for the first assignments. I can't stand it when assignments and presentations are divided up the first day of class, and everyone knows they have to do one.. and no one raises their hand. Somehow, everyone manages to want to do the very last one. This sounds like a terrible idea to me. I want to get it over and done with, asap! Now, one could make the argument that it's because so many of my classes involve the history of literature, and that means the last ones are the most modern, and therefore easier to understand. Word to the wise: this has clearly never been the case, the last reading is never easier - and you're always totally busy and stressed out at the end of the semester, why make it worse?

So, of course, the first day of class last week I volunteered for the assignment that was due today - in spite of not being in town all weekend. Fortunately, two other classmates were strong-armed by the prof into helping me, and it went really quickly. I have to complete 4 assignments this semester - two smaller presentations, and two papers. So by handing out a worksheet today, one of my 4 assignments is already done. In the first week. Did I mention how much I love being in school here?

I was also accepted as a member of the Unichor - the university chorus - last week, and will be singing two Bach cantatas and the Mozart Mass in C minor that I sang last spring with the Vanderbilt Community Chorus. I took it as proof that this was the right decision when I made friends at the audition with a student in sociology department, only to discover that she knows Sten from when they were in school together in Leipzig. Die Welt ist eine Dorf - a sentence that has usually brought me luck in the past. Or at the very least, keeps me from feeling disconnected, even when I'm far away. The chorus looks like it will be a good opportunity to meet people, since after most rehearsals at least some of the group go get a beer at the bar next door. So at least one night a week, I can sit around and just talk, if I want to.

Speaking of getting to know Germans, I spent the weekend in Storkow, with some of my best German friends. I had a wonderful time, and after a month of traveling and adjusting to Göttingen it was a delight to see truly familiar streets, buildings, and faces (and weather! the first grey day I've had since being here was Friday). I stayed with my teacher friend Ines and her family, and although I never made it to her house while I lived in Storkow, we had a great visit over the weekend. Saturday night Rayk invited us over for a cookout, and the weather cooperated enough for the food to cook on a grill, even if we mostly stayed inside. Rayk and Heike were already there, with Moni and her twins (now about 2 years old, and still completely identical). A little after we got there, Klaus and Marlies arrived from the Baltic Sea, where they had spent the week with Marvin, who proudly showed us all of the rocks he collected on the beach. While there, Marlies made some phone calls and arranged for me to get to have coffee with some friends from Chorus before leaving Sunday afternoon. I couldn't have counted on seeing so many people, and was so pleased to find that we could all pick up where we left off, talking as comfortably as ever.

One person was conspicuously absent, although she popped up in most of our conversations. This was my first visit to Storkow since my good friend Gitti died of cancer last summer. We visited her grave first after getting there, but kept talking about her off and on through the weekend. It was good to get to be there and remember her, but would still be better to have her still with us.