Before coming on this trip, I developed an unrelated obsession with Verdi’s “Va, Pensiero”. I had it on perpetual loop once we got here, and then later learned that it had been adopted as a sort of anthem in East Germany about how they yearned to be reunited with their homeland. My computer finally blew up and I couldn’t do any work until I got a new power supply, so my flatmate and I went to the Tiergarten to bum around nature since it was a holiday and nothing was open. On the way back, I saw that the Mall of Berlin was busy and decided to stop and see if the Saturn was open (Saturn is like the German “Best Buy”.) It turned out they were having a “symphonic mob”… and the second they started playing I recognized it. I almost cried. Literally one of the most unreal and beautiful moments of my entire life.
This week was dominated by a rather serious health crisis for my roommate, Elliott. He developed a very large abscess on his arm for reasons we still don’t understand. He ignored it for the better part of 6 days, even though I was begging him to have it looked at. We had to take him to the emergency room and have it surgically removed. I was rather annoyed to find out that he had neglected to get any kind of travelers insurance (even after I told him it was required) and had already spent all of his money (with a month left to go on our trip). I ended up having to spend the money allotted for my trip to Bavaria to pay for his hospital visit.
Note to hippies everywhere: if your philosophy is “hey man, it’s all good. the universe with provide”, in reality what you are saying is, “somebody will pay for me when it all crashes and burns, so I don’t have to actually try and be responsible up front and avoid the problem altogether.”
America about Germany: “Why didn’t the Germans stand up to Hitler? They are all guilty because they didn’t make a stand! If everyone had resisted, he wouldn’t have gained power”
America about America: “These people shouldn’t protest Trump, they are just giving him what he wants.”
Germany about America: “Seriously? SERIOUSLY?? *turns to Russia* Were they not watching before??”
Russia: *shrugs* “Don’t look at us. We’ve got Putin now.”
You know who keeps telling you protesting Trump is giving him what he wants? The Great All-Seeing Eye in your living room that wants you to go back to sleep, be it the television or your computer. This about standing up and showing your fellow Americans and the world that this is not something you want representing your country. This is about being able to sleep at night knowing you did not stay silent when a bully raised his fist. This is about telling all Americans who are Hispanic or Muslim or women or LGBTQ or African American or whatever other group this bastard has maligned that you will not stand idly by while monsters threaten to kill their families, round them up into ghettos, or simple legislate them into oblivion. This is not a drill people.
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Elliott and I have decided we should put a personal ad in the Berlin Craigslist that reads: “Are you a human male? Do you enjoy shattering plastic with your mind like I do? If you are ready to receive my ovipositor, then respond to this mating cry at the correct frequency. We shall meet at the appointed coordinates for intoxicants and enfleshening.” Then if anyone replies, we will both meet them, and when they ask which one of us they were on a date with, we’ll say in unison, “WE ARE ONE. WE ARE ALL ONE IN THE EYES OF KRAVTOR.”
That awkward moment when you go shopping for summer clothes in Berlin because it’s going to be 80, and all you’ve bought so far is an ADORABLE little felted winter jacket that only reinforces that “hippie reject from The Sound of Music” look you’ve been working. Thank you, Deutschland.
I have just learned that there is a sketch comedy show on tv here in Germany called “Switch Reloaded” that has a reoccurring sketch called “Obersalzberg” that is like “The Office” but with Hitler and the Nazis.
I recant anything negative I have ever said about Germans not having a sense of humor. Between this, Flula Borg, and Bernd das Brot, I can honestly say that Germans are the most freakin’ hilarious people on the damn planet.
Dear Berlin, you can stop being 80 now, mmmkay? Signed, Person With Neurological Disease That Suffers Like a Malamute in a Hot Car in This Weather
I really want to go out exploring today, but its soooo hot and muggy and I don’t have proper clothing. And because Germans care more about the earth than heat stroke, AC isn’t a thing here (I know, not everyone has the problems I do with heat, but oh it’s so hard to function when your spinal cord is shorting out like a frayed extension cord)
Had to register for Fall quarter. Advanced German (my last class for my German minor), God, Forgiveness, and SciFi, and hopefully Anthropology of Sex and Gender (it’s a “majors only” class and it’s my second minor). Was super bored earlier and made this video, then the door buzzer rang and in waltzed Ben Kohn in all his mirthful splendor. I’m glad he did, because I had forgotten I needed to register today. Also, I really want cake.
Well, now I know what the German ER is like. And no, it wasn’t me for once.
Elliott is in the hospital. He had a wound on his arm and it became an abscess. He has to have surgery and stay over night in the hospital and will require lots of after care. Also important to note, do NOT travel overseas without getting travelers health insurance. You will have to pay out of pocket for everything. Health care is NOT free to non-citizens.
One of the worst things about taking Prednisone is that it makes you sweat. A lot. As in, stupid amounts. It’s been in the low 80s here in Berlin, and while others are walking around in jackets and sweaters, I have been sporting trashy tank tops and still sweating like a swine. I went to get groceries today and they don’t use air conditioning in the stores here. As I was checking out, I was sweating so badly it was running down my face and neck and dripping onto the conveyor belt. I felt so gross and embarrassed, especially since I have lost so much weight in the last 9 months and NOW I start sweating like a sideshow fat lady. In other news, I can now walk up to 3-5 miles a day without any trouble. This Berlin Boot Camp, the best weight loss program on earth.
Elliott had to go back to the hospital to have his bandaged changed, so I am alone this evening. I have the windows open, and the way the acoustics work here in the Panopticon it funnels all the noise from the street cafes out front right into our courtyard. I can here a group of Germans having a blast drinking and laughing and carousing. I wish I was the sort of person who could just approach people and make friends, but years of being reminded how “off-putting” I can be makes me totally gunshy about initiating contact. Even *I* find me abrasive. Oh well, I have TONS of work to do anyway.
Me: *listening to music and writing my analysis of folklore and WWII for class. Specifically I am discussing this image of a dead German soldier lying in the street during the Battle of Berlin while Russian soldiers rush past him in a blur. He’s so young and dreadfully still, the Russians are so frenzied, moving on to the next victory*
Google Music: o hai by the way, here’s Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” k thnx bi!
Me: NOT. ENOUGH. FUCKING. TEARS.
A German soldier lies dead in the street as troops rush forward. Taken from The Daily Mail, copyright Getty Images.
I am going through my website for school and finally filling out descriptions and information on all the pictures I have been posting. I think my last week here is going to be me grabbing ahold of things and crying while people try to pry me off them. “NOOOO! I won’t leave you, Alexanderplatz! You can’t make me!!!!” I’m even going to miss the weird way cleaning products smell. Sigh.
Our first night in Berlin, we came across a surreal program with an oddly shaped, brown rectangular puppet. THis was my first introduction to “Bernd das Brot” or “Bernd the Bread”. according to Wikipedia:
Bernd is a depressed, grumpy, curmudgeonly, constantly bad-tempered, surly, fatalistic, melancholic loaf of pullman bread speaking in a deep, gloomy baritone. He is small, rectangular and golden brown with hands directly attached to his body, eyes circles and a thin-lipped mouth. According to himself, he belongs to the species “Homo Brotus Depressivus”. His favourite activities include staring at his south wall at home, learning the pattern of his woodchip wallpaper by heart, reading his favourite magazine The Desert and You, and enlarging his collection of the most boring railway tracks on video. Bernd sympathizes firstly with himself. His favorite expression is Mist!, used in much the same way as the English “crap”. His other favorite sentences are: “I would like to be left alone,” “I would like to leave this show,” and “My life is hell.”
Since then, Bernd has become my favorite thing in Germany. His morose nature and constant mistreatment made me feel better about my misfortunes on my trip. I have been trying to find some little piece of Bernd memorabilia to bring home, but haven’t found any yet.
His take on German history is something to behold, and his version of WWII is incredible.
This week was a bit of down time. I wasn’t feeling well, weeks of arduous (for me, anyway) physical activity, the need to catch up on my studies, and a sick roommate slowed my progress down considerably. To top that off, my first visit to a concentration camp took the wind out of my emotional sails to a surprising degree. Of course, I started the week celebrating International Worker’s Day, which was possibly the drunkest I have been in 15 years, but was an amazing night.
J’accuse, Ben Kohn. Now pardon me whilst I spend the rest of the day dying in a dusty corner like an old moth. I vaguely remember staggering around Kreuzberg drunk as hell being obnoxious Americans… I think we danced… I might have hit on a German cop (or I dreamed it, not sure)… there was a French guy…. I took the U-Bahn home by myself because everyone wanted to keep drinking and I just couldn’t. I was so drunk I couldn’t sit upright waiting for the train… there was a harmonica player on the train… I managed to get home just fine and without incident, and nobody harassed me. Achievement unlocked.
I don’t really have anything I could possibly say to make the gravity and horror of a concentration camp make sense to anyone who hasn’t been to one. It doesn’t even make sense once you’ve been to one. This place is an unholy despair factory designed by sadistic brilliance. And right now I am sitting at a mass grave, in pleasant neighborhood listening to the autobahn and the blackbirds whir and chirp in the background. They built the modern police training barracks next to the camp. As a warning. This is what happens when authority goes unchecked and brutality takes the place of protection. This is a terrible place filled with the memories of terrible acts that illustrate how far that can go in the blink of an eye.
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Oranienburg. Photo by Scarlett Messenger
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Today’s trip to the concentration camp has left me feeling pretty fragile inside. It was so much worse than I imagined it would be. It isn’t the same as reading about it. It’s so much more visceral standing where tens of thousands experienced cruelty and pain none of us will ever know. I genuinely loathe the idea of people suffering such unimaginable atrocities, to the point where I can’t shake it. I always assumed this was normal, but after watching people runaround the camp with their selfie sticks and then talk about where to go for lunch on the bus afterward, I don’t know anymore. I felt sick and horrible the whole time, like there was a stench in the air but you couldn’t smell it. I had to force myself to take pictures because I knew I would regret not documenting it. I sat for a really long time at the mass grave and didn’t even realize there were tears in my eyes. Is it stupid to get that emotionally worked up about anonymous people who died 70 years ago? I don’t think so. Someone has to mourn them, and anyone who remembers them is most likely dead by now.
Toilets, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Oranienburg. Photo by Scarlett Messenger
*** This place had a sign out front that said, “the most beautiful concentration camp in Germany” and I was really perplexed that that would be a bragging point. And if this is what a beautiful concentration camp looks like, I’m not sure I want to see the “shithole” version. And I think that was the worst part, getting into the heads if the people who were there. How could you survive that? When the war was over, what the hell did the guards do? NONE of the guards at Sachsenhausen were convicted after the war, they just went on with their lives. I mean, these people were someone’s parents, grandparents. “Gee daddy, what did you do in the war?” “Well, son, I drowned homosexuals in toilets and tricked over 10,000 Soviet POWs into getting shot in the neck. We had a great time!” Seriously, how can you live with yourself? I hurt someone’s feelings and it haunts me for years, can there really be that many psychopaths out there?
In researching a song for my hiking and drinking song class, I found one called “Ein Vogel wollte Hochzeit machen” (A bird wants to have a wedding). I tried to learn more about it on Wikipedia, but according to what I could translate, the page mostly seems to be arguing about how birds can’t actually get married and a blackbird and thrush can’t mate because of biological incompatibilities. Or something….
To sincerely paraphrase Stevie Nicks: O, Deutschland. You are the poet in my heart. Never change, never stop.
An Study of the German Forest in Song, Myth, and Folklore
