Visual assignment 2

First, the prompt from Jen and Chandan:

We come to travel with our fantasies. These fantasies, at the border of reality, make the line between the real and the fantasized, the personal and the public, the outer world and the inner world ambiguous and porous. For this assignment we’d like you to offer one picture or image that you’ve taken here in Berlin that captures best for you the crossing of your fantasies about this summer abroad and the world of difference you actually found here in Berlin.

Make sure to include a caption (200-500 words) that describes what you’ve been thinking about while in Berlin. Like memory, fantasy is also a supplication or contestation of socially made “reality”; “reality” is most often asserted as away of controlling what can be asserted as socially possible. What terms of possibility do you think your fantasy was contesting or playing into? For example, a specific racial script, a specific national script, a specific gendered script, a script of community and family membership. Was your fantasy and how it shaped your arrival/experience here in Berlin one that you think secretly desired a contestation of these scripts or did it ease your travel by conforming to normative possibilities? An example might be that you wanted to come to Berlin to be that every-American who found in Berlin the promise of late nights parties, dancing and an anything goes atmosphere, and found yourself being something very different. You will want to place your reflections within a context of migration and identity, and learning about the history of cities, states and communities. 
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My fantasy was of a simple, textbook-like Berlin. For example - Nazis: Bad. The persecuted: Good. Communists: Bad. Capitalism: Great. East Germany: Over. (Re)unified Berlin: Thriving.

But Berlin was not that simple, and it did not reveal itself to me like words on a page. I had to go find it, explore it, uncover it. And much of what I discovered was really, really awkward. And I'm not talking about "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" awkward - this is state archives, changed street names, lower and uppercase W's and E's, can't-tell-where-the-wall-used-to-be awkward. This is physical sites and symbolic rituals like those at the Bendlerblock's Memorial to the German Resistance, in which the state cannot commemorate the heroic acts like von Stauffenberg's without also confronting the immensity and ruthlessness and horror of the Nazi regime against which he fought. And that, as I stand at the gates looking in on the military ceremony, seems like all the more reason for the state to forget that Operation Valkyrie ever happened. This is uncomfortable.

The things that matter most to me about Berlin are the things that are not shown, and not discussed. They have physical manifestations in these abandoned sites I've spent the past few weeks obsessing over (see: hospitals, theme parks, and military bases). These places' heydays, the heights of their respective operations, coincided with Germany's darkest moments. Normal people did normal things here, at the wrong times. So today, we cannot heal our wounded where the Nazis healed their wounded, or train our soldiers where the Soviets trained their soldiers, or entertain ourselves where "Ossies" entertained themselves.

Instead, at these places I watched five layers of paint fall off to expose naked wrought iron. Which color did the Nazis paint? Which color signifies the point at which the Soviets occupied the building? And why, near the end, did the Soviets have such a thing for mint green? At these places I also marveled at the Soviet newspapers behind every sheath of peeling wallpaper. A hidden message from the headlines of the past? No, more like a DIY wallpapering trick that someone seems to have figured out, if the dates on the headers are any guide, in 1985.

To me, this is all novelty and irony and excitement. But if I lived near these places and had to coexist with them in my everyday life - and people do - I imagine it would be easier to not ask so many questions.

Let me make it clear that I don't think collective amnesia and state memory and all that jazz is a German phenomenon - it's not. We could talk about the Indian Removal Act, or Chile's 9/11, or the myriad ways in which all x years of my adult life have been, and in all likelihood will continue to be, saturated with hyped up, fear-fueled frenzy about "terrorism" and "illegal immigrants." (Clearly the Jackson School has taught me well.) But I'm at least used to these episodes of memory altercation, and have good people like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and the professors at my liberal university to wade through it with me daily and keep my head above water. But I don't know how to swim in German history. This is a history of which I still feel woefully ignorant, and a history that I tried my best to understand in just four weeks on the ground. I am leaving with an education that I did not expect, and will not forget any time soon.

Backtrack 2: In which the adventurers picnic in the halls of former power

Beginning of Chapter 4 in Inglorious.

(EDIT 7/28 - Today we passed all the documents to a German guy from the state archives of Berlin. He said the archives are generally interested in all things GDR, and that it's especially rare to find documents like these that the Soviets left behind. I think we all feel very good about this.)

Today Juliya's cousin translated the Soviet documents (how cool does that sound?) that we found at Kaserne Krampnitz this past Friday. (I mentioned these in an ecstatic blog post on the day that we found them.) We haven't been able to find much on the history of Kaserne ("barracks") Krampnitz, but the gist is that the Nazis moved their driving and riding school to the site from Hanover in 1937, the Soviets took over the complex a single day after the Germans abandoned it at the end of the war, and then they abandoned it themselves in 1992. Since then it hasn't been touched, except to make these movies called Enemy at the Gates and Inglourious Basterds. Maybe you've heard of them?

So, the barracks. The first building we hit was the officers' kasino above, with all the very nicely cleaned and finished rooms that Tarantino and his crew must have used. Although this site was  used for its fair share of WWII movies, the Soviets left their marks all over it--or, more aptly, obliterated any and all traces of the Nazis. We ran across a few fireplaces with eagle-shaped holes carved out of the walls above them. And, when we ventured into a four-story barracks building after the officers' kasino, we spotted similar signs of de-Nazi-fication on the front of the building--empty circles, carved-out eagle and swastika shapes. Of course, they also left plenty of Communist symbols and slogans. In one attic Juliya translated the phrase "The most beautiful clothing is the strength of muscle and the resilience of skin" plastered above news clippings of Soviet body builders! Sweet.

The Soviets weren't so thorough with all of their de-Nazi-fication of the complex, though. In the third building we found the infamous ceiling mosaic of an eagle surrounded by swastikas. There's some debate as to whether or not it's the real thing. Some say there's no way the Soviets would have left it intact and that was put up for Enemy at the Gates, but from recent viewing of said fantastic 2 hours of Jude Law's face I can tell you that I, at least, didn't spot any eagle mosaics in the film. Others say the Soviets painted over it with red paint and that the paint has since chipped off. From what we saw, we're on the "it's the real thing" side. (In other news, it was around noon when we got to the eagle room ,and Elizabeth and I were getting kinda hungry, so we camped out on a carpet there and picnicked on our delicious sandwiches from Le Crobag. Talk about irony. Maybe we're turning into hipsters.)

But the finds didn't stop there. We found a handful of rooms with maps plastering the wall--in RUSSIAN! Maps of Europe, maps of Asia. The world according to the Soviets. I bet they sat around in those rooms plotting about how they were about to totally take it over. Sweet. Photo ops abound.

Clever, right?

We kept finding stairs and going up them until we got to the top floor, which seemed to be lots of offices. This is where we found "the documents" that Juliya and her cousin translated today. No juicy history-altering revelations, or dramatic "Hey, so I'm in Berlin, and you gotta hear about what just happened..." letters from 1989--instead, just stories about regular people doing regular things, which was almost better. Many of them were evaluation-like documents describing soldiers as honest, shy, handsome, hardworking, physically fit, reserved, disciplined, respectful, moral, putting others before himself. One detailed what kinds of books one soldier liked to read. In one of the little autobiographies a soldier stated that he "understands governments and political parties, the right way." One of the information cards detailed a soldier with a spotless service record for years who was suddenly caught drinking on the job five consecutive times as his service came to an end. Another soldier, a solid tank engineer, was reprimanded once for dressing poorly and another time for shirking work as a dishwasher. A big stack of papers outlined what food, equipment, and clothing each soldier was rationed, and how much each item cost in German marks. Lots of little stories. I liked them.

Backtrack 1: In which the adventurers return to Bee-litts

I'm at the internet cafe on Rosenthaler, killing time before our last (!) lecture with Chandan at Humboldt in three hours. After a few weeks of buying 1.50 Euro tea and listening to blaring Motown remixes at Cafe am Engelbacken, we've discovered this gem of an internet cafe just a few stops away on the U8: two floors, benches with comfy pillows, some Amy Winehouse (RIP) gently wafting from the speakers, a bring-your-laptop-and-don't-buy-anything kinda crowd. It's like they knew we were coming.

The side.

Anyway, this is the perfect time to catch you, my dear readership of people who share various surnames from my family tree, up on some of the adventuring that has gone down in the past week or so. We'll start with Beelitz last weekend. Juliya and I had only seen the southeast quarter of the complex on our first trip, so Brian, Katy, Juliya and I started with the buildings in the northwest. There's a lot more "town" north of the train station, and at one point we ran into a cute little cafe with outdoor seating. That would have been great, except that it was not 500 meters from three huge, ornate, abandoned, boarded buildings. WTF? All these German people were happily brunching on the lawn in the shadow of this roped off ghost town as if it weren't there. Generally, walking through a crowd of paying customers to duck under the red "DO NOT TRESPASS" tape and climb into the window of an abandoned building is not a good idea - so we kept walking up the road until we found another way into the compound.

We found it!

This is the first building we ran into. Yup, the surgical pavillion. The crown jewel of all creepy abandoned hospital buildings. This was the least boarded up of all the buildings we had seen so far--in the picture above, the front door was actually missing. Unfortunately, this meant that, in addition to giving us easy ways in, it gave everyone else and their mom an easy way in, so the building had suffered a lot of vandalism and a lot of graffiti. Destruction aside, we found some pretty cool spots.

The elevator shaft, complete with old gated elevator left on the top floor. On the wall next to the elevator was a note written in Sharpie: "ATTENTION. 02/09/05. This elevator is broke, take the stairs!" Thanks dude.

We weren't totally sure what this was--some kind of medical imaging equipment, or just a strange TV on a stand?

We could see this from the outside as we walked in, so we had to find it one we got inside! A big, tiled room with a domed ceiling. There were a few others just like this throughout the building.

This operating room (Juliya translated the Russian sign outside the door!) used to look like this. Pretty creepy. It looks like everything's been taken, including most of the tiles on the walls.

More Russian for Juliya to translate! "My comrades the surgeons! Be careful!"

We must have spent two or three hours running around this crazy surgical pavillion. On our way out we crossed the street to the northeast corner of the complex and found the fully-functioning Parkinsons clinic we had read about before. No exploring to be done there, so we headed back down to the southeast corner that Juliya and I had checked out a few weeks before. This time, we wanted to get into the building that Juliya and I hadn't found a way into before--the one with the "poisonous substances" chart in Russian sitting in one of the barred-up windows. We may or may not have brought a hammer with us, and we may or may not have planned to remove boarding with it....but regardless of what we did or did not do, none of the boarding or doors would budge. In fact, the hammer that we may or may not have had actually broke--the head broke right off the handle! So, even if we had a hammer before, we definitely did NOT have one now. That's what you (would) get for buying the cheapest hammer at the hardware store.

A little bummed out--"What are we gonna do now?"--we headed to the other large building across the square. Juliya and I hadn't found an entrance into this one at our last visit, either, but it was worth a try. We found one open door, but it led into a dead end in the basement. Morale running low. Then, we ran across a barred-up, ground level window with a missing bar. The only problem here was that it led into absolute darkness. It was so dark that cold air was blowing out--when's the last time this basement saw sunlight? If it had been just me, or even just me and Juliya, the adventure would have ended there. When a dark creepy basement stands between me and exploring...yeah, I pretty readily admit defeat in that case. Brian, on the other hand, was totally game! He grabbed a flashlight and jumped in while we three scaredy cats waited outside. Ten minutes later he came back and led us through the basement, up some stairs into an interior courtyard, and through a kitchen-looking area to more stairs that led into the main building. What a champ.

Yup. Everywhere we go.

From what we saw, this building look less ward-ish and more like an administrative building, or a special events building. The first thing we found was a two-story high tiled domed room with a bath in the middle. Why such a gigantic room for such a small bath? I don't know. After stopping to do one of our by-now-infamous "Jump on the count of three and say 'communism!'" shots, we continued exploring the first floor. This place must have been so beautiful when it was up and running.

On the second floor, we ran into more "What could this room have been for?" rooms. One one side of the floor we saw glass doors with "Saal V" painted on them (prize for anyone who can figure out what language that is and what it means?). We opened them up and found this:

There was a wide pane of dark mirror-like glass leaning on one of the walls, so we had some fun with that, too:

Right down the hall, we found Saal III. The doors to this room were already open--when we looked down the hall from Saal V, we saw color, but we weren't sure what it was....

...until we went in. This had to be one of the most unexpected, most out of place rooms we ran across. We all had our theories - did pediatric put on plays here? Did the kids eat here? Did they recite cool Communist credos here about victory and fitness and being comrades? Did they have classes, or lessons here? Or was this just like the kids' hospital playroom? And the murals - did the kids paint them? Did volunteers paint them? For being abandoned for 10 to 20 years, they still looked pretty good.

Yes, we did play in their little playhouse net to the stage, and yes, it was awesome.

Part of the mural around the stage--apparently some Soviet was into Vox guitars.

After playing around in the kids' room we explored the rest of the floor. We never found Saals I, II, or IV, and I'm pretty sure we saw the whole building. Maybe they're in some other building? Just as we were getting ready to leave Brian found this spiral metal staircase, and suddenly there was a whole 'nother floor to explore! We couldn't quite tell what parts had been third floor and what parts had been less-finished attic back in the day. We did, though, find some very unusual graffiti. If these same tags had been in English and dated after 1995, we would have passed them right by with little thought, except for maybe slight annoyance at vandalism of this historical site. Instead, they're in Russian, and dated decades ago. Funny how the passage of time changes them, in my eyes, at least, from run-of-the-mill graffiti to unusual artifacts, traces of people who lived here or worked here or moved through here.

We left thinking we may come back again, to figure out how to get into that building with the chart and maybe check out the whole southwest of this place that we haven't even stepped foot on yet. But now, with two days of presentations in front of us before we pack up and leave, it looks like this was our last trip to Beelitz. So, last night we watched The Pianist so we could try to spot all the scenes that look like they were shot there. (Pro tip: The house where Adrian Brody hides at the end of the movie and meets the kind-hearted German officer who shelters him as the Nazis take over the building--totally Beelitz!!) Until next time, noble heilstatten.

In search of German food

Recently my grandma Betty emailed me asking how the food was in Berlin, and I responded to her with rave reviews of gozleme and my favorite Turkish breads and pastries. She replied with great shock:

Gennie, Gennie, Gennie....
What has happened to the German food? Where is the Sauerbraten, Rouladen, Kartoffelklosse, Wiener Schnitzel and Sauerkraut with Knockwurst or Brats??  I don't know if I can take this!

Let me explain. For the past three weeks I've either been getting pre-cooked ravioli and frozen pizza from Kaiser and/or Aldi, grocery shopping at the Turkish market, eating sandwiches from the corner store or any of the U-Bahn/S-Bahn stands, or enjoying my favorite simit from that place in Kreuzberg. Also, went to a hamburger place once and got a veggie burger with weirdly sweet ketchup on it. There are also all sorts of Turkish restaurants, mainstream cafes, pan-Asian cuisine, even a few Burger Kings--but I've mostly been avoiding them in favor of cheaper options. Not so bad for a student on a budget. Regardless, it has become very clear to me that, in my last days in Germany, I better find some German food!

So this morning I woke up bright and early, took a few moments to catch up on final Tour de France recaps (no spoilers here, though!), and set out to Flohmarkt Mauerpark (the "Wall Park" flea market) to get myself an education. This market happens only once a week, on Sundays, so it was now or never.

When I got to the market, I immediately spotted the reason for the park's name up on top of a hill. Some Wikipedia-ing tells me that this area used to have the Berlin Wall and its Death Strip running through it. and that when the wall fell in 1989, all but a 40-foot section of the wall was taken down and the former Death Strip designated as public green space. The picture below shows just a small, small stretch of the market--it must have been five or six city blocks long!

Looking down from the wall memorial.

I went back down the hill and into the market to commence my search. At first, I was only seeing random (but very cool) garage sale-like stuff set out on tables: records, door knobs, watches, jewelry, boxes, journals, hand-made soaps. I couldn't even take it in all at once--if you can imagine it at a sweet German garage sale, it was probably there.

Soon enough, though, I started seeing food vendors. See photos below for the culinary journey.

Something about sunny vegan burgers, all in English. Not very German.

Hot dogs...not very German. Getting closer though?

This girl was my favorite. Her little sign says "Carrot cupcakes made by a redhead." I'm not sure if she's German or what, but carrot cupcakes definitely are not.

Doner kebab! Aside from the scholarly debate about "just how Turkish, or perhaps how German, is the donar kebab" (which, as a side effect of my research project, I know far too much about for my health) I'm gonna go with "not German" for this one. At least, not the kind of German Grandma Betty is talking about!

Looking more promising. But, let's face it - currywurst isn't all that German, either.

More currywurst - nope. This place also served rostbratwurst and knacker, which seem pretty German...but, I'm vegetarian. So close, but so far. The search continues.

Strudel! That's German, and vegetarian! But it was stupid expensive. I was GERMAN German, not tourist-trap German.

This one was my favorite so far. This guy makes jams and spreads (something that the Gaude clan specializes in as well!) with the craziest names. I saw Balsamic Strawberry, Salty Peanut Desaster (his spelling--it was actually quite good), and Coconut Vanilla, for example, along with Chocolate and Chai Tee. There were some slightly more regular berry mixes in there, as well.

But, speaking of the Gaude folk, why would I ever buy jam when I have world-class, state champion jammers and preservers in my corner? Next.

Pizza. Delicious, but not German (even though I'm starting to associate Berlin with those 66-cent A&P frozen pizzas from Kaiser).

A ha! Wurst, culture, tradition. This place is clearly German. I checked out the menu but, again, it's all meat. No hearty vegetarian potato dishes or anything!

I also saw a waffle guy and some gummy candy along the way, in addition to lots of fruit/juice/coffee bars. Again, not German. Actually, not really anything--what proud people steps forward to claim gummy candy??

Then, just as I was leaving the market despairing that I may have to tell Grandma Betty that I couldn't find German food in Germany, I found it. German food. Totally German. SO German. And, 100% vegetarian. It fit the bill perfectly: traditional, handmade, sold by a German-speaking person (as opposed to the English-speaking vendors that seemed to make up about 30% of the stalls), bought by lots of other German-speaking people and not just "Do you speak English" tourists like myself. (Well, it may or may not technically be a product of Sardinia, Italy--but, that's as German as I could get. What does this tell us about the transnational nature of the urban economy of Berlin? Discuss.) And, as if that's not enough, it's also travel friendly and very share-able. But, no picture of this treasure yet--it's a surprise!!

Short article about the Bendlerblock ceremony

Elizabeth found this brief article about the ceremony at the Bendlerblock, and about related traditional military activity at the Reichstag. Be sure to check out the pictures and the captions!

Adventure of the day

"What many of us want on the road in adventure. And what is adventure but a moment, or a series of moments, that you never could have predicted before you left home?"
     - Ira Glass on This American Life


Things I could have predicted before I left home today (thanks to the blogs of the explorers who went before us):
     - all the fancy buildings and rooms I had already seen pictures of
     - artifacts of Inglourious Basterds filming there just a few years ago
     - a frighteningly authentic mosaic featuring an eagle surrounded by swastikas
     - wind and rain
     - a very random, larger than life-size plaster statue of a rhino

Things I could NOT have predicted before I left home today:

     - letters
     - photos
     - job recommendations
     - military ID forms
     - inventories
     - a passport
     - newspapers
     - maps of the world

...all in Russian. All from between 1971 and 1992. All sitting there, left in and around a desk in a room on the top floor of an otherwise not-extraordinary-looking building, for 20 years.


AWESOME.

"For the state, to remember."

Juliya, Brian, Elizabeth and I set out at 9AM this morning, hoping to get to Berlin's 1936 Olympisches Dorf, or Olympic Village. After some brief Google Maps-ing, we decided to head to the Olympic Stadium (via the subway stop and street of the same name). The place was clearly renovated and open to ticket-buying tourists, which is no fun, but we figured that if we could get in we could have a look around and maybe find this fabled village. We asked the men at the entrance, and found out that the Olympic Village was actually outside the stadium complex a little ways down Heerstrasse...somewhere. Not exactly sure where. We left with directions to Heerstrasse (but not to the village itself...whoops) and headed in the direction the men had told us to go. After about 15 minutes of walking and not seeing anything one would associate with the Olympics or villages, we asked a parked taxi driver for directions.

"Olympic Village?! That's not even in Berlin!"

Oh.

He told us it was about 15 km down the road we were on, near where the road ends and B5 (which we later figured out is a highway) begins. With some more Google Maps-ing this evening we figured out that there is a train station right next to the village, and that trains run there straight from Alexanderplatz. So, while this adventure will have to wait until another, better-informed day, it will definitely happen soon...

Unfazed by our failure to find the Olympic Village, we hopped on the S-Bahn and headed to Potsdamer Platz to hit our next destination, the Bendlerblock. This is where General Friedrich Olbricht developed a plan for the assassination of Adolf Hitler and coup d'etat of the National Socialist regime in 1943, which Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (see: Tom Cruise in Valkyrie) executed on July 20, 1944 - 67 years ago today. The plan was for Col. von Stauffenberg to get a briefcase bomb into a meeting room with Hitler at "the Wolf's Lair" in Prussia, set it off, and get back to Berlin to carry out the rest of the coup. The bomb went off as planned, but Hitler survived, and was on the radio later that evening confirming it. Olbricht, von Stauffenberg, and other members of the uprising were executed by firing squad on the the same night in what is now the commemorative courtyard of the Bendler Block.

When we got to the building around 11:15AM, we saw fancy black cars parked outside, people in very nice looking suits diverting traffic, and a small crowd of onlookers crowded outside the entrance with police milling around. We got to the front of the little group of people and spotted this scene inside:

I went to one of the police officers and asked what was going on. He started to explain that "it's July 20th, which is..." and seemed very pleased when we finished his sentence with "...yeah, the anniversary of the assassination attempt!" He told us that this was a military ceremony "for the state, to remember." WHOA. Memory. These course themes are coming up all over the place. He said the ceremony would be over in 5 or 10 minutes, and that they'd be letting us regular folks into the courtyard - the Memorial to the German Resistance - in about 15 minutes. While we were waiting we heard a trumpet (German equivalent of taps?), listened to a military band and people singing a very patriotic-sounding song, and just barely saw a flag procession through the courtyard.

Then the ceremony was over, and people started coming out. (I didn't take any pictures, but Brian and Juliya both did, so I'll put those up if/when they get online.) A lot of people in formal military wear, young and old, and a lot of people dressed up. We're guessing politicians, living members of the resistance (if that's even possible?!), family members of members of the resistance, other important people on the Berlin political/historical scene. We saw some clearly religious figures walking out, as well: a few reverends, a monk (shaved head and black robes?), and two men with large cross necklaces, black robes, and cylindrical black hats. With all the Secret Service-looking guys around (black suits and clear plastic ear pieces and everything!) around we thought that maybe, just maybe, Angela Merkel would be in there--but, if she was, she did not use the main entrance/exit. She left a very nice wreath, though.

Once the the ceremony mostly cleared out, they let everyone waiting outside go in. How lucky that my dad reminded me that July 20th is the anniversary of the assassination attempt and executions, and that we got there right when we did. Otherwise, we would have just been at this courtyard. With a statue and a plaque. And a tree. While it's appropriately somber and reflective, I feel so fortunate to have seen some of the ceremony and what the site looked like immediately after. Call it "active remembering"--and we witnessed it!

Fun fact: The street the Bendlerblock is on was renamed Stauffenbergstrasse.

Sorry it's blurry! Rough translation with the aid of, um, Google Translate: "Here in the former Army High Command Germans  organized an attempt on July 20th, 1944 to overthrow the Nazi regime. They sacrificed their lives. The Federal Republic of Germany and the German city-state ("land") of Berlin dedicate this memorial of remembrance, 1980."

The courtyard on July 20th, 2011.

SS and Wehrmacht in the same courtyard on July 21, 1944.