January 13, 1995
I'm in the bus on the way to the mission archive. Irving and I just bought the train tickets for Löhne to see my half-sister Liesel on the 27th of January. We return to Berlin the 29th. Although I slept fairly well, I am tired so I let my brain idle.
Irving loves Berlin and dislikes Calgary. It's a phase he's in. Every time he sees a job advertisement he wants to apply. The corruption, call it wickedness, at the University of Calgary that we experienced last year, and about which we cannot say anything, weighs us down. What to do? Let it be, I decide. Time heals all wounds, I tell myself.
I see H tomorrow at 5 p.m. H will be the first of my half-sisters whom I actually meet after forty-eight years. -- Have no idea how the meeting will turn out. On the phone she told me that she remained alone in the Telz orphanage seemingly until age fifteen. This thought recurs and has clearly bothered her for years and it now bothers me.
My sister G and I, of the same mother, were taken out earlier. H thinks we were in the orphanage only a few months. I don't know what and how decisions were made or who made them. Did my mother, their stepmother, abandon my sisters? Was mother prevented from taking the other sisters because they were of a different mother? Was my mother too young to handle first seven and then, after my brother's death, six children – six girls? I don’t even know whether I am asking the right questions.
Mother was only eight years older than the oldest of my half-sisters. Is the story mother told me about my conception right? Was H's mother dead several years by that time? H is, so I learned from our phone conversation, only three years older than I. Is it possible, I wonder, to recapture a past that played itself out in the worst world war imaginable? Well, the story begins tomorrow at five p.m. How will it begin? How will it end?
Irving is most unhappy that he is left out from this first meeting. H wants to spend time with me alone. I guess that is understandable, although Irving and I have done all these sorts of things together. Everything is research – even this?!
The bus is about to pass through the Brandenburger Tor again.
I feel relief every time I pass through this gate! Another forty years of tyranny have ended, although for some the suffering and memory of East German Communism continue. Research and readings made me aware of the folly of the Second World War and the crimes committed with and in the concentration camps. Would Nazi fanaticism have flourished without the First World War and Versailles? How much might have been prevented, if ... But the egotism of leadership, the impotence of the public – nay, its moral failing – the absence of an unquestionable respect for the rights of individuals, rights that should have been settled for all times but are not because we do not know what they should be – how bitterly have we paid for these our failings.
I remember the Gedächtniszimmer -- room of reflection -- in the parliamentary building. A distorted cross full of nails. A reminder, I think, of a painful past, nailed down, and a warning not to act foolishly in the future
I look out of the bus window as we pass Alexanderplatz and what is said to be the “highest” tower of Europe – no doubt nonsense. But what is not nonsense is the cross created by the reflection of sunlight on the tower. And this when Communism banned it and showing up on its own proud tower
Each day too I pass the new President's residence. There are exciting stories about each building and district. Such a long, deep history, even some successes that are lost sight of, however, because of one major, grotesque failing. And it is that failure that colors the past and even the present – I dare not say the future.
We should be guardians of our history even before it occurs. But how? By way of tradition -- Christianity for example -- but that is, of course, what political radicals targeted first and were determined to destroy or defile.
Berlin is a city of infinite suffering – bombing, occupation, rape – but it is also one of lively creativity and fun – art, fashion, research, symphonies – and, and, and. I look at the Gendarmenmarkt, a public square that was built in 1688 and then the historical additions: Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Concert House, the Huegonotten Museum and the French and German cathedrals.
The problem is that all successful intercultural and interethnic efforts have tended to be a matter of Willkür, arbitrariness, instead of fundamental law or is arbitrariness part of natural law, perhaps necessary if life is to go on?
I'm in the bus on the way to the mission archive. Irving and I just bought the train tickets for Löhne to see my half-sister Liesel on the 27th of January. We return to Berlin the 29th. Although I slept fairly well, I am tired so I let my brain idle.
Irving loves Berlin and dislikes Calgary. It's a phase he's in. Every time he sees a job advertisement he wants to apply. The corruption, call it wickedness, at the University of Calgary that we experienced last year, and about which we cannot say anything, weighs us down. What to do? Let it be, I decide. Time heals all wounds, I tell myself.
I see H tomorrow at 5 p.m. H will be the first of my half-sisters whom I actually meet after forty-eight years. -- Have no idea how the meeting will turn out. On the phone she told me that she remained alone in the Telz orphanage seemingly until age fifteen. This thought recurs and has clearly bothered her for years and it now bothers me.
My sister G and I, of the same mother, were taken out earlier. H thinks we were in the orphanage only a few months. I don't know what and how decisions were made or who made them. Did my mother, their stepmother, abandon my sisters? Was mother prevented from taking the other sisters because they were of a different mother? Was my mother too young to handle first seven and then, after my brother's death, six children – six girls? I don’t even know whether I am asking the right questions.
Mother was only eight years older than the oldest of my half-sisters. Is the story mother told me about my conception right? Was H's mother dead several years by that time? H is, so I learned from our phone conversation, only three years older than I. Is it possible, I wonder, to recapture a past that played itself out in the worst world war imaginable? Well, the story begins tomorrow at five p.m. How will it begin? How will it end?
Irving is most unhappy that he is left out from this first meeting. H wants to spend time with me alone. I guess that is understandable, although Irving and I have done all these sorts of things together. Everything is research – even this?!
The bus is about to pass through the Brandenburger Tor again.
 |
| Brandenburger Tor |
I feel relief every time I pass through this gate! Another forty years of tyranny have ended, although for some the suffering and memory of East German Communism continue. Research and readings made me aware of the folly of the Second World War and the crimes committed with and in the concentration camps. Would Nazi fanaticism have flourished without the First World War and Versailles? How much might have been prevented, if ... But the egotism of leadership, the impotence of the public – nay, its moral failing – the absence of an unquestionable respect for the rights of individuals, rights that should have been settled for all times but are not because we do not know what they should be – how bitterly have we paid for these our failings.
I remember the Gedächtniszimmer -- room of reflection -- in the parliamentary building. A distorted cross full of nails. A reminder, I think, of a painful past, nailed down, and a warning not to act foolishly in the future
 |
| Gedächtniszimmer, Bundestag, Berlin |
I look out of the bus window as we pass Alexanderplatz and what is said to be the “highest” tower of Europe – no doubt nonsense. But what is not nonsense is the cross created by the reflection of sunlight on the tower. And this when Communism banned it and showing up on its own proud tower
 |
| Tower with reflection of the Cross |
Each day too I pass the new President's residence. There are exciting stories about each building and district. Such a long, deep history, even some successes that are lost sight of, however, because of one major, grotesque failing. And it is that failure that colors the past and even the present – I dare not say the future.
We should be guardians of our history even before it occurs. But how? By way of tradition -- Christianity for example -- but that is, of course, what political radicals targeted first and were determined to destroy or defile.
Berlin is a city of infinite suffering – bombing, occupation, rape – but it is also one of lively creativity and fun – art, fashion, research, symphonies – and, and, and. I look at the Gendarmenmarkt, a public square that was built in 1688 and then the historical additions: Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Concert House, the Huegonotten Museum and the French and German cathedrals.
The problem is that all successful intercultural and interethnic efforts have tended to be a matter of Willkür, arbitrariness, instead of fundamental law or is arbitrariness part of natural law, perhaps necessary if life is to go on?
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