Thoughts of Home...

The pace has begun to increase. We are now into the planning stages of our Memorial Site tours, which means that reading up on the history of the site is the main priority for the next couple of weeks. It feels a lot like I am back at University, struggling to concentrate on the texts and the work, only this time there will be serious consequences to my not reading properly. It will all be fine, and the fact that my bosses are expecting it of me is a confidence boost in that they must think we're up to the task, even after dealing with my paltry German for the past two months. It's just a case of burying my head in the books rather than the sand for once.

As a result of such pressure my mind has begun to turn to home, the comfort blanket for all ex-pats in the world. Yes, the Coalition is taxing people into oblivion and yes, we turn up at the bottom of almost every UN Standard of Living Index produced, but golly gosh I do miss my Sceptred Isle sometimes, especially the pleasure of understanding everything that's going on.

One of the ways I cure this Sehnsucht for home is through that wonderful bastion of Middle England; BBC Radios 3 and 4. I am the proud son of a mechanic and a shop girl, yet the soothing suburban voices of Charlotte Green, Sandi Toksvig, Petroc Trelawny (his name is Petroc for God's sake!!) force my accent and my tastes to ascend gracefully above my station. With its deliberately archaic theme tunes and cuddly soft Liberal viewpoints, there's nothing cosier to settle down with of an evening.

Radio 3 of course is on an even higher plane. While Radio 4 makes a token effort to be 'accessible', Radio 3 has thrown all caution to the wind and made it almost impenetrable to anyone aware of the existence of music that doesn't cost £100 for tickets or whose favourite musicians wear anything but an open collar shirt and a tweed jacket. They make you really work hard to become a proper listener, as if they are saying "Well if you bally don't like it, toddle on over to Classic FM- they're playing the Theme from Jurassic Park again, why not try that?". The day I heard something on Radio 3 and recognised the artist by its style (it was Dvorak) I knew I had earned my right to listen.

Sigh...

P.S- Apologies to non-British readers; the last two paragraphs probably didn't make any sense to you. Perhaps at some point I'll write a post on "The British Class System for Beginners"

Who needs to get over Hitler more?

On Telegraph Blogs there is a very interesting post from Guy Walters on the new Hitler exhibition at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. It is the first such exhibition in Germany's Post War history; there have been many on the Holocaust, Nazi crimes, the lives of individuals, but never on the man whose name more than anyone else's has become synonymous with 'evil' and the events of the early 20th century. The fear has always been that any such exhibition will stand as a rallying call for Neo-Nazis, which prompted the exhibition's directors to talk of their nerves in Der Spiegel a couple of weeks ago.

Walter's final conclusion, that the British still have longer to go to come to terms with the war than the Germans, is absolutely true; we have a relationship with the war that other nations would not believe possible. However, his description of the apathetic German isn't far from the truth. I will be heading to a lecture this evening with a holocaust survivor, at which I reckon there will be four, perhaps five people under the age of 40 out of an audience of thirty people. Of them, I will possibly be the youngest. The issue is not that the Germans must 'get over' the past, it is that they have not yet dealt with it fully.

There is a huge effort on the part of a few to face the past in a meaningful way, and they constantly hit a mental wall built by the German people in the 1950s and 60s of denial and ignorance. I would suggest that there is very limited interest from the youth of today in the Nazi era, perhaps because it belongs to the previous generation.

According to Spiegel Online,

"Over one hundred journalists from all over the world came [to the opening], including thirty camera teams, for of which came from Japan alone. All waited nervously for something to happen".

All the fuss over the Hitler exhibition makes little sense to my British mind, partly because if such a thing happened in the UK no one would bat an eyelid. I wonder if the German organisers of the exhibition are concerned not just with how Neo Nazis will react to the exhibition, but how the rest of the world will react too.

Memorials and Time

As well as attempting to impersonate Patrick Swayze, I also had some time to explore the city of Münster, which has a very important place in Western European History. After almost five years of negotiation, the Peace of Westphalia was signed in the Rathaus on the 24th October 1648, bringing to an end the Thirty Years War, the bloodiest conflict Europe had ever seen. Proportionately the only war that has killed more people were WWI and WWII. I thought it was important to go and see the room in which it was signed, if only to pay my respects.

Like most towns in West Germany, Münster was heavily bombed by the Allies in the last years of WWII and as a result much of the building had to be restored. Still, the room looks as it did over three hundred and fifty years ago when the treaty was signed. The place is surprisingly empty, given how many people suffered some of the most barbarous tortures at the hands of soldiers from all over Europe, some of which formed the first State Armies. Given I work for a memorial site that proudly proclaims "Never Forget" at its memorial, it makes you wonder whether in one hundred years time the site will still be as important to visitors, or even whether it will be relevant to them.

Of course the answer is yes, but I will be interested to see how the nature of the memorial changes as the last survivors go to their eternal reward. My guess is that, like with memorials to WWI, the onus will be on a broader memorial to those who have died in genocide, with Dachau being used as one of the first and most bureaucratic examples. It is a difficult question, yet one that needs to be considered.

For Carmelite readers, you may also be interested to know that Münster was home to St Edith Stein, who was a lecturer at the University until the Nazis implemented anti-Jewish legislation to stop her teaching. It was the last place she lived before entering Carmel in 1933. Today the Ludgerikirche, her parish church, still remembers her in a painting (possibly an Icon) by the south entrance. The other person in the picture is Bl. Niels Stensen, who was present during the time of the Peace of Westphalia.

It was a chance find; I knew of her time in Cologne, but had no idea she had lived in Münster. It is wonderful that the people of the parish still remember Edith Stein even though she was here barely a year and very few people must remember her by now. Perhaps Memorials are supposed to change their meaning. Perhaps the shifting nature of their meaning is one of the most important roles of the memorial once the last witness is gone and the memories lie in the hands of the next generation.

On the way back from Münster...

I stopped off in Cologne for a couple of hours to visit the Cathedral, which is possibly my favourite Cathedral in Europe, aesthetically speaking that is. The sun came out, which offered some fantastic shots for my camera, which valiently fought on until the battery finally died. Judge for yourself

RIP Father Dowling: Tom Bosley dies at 83

As you may have garnered from my last post, I have been in Münster for the last few days on a European Voluntary Service seminar. During this time, I was greatly saddened to hear from a friend of mine of the death of Tom Bosley at the age of 83. For most people he will be remembered as Mr C, Richie's dad in the classic TV series Happy Days, but I think in Britain it is perhaps his later work in the 1980s and early 1990s for which he is best remembered.

He was a regular to BBC1 at 2:40pm, when he appeared (and still appears) alongside Angela Lansbury as Sheriff Tupper in Murder She Wrote. However, for me he will always be Father Frank Dowling, the Chicago priest who solves crimes in his spare time with Sister Stephanie 'Steve' Oskowski.

The show was never trying to be ground breaking, and its charm came from its good natured humour, not its water-tight plots. I have lost count of the number of times Sister Steve managed to solve the crime either using the skills she learned 'growing up in the neighbourhood' or wearing a disguise! Many of the plot lines in the later episodes even tended to be rather fantastical; how could we ever forget the time Father Dowling met Sherlock Holmes, or had to fight Satan to save Sister Steve's Soul, let alone the two or three times his evil (identical) twin Blaine came to visit.

But none of that mattered. Father Frank was a good and honest man who always put other people ahead of himself, even when it endangered his life. It made for great television, and a fantastic model of TV Catholic priesthood. I doubt I would be Catholic today if it were not for the down to earth, human way Bosley portrayed Father Dowling. For better or worse, he was the first Catholic priest I ever knew.

Sadly, unlike other Murder Mystery shows of its time such as Murder She Wrote and Diagnosis Murder fans are still waiting for the series to come out on DVD. For now, I will have to content myself with the legendary opening credits sequence

"Nobody puts Linn in the corner!"

Just a quick word from Muenster, where I am attending a seminar run by the European Voluntary Service. I've been here about a week and, once again, it has been fantastic to meet so many wonderful people with all sorts of expectations and fears about their projects. There are Kindergarten volunteers from Leipzig, Office workers from Berlin, Franco-German Exchange volunteers in Wuerzburg and many others from all over Europe.

We have been playing a game called "No Stone". We pass round a small pebble with the word "No" in English and German. When you have the stone, you must pass it on by getting someone to answer "No" to a question. If you have the stone by the end of a certain amount of time, you have to perform a task for the group. Needless to say, I was the gullible fool who said "No" just as we went in for the final session of the day and ended up with the stone.

Meanwhile, during the day I had bought from the Youth Hostel library a fantastic book about Dirty Dancing. It's not one of my favourite films from the 1980s, but the book discussed the passion of dance as well as how the film was made, so I had no choice really. Having almost read this book cover to cover, the group were united in their decision for my task; to do the final "dirty" dance to the tune of "(I've had) The Time of my Life".

Thankfully the Lovely Linn (no stranger to previous posts), who has trained as a ballet dancer and had some experience, was nice enough to be the Jennifer Grey to my Patrick Swayze, who by now must be turning in his grave. It was chaotic, messy, but full of energy. I had a great time, and we even managed a pretty decent lift at the right moment!! Just goes to prove: dance has nothing to do with steps, it's about your style and passion

Münchener Freiheit

A wise man once said that there is no such thing as better or worse, just different. Of course this person probably made the comment in around 1976, before some of the world's most underrated music was produced and he had time to alter his comment. Whilst Germany is one of the few places in the western world where mullets and large moustaches remain popular (the other being Liverpool), Munich seems to have a fantastic pedigree of music for the masses, unfettered by criticism from spotty music journalists with tight jeans and ridiculously long fringes.

The most prominent of all is Schlager, which can only really be described as cover bands with wide appeal. Some exceptions, such as Wolfgang Petry and Claudia Jung, write their own synthesised, power chord driven songs. They all come out of the woodwork either on Saturday night German TV or during Oktoberfest, when they lead the masses in singalongs of such classics as "Sweet Caroline" or "Hey Jude". Germans, as British readers have probably realised from a childhood of War films, like to speak English in their spare time and much prefer to sing in their favourite language.

Personally, I think the 70s and 80s have provided some of the Germanic speaking nations' best music for the past three centuries at least. In the 1780s Mozart composed 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni'. Wagner's Ring Cycle was first performed in its entirety (as Wagner intended) in 1876. Gustav Mahler and Anton Bruckner wrote some of their defining work in the 1880s and continued into the 1890s.

By the 1980s, German music was once more reaching its centennial peak. In the former DDR rock groups such as Pudhys, Pankow and Karat were breaking down borders through intelligent lyrics that went unnoticed by the Stasi. On the other side of the Wall, bands such as Nena, Modern Talking and Münchener Freiheit were making waves and destroying the Ozone layer with their powerful music and hair spray.

What's that you say? "You cannot compare the majesty of Wolfgang Mozart and Richard Wagner with the synthpop of Münchener Freiheit?!" Well, yes I bloody well can. All three artists were not only writing work for the masses, often disregarded as German (in the wider sense of the word) rubbish by those from other European countries. Just read Mark Twain for a typical English speaking criticism of Wagner. They also proudly and unashamedly express their Zeitgeist, whether it be German nationalism or consumerism, and frankly I would happily sit through a concert from any of the artists I mentioned above with exactly the same respect and awe at their music.

Anyway, I'll come down from the soap box now. Feel free to listen to the following from 1985 if you promise to be open minded and leave your clichés and prejudices at the door.

Was bleibt?

I was at KZ Gedenkstaette Flossenbürg on Sunday for the opening of a new permanent exhibition, entitled "WAS BLEIBT?" (lit.'what remains?'). The aim of the exhibition was to show the post war history of the site (where the question 'what remains' is a poignant one for reasons shown below), as well as what happened to the victims and the perpetrators. One is faced firstly with the huge volume of bureaucracy that survivors had to wade through to be recognised officially as victims and thus be entitled to reparations. Then there are sections on the trials of SS officials into the late 1960s, when the statute preventing crimes from being prosecuted after a certain number of years was removed.

Someone commented that the exhibition lays the facts bare, leaving the visitor to see the successes and the failures and judge for themselves. I cannot think of a better compliment for such an exhibition.

*******************************************************************

Just out of interest, had you ever heard of KZ Flossenbürg? It's not a nice game to play, but of the huge network of concentration camps there are the 'popular' ones, by which I mean the ones that get the tourists, and the ones that have almost disappeared from memory. Everyone has heard of Auschwitz due to the sheer number of deaths there, and everyone knows the name 'Dachau' thanks to the US Army's efforts to film the camp and open it to the press in the days after the liberation. KZ Flossenbürg however has a different story to tell.

It is no secret these days that the West German government was not the biggest fan of memorial sites in the post war years. Many sites, Dachau a prominent example, are surrounded by housing and blocks of flats (for an example see my previous post on the Titus-Brandsma-Weg). Dachau never went as far as Flossenbürg though; most of the land on which the prisoners' barracks stood is now taken up by housing.

This photo was taken from the Appellplatz (parade ground), looking up to where the barracks once stood. Industry in the area had developed on the parade ground itself, and it was only in 1997 after the State of Bavaria bought the land that the last building was demolished.

That isn't to say that there were no memorials at all. The Ehrefriedhof (honorary cemetary) was developed in the area around the Crematorium, and is absolutely stunning. Seriously, Southern Germany in Autumn with its array of sun kissed Orange colours is beautiful. KZ Flossenbürg is just near a quarry, now an unofficial national park, and thus has to compete with the scenery for the attention of the visitors.

One of the first memorials built to the victims of a concentration camp was erected here, a small Chapel tucked to the side. Dedicated to "Jesus im Kerker ", lit. Jesus in Prison, the first thing you notice is the chapel's altarpiece, in which a concentration camp inmate beats a fellow prisoner while Jesus looks on in agony from the cross. There was apparently a widespread misconception at the time that those interred in camps were criminals, and were thus brutal. They were almost certainly not criminals when they went in, but whether the system brutalised them is another matter. Either way, the fundamental message of the piece, that as Christ dies for our sins people continue to suffer, was clear enough.

There were also two stained glass windows in the pattern of the prisoners' uniform and the infamous triangles used to categorise them

>

The church also contains a bust of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century and an opponent of the Nazis from the very beginning. He was hanged by the punishment barracks on the 9th April 1945. His theology would later influence huge theological debates on the nature of belief in a secular world, in particular the 'Honest to God' debate within the Church of England in the early 1960s. You can see the remains of the barracks where he spent his last months, which had been left largely untouched, below.

It might also be of interest to know that nine British officers were shot in KZ Flossenbürg in 1945. Britons were rarely sent to concentration camps as they were usually categorised Prisoner of War. However dozens of members of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), who worked with the Resistance in France, were sent to camps as spies. There is a grave in the honorary cemetery commemorating their deaths, as well as this plaque in the Chapel.

KZ Flossenbürg almost did the unthinkable and disappeared entirely, yet after over sixty years there is now two permanent exhibitions on the site. However, unless you have a car or a good couple of hours to spare making train and bus connections, it is unlikely many people will see it. For all the effort, the KZ Flossenbürg remains almost forgotten.

"Holocaust"

I have been re-reading Harold Marcuse's brilliant book Legacies of Dachau, which tells the story of the Dachau Site in the context of the wider German process of Verhangenheitsbewaeltigung. It is by no means complimentary, yet the KZ Gedenkstaette refers to it often in its 'Skript' of basic knowledge given to budding guides.

One of the most interesting chapters deals with the German response to the 1978 U.S. Miniseries Holocaust, which starred a host of popular American actors such as Meryl Streep and James Woods. The 40th anniversary of Kristallnacht in November 1978 saw more poeple than ever before take an interest in the Nazi era. In this context and after much deliberation by the TV networks, it was decided that Holocaust would be screened in Germany. The first showing, over four consecutive nights, garnered a massive response, and many see it as the catalyst for a new openness about what people knew of the persecution of those years.

One of the biggest historical debates, and one that continues to this day revolves around what people knew of Nazi persecutions. Most historians today would argue that the German people were, in the most part, fully aware, yet in the aftermath of the War the 'myth of ignorance' developed as a way of dealing with the guilt of the past. In one symbolic moment of change, the editors of Der Spiegel and Stern, two of Germany's biggest weekly news magazines, publicly confessed their knowledge of the Holocaust.

We must not forget that the very use of the word "Holocaust" actually originated with the miniseries, such was people's awareness of the Nazi murder of Jews shaped and influenced by the show.

Having watched it, I could understand the common criticism, led by Auschwitz survivor Eli Wiesel, that the programme trivialised the mistreatment and death of millions of people. The Weiss's, a wealthy Jewish family, seem almost identical to every miniseries family of the late 70s/early 80s in their make up. The portrayal of women in the show, either as manipulative Lady Macbeths to their SS Officer husbands or as petrified matriarchs who refuse to accept the persecution around them, is either a brave stroke of historical realism or a typical chauvinist fantasy. Ultimately, like all miniseries (and this is not a criticism of miniseries in general), it was melodrama.

That's not to say it was without merit. Some scenes were extremely powerful, in particular the moment the eldest son Karl is arrested by the Gestapo and all the neighbours peer through their doors before shutting out the events taking place. For a nation that had seemingly dedicated much of its energy to block out the past, "Holocaust", with over a generation's historical distance, forced many people to finally admit a very difficult truth about what they actually knew.

(Photo © Der Spiegel: Headline reads "The murder of the Jews moves the Germans")

A very large THANK YOU!

I received news late last night that the charity Living By Giving has agreed to award ASF a grant of £300 on my behalf. Living By Giving, previously known as the Glanfield Hospitalite Trust;

"was set up in 2010, to support and advance the standard of life for all people in need throughout the UK including; those who live in poverty, those with disabilities, those who are physically or emotionally deprived, those who have been neglected, and their families."

They also attempt to support young people in projects such as the one I am currently involved with in Dachau, so as to allow them to reach their full potential. I am humbled by the fact they felt my work in Dachau was worthy of such a grant, and on behalf of ASF I would like to thank Living By Giving for their generosity.

Kamilla og Tyven

Today, I am reliably informed by the BBC, is the 25th Anniversary of the a-Ha hit "Take on Me" entering the UK Top 40. You can read a fantastic report on the origins of the song, as well as how the video was made, on the BBC website here.

This took my mind back to the 9th September, when I was wandering down to Wuensdorf-Waldstadt train station with the other ASF volunteers. I was chatting with the lovely Linn Husby about what must be Norway's best known musical export when she began to sing me a solo single by a-Ha's lead singer, Morten Harket. It was beautiful. The song apparently came from a 1988 Norwegian family film called Kamilla og Tyven (Camilla and the Thief), in which Harket plays the Thief. Realising my lack of Norwegian, she explained that in the song Harket is about to be arrested for a crime he once committed, and is asking Kamilla to wait for him while he is in jail. Sadly, I have not been able to find a copy of the film with English subtitles, but I can at least show you a very nice video. For an image of life in Norway in which people wear period dress and 80s hairstyles, see below.

Harket apparently was studying for the priesthood when he was invited to be lead singer for a band called Bridges, two of whose members later formed a-Ha. It's a good thing he recognised he was being called to a far higher purpose!

UPDATE: The Lovely Linn has reliably informed me that Morten Harket does not play the Thief in the film, though he does have a small on screen role. Next time I make a post about 80s Norwegian Cinema I'l have to check my facts better!!

If you can't hear the music...

I have just got back from the Memorial Site Visitor Centre, where we heard Professor Livia Bitten-Jackson, a Holocaust Survivor, talk of her experience as a fourteen year old Czechoslovakian Jew who ended up first in a ghetto, then in Auschwitz. It was a fascinating talk (not least because for once it was in English and I could understand every single word) in which she shared many personal moments, many of them clearly painful. I will not bother to share with you all of them, as you can read them in her memoirs "I Have Lived a Thousand Years" just as I intend to. However, three points struck me deeply.

Firstly, Bitten-Jackson's talk was very down to earth and humble. She laughed a lot, indeed she had a fantastic rapport with the audience given almost everyone had English as a second language. Someone at the end asked her how it was possible for her to laugh after the events of those years. A good question, given she had most probably repeated this story thousands of times before. "It's all I can do," she responded. "When I stop laughing, I cry."

Her account of the Selection process was one such moment. It is a very common image now, the tales of people arriving at Auschwitz, being forced off freight trains and lined up for 'selection', led by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. In Bitten-Jackson's case however, Mengele spared her life. She and her mother were walking off in the wrong direction, with the invalids, children and elderly towards what they would eventually find out were the Gas Chambers. Mengele caught sight of her Ayran features, pulled her out of the queue with her mother and sent them off with the healthy people. This was where she said goodbye to her aunt, who would be dead within the hour.

All survivors stories tend to include moments of fate, points at which they are given work duties indoors for example, or manage to discern quickly enough when a selection is taking place.I think that one of the reasons many survivors feel obliged to tell their stories is the guilt they feel knowing that all that kept them from death or hard labour were small lies and their savvy. Part of the dehumanising process of the Holocaust was not just the moment they demanded you strip and hand over your belongings, but the moment they removed your ability to hold any real control over your very existence.

******************************

I leave you with the answer to her final question. Bitten-Jackson, who has lived in Israel for over 33 years, is a practising Jew and regularly attends Synagogue. Somebody asked her how she could remain religious. She replied, simply enough, that she maintained her practices because so many people died because of them. I heard the same response from the Israeli ASF volunteers in Wuensdorf back in September when somebody asked them whether they got annoyed when all public transport in Israel stopped at sunset on Friday evening. Judaism is as much a tradition as a faith, and for many it is perverse not to carry on. This was not to say, however that she did not have regular disagreements with God.

She then tackled the question that was implied by the first: what about Faith? She proceeded to tell the story of a man who saw a light emanating from a closed window. He peered in to see people dancing, yet without the music they looked as if they were simply making strange movements. She concluded the talk saying this:

The man did not understand that they were dancing because he couldn't hear the music. If you cannot hear the music, you cannot understand the dance. I consider faith to be a gift. It stands on a level beyond logic and allows you to understand the world in a way impossible for those who do not have it.

From a woman who lost her father and her aunt to the Nazis, as well as having her relationship with her mother forever strained, I found those to be extremely powerful words. She asked the audience to pass her story on. This is my small way of doing that.

Sprachkurs

I love the fact that I have not had a proper conversation in English in well over a week. Even better is the fact I have not met another Brit in almost a month. I've heard them, drunkenly staggering back from Oktoberfest in costumes, some even wearing Kilts, but I didn't bother talking to them.

I thought about this as I began my language course at the Munich Volkshochschule, or Community College, on Monday. I've been through the set up before, i.e take a sterile teaching room, a CD/Cassette recorder, a teacher (normally a woman with short hair in her late fifties with a name like Ursula or Birgit), a ridiculously expensive textbook with a punchy name like 'Schwerpunkt','Zeitgeist', or 'Sehnsucht', mix together and enjoy! I mean that; I love to see the different people you get together wanting to learn a new language. This time I am the youngest person there, and the class includes (among others) an Au Pair from the Ukraine, an Engineer from Argentina and a fifty eight year old Italian women who seems to be here simply because she loves Munich!

Every one of these courses also seems to involve at least five handouts per session of newspaper articles about language problems. I remember seeing the same problem at GCSE and A Level, except instead of endless youth initiatives to recycle Aluminium cans you get endless descriptions of multi cultural literary prizes.

As I say, I love every minute of it. By the time we finish, I'm so Germanised I can't bear to go home, so I take a walk through the city back to Marianplatz or Sendlinger Tor and get the train back to Dachau from there. Munich is beginning to grow on me, now it has been cleared of drunks in Lederhosen.

Other ASF Blogs, and your help

Today we had Internet installed in the flat, which means (and take this as you will) there will hopefully be more frequent posting here. A quick question; do people mind me posting on other stuff that happens? I'm keen for this not to become too morose, as despite the work I do I am having lots of fun discovering new places and growing in a new language. This inevitably means lots of socialising and discovering lots of delightful German 80s music. I would like to post on them, but if people feel that would be too irreverent, that's fine. It's your blog.

For example, I have been reading the fantastic blogs of other volunteers and they deal a lot with their social lives as well as the overbearing nature of the work.

If you speak German/ have the Google Chrome translate tool, you may like to check out a couple of other Aktion Suehnezeichen blogs. Abenteuerwelten (lit. Worlds of Adventure) is written by Anne Rumpf, a German volunteer working with the central office in Berlin. Her posts show a different side to our work!

Also, for another experience of Berlin from the perspective of an underpaid, lovely ASF volunteer (in English) you can read the musings of Linn Husby at Linn's lille verden, where she even takes you through the step by step process of buying bubblegum from one of those vending machines you still get sometimes in big cities. Now that's service...

Happy Tag der deutschen Einheit!

Twenty years ago today the Bundesrepublik Deutschland officially embraced the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik and unified Germany after over forty years of division. In Bremen there are celebrations going on, but the atmosphere among most Germans is very subdued.

That's not to say they're not happy Germany is now unified (though that's a discussion for another time!), merely that for many there is no emotional attachment to the day. Today was the date on which Germany officially became unified, but most people would point to the more famous date of 9/10th November 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Our mentor Klaus said far more poeple have an emotional attachment to the 9th November and can clearly remember where they were when they heard the news, like people who remember the assassination of Kennedy or when the places hit the Twin Towers. Last night on the way back from Oktoberfest with the two German volunteers attached to the Memorial Site, one of them said they had forgotten the Day of German Unity was today.

So why not remember German Unity on the 9th November? The answer lies in a cruel coincidence of history; Hitler attempted to take power for the first time on the 9th November 1924 and, far worse, the night of the 9th November 1938 saw the events of Kristallnacht, the Jewish pogroms that many see as the start of the active phase of the Holocaust. Germans have quite rightly agreed that this day of remembrance must be commemorated as a matter of principle.

So most Germans will probably celebrate the Mauerfall on the 9th November, but like most attempts to celebrate German culture in the 20th century, it must stand awkwardly next to another significant date in German history.

Waldfriedhof

I have been thinking more about the last pages of Raphael's memoirs, in which he describes the last days in the camp between liberation and his journey back to the Netherlands. As with a lot of the book, he refers to places that still exist today but are not actually on the memorial site, and thus receive next to no visitors. Whether that's a good thing or not is not for me to say.

One such location is the Waldfriedhof, the Woodlands Cemetary, where around 1500 men who died in the days after liberation were buried. While those corpses discovered in the first days after the Americans arrived at the KZ were buried en masse for the simple reason of a lack of manpower, the Americans decided that those who died as a consequence of their treatment during their time as prisoners would be given an individual burial. They were laid to rest by local farmers, whose knowledge of the events in the camp is still debatable.

When you arrive, the place looks like any normal cemetary; in fact it is a functioning cemetary and there are plenty of ornate memorials with photos and flowers. However, then you notice an open space, where you see hundreds of stone slabs. They mainly bear Polish names, every so often a Star of David, and sometimes for people whose name is unknown there is only a cross to their final resting place.

When people talk of World War One burials, they often refer to the endless lines of graves bearing 'Known Unto God' at Tyne Cot. We rarely have the chance to have that same emotional effect where concentration camp victims are concerned, as they were treated merely as numbers right up to the point of their mass cremation or burial.

I said a quiet prayer and left. I liked the fact that the place was empty except for mourners. Unlike so many victims of KZ Dachau, they were laid to rest with the dignity and peace that many of us will take for granted when we finally pass on. They lie alongside Germans as residents of Dachau.