Germany: now a familiar strange place

Me: Lace curtains: that’s how I know we’re in Europe.

Him: Is that all?

This exchange with Dear Husband took place in Vienna last November, but the curtains in the photo are from my kitchen in Leipzig (May). I compiled the following lists over my months in Germany as a way to remember what at first seemed different to me. In no way do they pretend to be comprehensive. These may not even be the "most important" differences between the two countries. But they are things I noticed in my daily life, and I would be interested to hear your agreements, additions, or corrections in the comments section below.

What you will find in Germany:

What you will not find:

·   stuff you lost: a jacket with house keys in the pocket, presciption sunglasses or a cell phone in the library, a USB stick left in a computer… ·   trust: this means laptops left unattended in the university library, bicycles left leaning against buildings (many places), and the honor system for payment on public transit (with random checks, of course!) ·   good public transportation (due to high population density, economic disincentives to produce gas-guzzling automobiles in the postwar period, and environmental stewardship) ·   bike paths and even bicycle street lights—many have a handle you can hold onto while waiting for the light to change, so you don’t have to get off your bike! ·  certain baked goods: a wide variety of breads and rolls, pastries, “cheese cake” ·   Ausbildung = education. Even the store cashiers and cleaning ladies take courses.

·   water fountains; corrolary: no free water with your restaurant meal; some places will let you ask for tap water ·   trash cans on street corners, at least in Dresden, because eating is something you do when you are someplace, not when you are on your way to someplace. This means I often ended up carrying a banana peel or apple core a couple blocks, until I reached the next busstop. ·   ashtrays at busstops: as if by making it “inconvenient” to throw away their butts, smokers will quit. Yeah, right. They just toss them on the ground. ·   cookies, brownies, and cake: I think it has something to do with the baking powder. Also, in general, Germans prefer less sweet baked goods. Just the sight of your standard American brownie (fudge with chocolate chips, say) would send many Germans into sugar shock. ·   sales tax: sticker price of 99 cents means 99 cents ·   homeschooling. Since the mid-19th c. Germans have had a Schulpflicht: literally translated, the duty to go to school. It was originally conceived as a paternalistic responsibility of the state to care for its future citizens by educating them, but it is a burden for those parents who don’t want the state directing their children’s education.

A last observation that I frequently made is that I look German but—even with my best grammar and vocabulary—as soon as I opened my mouth it became blatantly obvious that "Frau Ehrenberger" was not German. Most people I interacted with were willing to work with my sometimes limited language skills.* Only once did a complete stranger (to me; he was a friend of a friend) make fun of me. She and I were loading my things into her car after a sleepover, and I was unselfconsciously prattering away in German with my broad American accent. “Was?” he asked her in front me. “Was ist das? Ist das Deutsch?” I wanted to say to him, “Hallo! Ich verstehe Sie!” but just mumbled a “Hi.”**

By contrast, a South Korean artist I met outside Dresden (who had good English from having studied in Boulder, CO), noted that she was stared at in her small town outside Munich. She was often the first Asian these people had ever seen. But some neighbors had taken her under their wing and regularly invited her over to drink beer and learn Bayrisch. So even though she didn’t look German, she often impressed shopkeepers by speaking in the local dialect!

Certainly much of my experience in Germany was filtered through my language skills, what I could or could not understand, what I could or could not express. Being in an English-language environment is my favorite part about being back in the United States. Okay, maybe my second favorite part, after having DH around all the time. And so it seems mete to publish this final missive from/about Germany a year after the above exchange about the foreign-ness of Europe being manifested in its curtains took place. In the title of this post I call Germany "now a familiar strange place," because I feel as if I understand or recognize some of what makes our countries different (hence, "familiar")--but they are still different ("strange"). I hope you have enjoyed reading along; I know I appreciated having a creative outlet for writing and for sharing photographs. Watch this space: over the next months I may post every few weeks with some update on my dissertation research and writing; and definitely stay tuned in June 2012, as I accompany DH on a choir trip to Central Europe. We'll post more stories and photos for you!

*--My German definitely improved, but the variety of topics I encountered sometimes strained my vocabulary. High-school German, for instance, does not provide one with words or phrases for church or Bible study. And my research taught me about medicine, food, and even agriculture but not always what I needed for discussing current American economics or politics, which were popular topics with acquaintances.

**--"What?" "What's that? Is that German?"  "Hello! I understand you!"

On my work, part II

Me in the Elbe River while back in Dresden in July 2011

I had the nagging feeling that half-written posts were waiting to be finished and published--and I was correct! This is the companion to my last post (several weeks ago); a retrospective remains to be illustrated, and that will end my "Germany entries," conceived/written while I was still in Europe.

In the first part of this post, I discussed some of the quirks and annoyances about archival and library research. You may have wondered why I want to go through all the trouble! That's easy: I love research, because I love the thrill of the chase. The slightly ADD part of my psyche relishes when a search for one piece of information leads to another and another and then connects back to something else I already knew. This means I often end up opening multiple browser windows while looking stuff up online, as my thinking branches off in one direction after another. Then I have to work backwards to reconstruct the bits of knowledge I was after, like so many parenthetical comments or tangents in a conversation with myself.

Another thing I like about research is finding sources that referenced each other, or at least the same event. I have plenty of sources, too many probably, so that’s not a problem. And I could say many things from each of them. However, when more than one source mentions the same question or controversy, then it feels like that event really happened and isn’t just a fragment from an archive or a figment of my over-active (or desperate) imagination. Now that I am outlining, I am pulling these inter-textual references together into case studies about various concepts, like food for the sick or the pleasures/dangers of home canning.

I always like finding stories, too, especially about patients or other ordinary people. The last project I worked on while in Dresden was seven copy books of letters written by a nutritional chemist working in or just outside Dresden. The copy books included both personal and business letters, so I could learn about both his work and his family life. Because there are so many letters from this person, who hasn't been written about in English yet, I will probably include him in at least two of the six chapters in my dissertation.

As I transition from researching to reviewing to writing, maybe I will introduce you to this character in a future post. There are joys and frustrations about writing, too, and those will probably be subjects of musings (or rants) as well. Finally, as fun and as frustrating as the privilege and duty of research can be, I honestly want to devote a larger portion of my career as a historian to teaching. I am TAing for the History Department for the first time this semester, and now that I am beginning to settle into a rhythm with that new task and identity, I expect to share some of what I learn about myself as a teacher and about history for non-majors. As you can see from the photograph at the head of this post, I've barely gotten my feet wet in the wide river of the historical profession.

On my work, part I

June 2011 in Haus 1, Staatsbibliothek in Berlin
Laptop + old books + camera = ready to work!

Doing archival research for one's dissertation--and especially going abroad to do so--is something of a rite of passage for history graduate students. This probably applies to disciplines like anthropology, sociology, and archaeology, too. Once you've condensed your dissertation proposal into the neat package necessary for travel grant applications; jumped through the hoops of visas, international health insurance, and local institutional affiliation; and then actually lived and worked in a foreign country for 6 or 10 or more months, it's like you've entered a special club. "Oh yeah," you can say to the first-year graduate students. "I've already been to [insert comparatively exotic city] to do my research. I'm writing my dissertation now." It's true that getting to live and do research in Paris, Mexico City, Moscow, or Johannesburg is a unique and privileged opportunity. How many of my high school or even college classmates have gotten to do the same? Most American Germanists prefer large and metropolitan Berlin, but even living 7 months in Dresden was a wonderful experience. It's no cultural backwater. I'll be telling stories about it for the rest of my life.

But I'm not writing my dissertation now. Because writing a dissertation is more than merely reading some old documents in archives far away and then coming home and writing about it. For starters, I did very little reading while I was in Germany. On the advice of my advisers, I spent my time there collecting; now that I'm home again sharing the mortgage and grocery bills with Dear Husband, I am finally getting around to reading some of the mountain of data I collected.

But I'm not even supposed to be doing that just yet. My advisers want me to sort through that mountain, looking for sources that stand out for their uniqueness and potential, so that over the course of this semester I can refine my chapter outline. Next semester I'll start writing my dissertation.

Until then, I thought I would share some reflections on the process of doing archival research, day-in and day-out. For one, it is temporally different than the work I had done with primary sources while I was taking graduate classes. Earlier, I would either order something through inter-library loan, or I would go hunting in the stacks at our library. Then I would snatch time between this class and that meeting to read, analyze, and write a paper by the end of the semester. Living abroad to research, researching in the archive or library became an all-day, every-day task (even most Saturdays). It had a very different rhythm.

What I liked least about my work were the physical aspects of it. For instance, at the Staatsbibliothek (State Library) in Berlin, the chairs at the table with the microfiche readers were so high that although I was at eye level with the machine, I had to point my toes for my shoes to even touch the floor. By contrast, at the Hauptstaatsarchiv in Dresden, the chairs were too low for the tables, which made typing for long periods uncomfortable. The reading room there was often cold, so during the winter in Dresden I brought a heavy shawl and used it as a lap blanket. Meanwhile, summer in the un-air-conditioned library in Berlin meant sometimes warm afternoons (although not many) when we had to collectively decide whether to use the drapes to shut out the sun--but also the breeze. And nowhere was I allowed to eat and work at the same time (for obvious reasons, I might add!), so although my mental energy might have been high, if my stomach was cramping, I had to stop working long enough to eat, which sometimes interrupted my rhythm. Other times I had to stop to wash my hands because the old ink/paper/bindings left a dust that irritated my skin after a while. I developed pretty good hand hygiene before eating! On the other hand, while a cleaner activity, looking at microfilm for hours on end often led to a stiff neck (the screen tends to be set too high) and to dead brain cells (the film…never…ends…).

All this work on sources from the past requires a lot of technology, both new and old. As the photo at the head of this entry suggests, I depended heavily on my laptop and digital camera for photographing sources. This was both free and convenient, because those thousands of photographs weigh no more than my laptop. Unfortunately, almost as soon as I got to Berlin, the screen on my laptop died. It had flickering some in Leipzig, but I had hoped to make it back home. No such luck. I was able to find a computer store near my new apartment that was so...convenient: my laptop lived there for an. entire. month. Thankfully, my roommates in Kreuzberg were sweet (if not predisposed to cleanliness), and one lent me an old laptop of his. Unfortunately, it was an Italian laptop set to the German keyboard. That made taking notes in English tricky! (Germans switch Z and Y, for instance.) Then my landlord loaned me the German laptop in the photo above. It was old but fast, and once I figured out how to get it to talk to my camera, I could get back to work. Next time: some fun stories from my research.

Where I worked, Part II (Leipzig und Berlin)

This is the second of two posts about the places at which I conducted my research while in Germany. Apologies for the delay in publication; teaching, reading my notes, and putting the finishing touches on a book manuscript have been taking up my time.

First: Saxony's second city. I went to Leipzig in order to work in the rich collection of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (Germany National Library). The two houses in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main collect everything published in German since just before WWI. The big old building with beautiful mosaics in the lobby and pretty stained-glass windows in the cafeteria (left) dates from the same time, so many of the city tour buses pause in the circle drive for the tourists to snap a few photographs. When eating outside on the steps I often felt like part of the attraction. I liked working in the large main reading room, with its dark wood floor, walls, and desks. The desks each had a classic green-glass hooded lamp, which when glowing in the evenings lent the appropriate mood for doing research in early-twentieth-century ladies journals.

My hair was still short in May!

Small dome in Haus 1

Door handle to Haus 1

Speaking of mood, the characters of the two houses of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin are very different. Haus 1 opened with great fanfare in early 1914, and its domed main reading room is supposed to have been quite an impressive sight. Unfortunately, the cuppola was damaged during WWII air raids, and it was finally dismantled in the 1970s. Haus 1 lies on the famous boulevard Unter den Linden, just a few blocks east of the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), and it ended up in East Berlin. There it suffered the architectural outrage (to read about it now) of having a couple of ugly book towers erected to hold the collections. The building is currently being cleaned and renovated inside and out, and a new glass cube main reading room will open early next year. On Die lange Nachte der Bibliotheken (Long night at the libraries) we were allowed a glimpsed at the as-yet unfinished reading room. Even though the entire place is essentially a construction site, I rather preferred the older style and even the noise to the visually interesting but strictly quiet Haus 2 on Potsdamer Platz. Plus, Haus 1 was closer once I moved to Prenzlauer Berg in July. With the division of the capital city, the library was also divided, and a newer, more modern building constructed in West Berlin in the 1960s contains the more recent collections. It is an architectural marvel of white and concrete and glass, of shapes and lights and uneven, open balconies. The open hours of Haus 2 were shorter than at Haus 1, so I was only here twice: once, to photograph a book that exists in single-copy in the Handwriting Collection; and once on Die lange Nacht der Bibliotheken to hear a radio drama set in a library. If you ever get lost in a library late at night--well, sometimes you don't want to be found...

Haus 2, Potsdamer Platz

The last place I worked in Berlin was at the Bundesfilmarchiv (Federal Film Archive) at Fehrbellinerplatz in Wilmersdorf. Part of the Platz is surrounded by the rounded “wings” of two Nazi-era buildings. From above I think they are supposed to be eagle-shaped. (The red structure in the photo to the left is the entrance to the U-Bahn.) I worked in the building across the street (right). Although the collection itself is impressive, I was underwhelmed my first day there. Visits are by appointment only and consist of you using the machines in an archivist’s office. However, this was helpful for me, since some of the 1920s hygiene films I looked at came in the mundane formats of VHS or DVD, but others were on film reels, and I had never worked with those before. I went back for a quick half day on my last day of research in Germany. I marked a few films for stills I want for an article I'm thinking of writing, and I watched a few more films. I was interested to note that both an advertisement for canned meat and a public health film on good diet used the idea of a fantasy land of too much food--they date from the post-WWI period, when Germans were finally able to buy and eat food after the long "hunger blockade" by the Allies.

Where I worked, Part I (Dresden)

The next several posts are about where and how I worked in Germany. I spent my days in one of several libraries or archives, each with its own character. For the first seven months, most of my time was at the Dresden Hauptstaatsarchive (Main State Archive) in its temporary quarters on the grounds of the military barracks north of the city (photo left). There wasn't much to do or see in the area. The building used to house the state and university library, before that moved to the campus in the middle of town. At the beginning of June (after I had left Dresden), the archive closed and moved to its recently renovated house in the Regierungsviertel (Government Quarter) in the Neustadt, much closer to the center of town. It should open in the new/old location near the river next month.  

One tram stop to the north lies the small Stadtarchiv for Dresden. The reading room with its modern furniture lies on the fifth and top floor, with a large (shaded) skylight to let in the sunlight (indirectly). To the right is a view from the stairwell looking south, toward the river and the Neustadt. Train tracks ran right by the back of the building, so we could often hear trains and whistles while we read our old documents.

The Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek (SLUB) occupies the ground floor and two underground levels on the campus of the Technische Universität Dresden, my host institution. Great earthen bunkers covered in grass and trees were erected around this university library, giving it a protected (defended?) feel. I snapped the shot below one evening when it had been raining. It seemed to me like the students’ umbrellas had cropped over their lockers like so many colorful mushrooms. I came here to look at microfilm of the local newspapers and to scan old books with the BookEyes (PDFs weigh a lot less than copies and are better for delicate books).

A couple of days I worked at the library of the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden. Although the building is mostly an aseptic white with dark floors, the library is much warmer, with lots of wood for the book shelves and desks. Unfortunately, that library closed without warning for renovations in February, and it did not reopen before I left the country. I hope that I was able to get what I needed last winter.

A last site in Dresden was the Institut für Geschichte der Medizin (Institute for the History of Medicine). They have a small library of books, some or which aren’t even in the online catalog with the rest of the university library's holdings. I photographed promotional materials for the Lahmanns Sanatorium-Bad Weiβer Hirsch in their conference room, which also contained several cases of old medical instruments, like the one in the photo to the left. The ladies here were extraordinarily friendly, and when they found out my last day with them happened to be my birthday, they bought ice cream cake and rote Grütze (red berries sauce) so we could celebrate!

Left Behind

This post--the last about my travels--is the counterpart to the one I published last September on packing to leave for Europe. As always, it is amazing how much stuff one can collect in (almost) a year, in my case mostly papers and books (see photo). I ended up lugging about 25-30 pounds of belongings from Berlin through Poznan to Warsaw. I thought two weeks' worth of clothing was plenty to pack, so I was surprised to come home and discover I had an entire bureau and a small closet full of clothes! Over the next couple of weeks I will post a final few retrospective entries about living and researching in Germany, which will bring this first phase of my blog to an end.


After packing to leave Berlin at the end of July, I made two lists: one of things that I acquired in Germany, and one of things that got "left behind." Here they are:

Acquisitions:

Bible (Die Gute Nachricht)

bike pump

books

books

photocopies

CDs with scans of documents

2 DVDs (one a gift, one I purchased, unfortunately both Region 2)

expensive air mattress I bought for the cave-camping trip on Christmas Eve

external harddrive (I was starting to get panicky about losing my photo collection, which is too big for the free online storage sites)*

Handy (= cell phone) and charger

USB stick

vegetable peeler

Cast-offs:

bank statements (I had to print these out every month, or the bank charged me a fee for mailing it)

bicycle and bike lock (sold online)

drying rack for laundry

the "little pot" I bought to cook oatmeal, soup, and single dinner servings 

lunch box (worn out)

2 pairs of sneakers (1 worn out, 1 too small)

pair of dress shoes (worn out)

pair of khakis (tangled in my bike chain one too many times)

shower poof

toothbrush

Tupperware I bought in Germany (what I brought over with me I carried home again)

umbrella (broken by the wind)

vase for the dozen red roses DH sent when things got stressful over the summer

wicker basket my Christmas present from DH came in (fruit and more fruit: does he know me, or does he know me?)

Although Dear Husband traded me for a larger suitcase on one of his visits, and he even carted home some winter clothes, photocopies, and books for me, when packing up I still found myself with juuust enough carrying capacity. Or rather, capacity to stuff my belongings into an enclosed container and drag or otherwise lug it behind me. I still had my winter coat, a lighter and a heavier jacket, my bicycle helmet, and a steamer basket that I didn’t use as often as I thought I would, since I usually ended up cooking my vegetables with the potatoes in a little olive oil. For the trip through Poland I also had an extra bag of apples, snacks, and rolls with what was left of my meat and cheese. I figured I had already paid for this food, could eat it whenever I was hungry, and wouldn’t have to worry about factoring as many meals into my budget of Polish zlotys. Although I am used to buying just as much food as I need for a week, I discovered that I am reeaallly bad at estimating how long toiletries like shampoo and shower gel last. At least I was able to repack the rest of my laundry detergent into a little juice bottle. I opted not to mail anything home, because I found that even a not-very-heavy small-medium box could cost 30 Euros (= $40) to mail to the States. So because books are heavy (= expensive), and because I have heard horror stories of research notes getting lost at customs, I would have ended up mailing back clothes and lugging the books and a ream of copies anyway. Cheapskate me would rather endure the sweat and blisters than pay the money. As it was, I ended up paying over 100 Euros in luggage fees for the privilege of traveling with all my stuff.

*--The external harddrive made the journey in my suitcase. I sat in an exit row, and a thought occurred to me while reading the emergency landing info: "If the plane goes down, I lose my suitcase; that means in order to save 10 months' worth of research photographs, I would have to take my laptop, which is against the rules. I may not "meet the requirements" for sitting in the exit row after all!"

Poland, Day 2: Warsaw

I liked Warsaw. I formed my first impression of it while walking around the center of the city, looking for my hostel (I had written the address down incorrectly). An hour and a half later, I arrived, tanned from so much sun, and itching to get started with some real sight-seeing. An hour later I had showered, changed, and found a castle open on a Monday. Off I went.

One neat feature of the city I had to get used to was the underground pedestrian passages. Instead of having to cross large streets and deal with the traffic, pedestrians go down some stairs, along a hallway, and up again to re-emerge on the next corner. Some of the tram stops are accessed this way. Meanwhile, the passages are lined with shops for computer parts, books, baked goods, etc.

I figured Warsaw was too big and cheap to resign myself to walking everywhere--not mention the blisters from legging it around Poznan--so my first day I rode a streetcar and a bus to the Old City and took the subway home at night. The public transit system seems pretty extensive, and the website comes in English. But there are few ticket automats, so I ended up riding schwarz (black, i.e. illegally) on the first leg of my journey, because I couldn't figure out where to buy a ticket. (It turns out most of the sidewalk newspaper and cigarette kiosks sell them.) There are no maps or schedules or signs or announcements in the buses or streetcars, so I nearly missed my stop once. And riding on a weekday at rush hour meant squeezing into a bus with a LOT of Poles. But I got where I was going:

I took a tour of the castle in the Old City. After the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943), the Nazis leveled what was left of the city and blew up the castle in retribution. It has since been rebuilt in its original style and grandeur. I marveled as I always do at the money and effort that went into the artwork and decorations--like the beautiful ceiling painting above--that only a small percentage of the population ever got to enjoy. All of the signage here also came in English, as it is a popular tourist spot.

I wandered around the Old City, looked at the Vistula River, and treated myself to a traditional Polish meal of summer soup and compott (water in which prunes and other dried fruits have been steeped). I drank my compott cold, but it also makes a tasty warm drink for cold days. For some reason it reminded me of apple butter.

Warsaw is a big, busy, international metropolis. From the viewing platform on the 30th floor of the Palace of Culture and Science the next morning, I could see signs on buildings for Coca-Cola, Siemens, Peugeot, and other foreign companies.

Stalin gifted this enormous building (first photo above) to the Polish people in 1955, and it is still the tallest building in the country (42 stories). Its several wings house a cinema, a museum, a conference hall, and even a university. The techno mermaid to the right wields her sword outside the Museum of Science and Technology. I was really looking forward to seeing their Glass Woman, but the ticket lady in her limited English didn't offer an explanation for why I couldn't buy a ticket for that. Instead, I looked at a charming set of sometimes witty model train vignettes; at some mining equipment; and at their collections of phones, computers, cars and motorcycles, washing machines. Maybe half of the labels were also available in English, so I had an even more extreme reaction of glassy-eyed wonder/stupor to these context-less objets d'science. They did translate a couple of paragraphs about the Enigma machine the Poles used to break the Nazi's code during WWII, which was cool. And I got to bid farewell to the United States' space-travel program at the museum's display on the Apollo missions. In one room, an elderly gentleman explained hands-on physics experiments to me (in Polish).

My last stop was to the Frederic Chopin house and museum. It opened at noon that day, but it was free, so I figured it was worth trying to spend an hour or so there before picking up my luggage from the train station and heading to the airport. Unfortunately, they only had spots left from 4pm (my plane took off at 4:30!). Thankfully, the girl working the ticket counter took pity on me and gave me a pass anyway. Like the Museum of Science and Technology, the Chopin Museum stakes its claim to fame on its collection of objects and memorabilia. Unlike the MST, however, the Chopin institution recently reopened with a glitzy, new, high-tech exhibition. You can see a draft manuscript of an etude and then touch your pass to the nearby computer screen for a video about Warsaw or Paris when the composer lived there (with subtitles in your language, too). It was pretty neat. Dear Husband would have loved the room in the basement on Chopin as a composer. Soon it was time to go.

A woman from Barcelona and I snapped each other's photographs
on the observation deck of the Palace of Science and Culture.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I had frustrating and sweaty experiences traveling from Berlin to Poznan, from Poznan to Warsaw, and then to the airport for my return journey. The two days I spent in the capital of Poland were warmer than I had expected, and my luggage really was quite heavy. So more than once I found myself in a bathroom, taking a sponge bath so as not to offend my fellow travelers. Good thing I remembered to pack my towel!