The power of the personal; notes from Germany

A trip to a new country leaves one with a great many impressions. The strongest from my recent visit to Germany are connected to personal stories I encountered.

Let me mention first the amazing Holocaust Memorial, more formerly known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The Memorial has two parts: an external sculptural placement of 2,711 giant concrete blocks of varying sizes. You can walk through these blocks from any direction, and so they formed a kind of labyrinth. These are 3 photographs I took to give you some idea of the effect: a sense of overwhelming number and individuality of view and experience at the same time.


The information center complimenting the stones adds to this effect with an overview history of the Holocaust but then, importantly, offers a portrait of horrifying deprivation, cruelty and violence in photographs and diaries from fifteen families, each from a different country.

For me, the specificity of this approach made the information sink deeply inside me. In all cases, the photographs from the pre-oppression period showed healthy, glowing faces at various family gatherings. And these served to bring the photographs from later times into exacting and sharp relief. It made quite a difference in impact that every photograph of an individual was identified by name. There were no walls of nameless victims here. Everyone belonged to a family, to a story.

The second experience I want to describe comes from the business part of this trip. For the first two days in Germany, we were in Hannover, where I attended a work-related conference. In addition to the meetings, I was able to have many personal conversations over lunches and dinners with my colleagues from German and Swiss libraries and research institutions. In the process, I began to establish relationships with them, ones that will, of course, grow as we continue to work together.

In these circumstances, we learned a little bit about each other. For instance, I discovered that German children are taught the American Pilgrim story. I was surprised by this, I have to admit. I still find it puzzling. When I, in turn, explained that Thanksgiving is a good holiday for Americans because it is not tied to any particular religious tradition, this was a new idea for Wolfgang and Anja, who explained that Germany is a Christian country. (There you have it.)

For their part, Wolfgang and Anja asked about the wall between the United States and Mexico. They wanted to know how long it is, and whether it stretches all the way from Texas to California. I realized, as they were talking, that Germans understand about walls. They also wanted to know if we had a trade agreement with Mexico, and, if so, why there wasn't free movement between the two countries as there is in Europe between members of the European Union.  Now, Germany is not a country without immigration issues of its own, of course, but I didn't bring this up. Instead, I was just interested to hear how the United States is seen from the outside.

I was walking back from an evening reception on the first night of the conference with a colleague from Switzerland, Angela, and another German, Stefan. Angela said something along the lines of "What I want to know is, we just love President Obama. Why don't you?" Stefan agreed that, yes, he had this same question. I made a response I don't think really satisfied either of them, though what can you say to something like that, actually?

As a side note, I observed this pro-Obama feeling elsewhere in Germany: at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, there is a President Kennedy Museum and Shop. In the big picture window right now, there is a huge poster of President Obama.

One last snapshot: every time we opened a map on the streets of Berlin, someone stepped forward and asked if we wanted help. Most notably, on our first afternoon, as we walked down Welserstrasse with a map, a woman stopped to help us. When she found out it was our first visit and first day, she asked us what we were interested in seeing and gave us what ended up being the outline for our full 3 days.

I'll remember her a long time.