The man cannot even bring himself to say the word JEW.

In a platitudinous statement to commemorate  the Holocaust on this very date of 1/27/2017 – also the date of the liberation of Auschwitz – Jews or anti-semitism are not mentioned. I guess the popular vote loser is not just a germaphobe….

Words: camp inmates developed their own. A language expressing the despair and yet the strength to create a living, breathing universe, as long as one could still take a breath.

Here are some that I learned about at the Buchenwald memorial.  Photos are from Buchenwald, Bergen Belsen, Ravensbrueck and wherever else I traveled.

Schwarze Amsel – Blackbird – someone confined to solitary punishment

Tonnenadler – Garbage can eagle – those searching for food in the garbage cans

Zaunkönig – wren (literally the words mean king of the fence – those who committed suicide by clinging to the electric fence.

Totenvogel – skull bird – those having to announce the daily death statistics

Singende Pferde – singing horses – the Jews forced to drag the carts out of the mines

Wolga Schlepper – Volga Boatmen – inmates who had to drag the carts

Singender Wald – singing forest – referring to torture on inmates tied to the trees of Buchenwald.

Erdkunde – geography – punishment roll call

Rosen Garten – rose garden – barbed wire cage holding Jews or political prioners

Alm – alpine meadow – the isolation ward for inmates with tuberculosis and site of killing after medical experiments

UFA Palast – UFA Palace – camp kitchen

Maybe we should all write letter to son-in-law Kushner’s Rabbi to suggest he should offer some serious spiritual advice to be passed on to the pr*sident.

A day where I was floored by a documentary exhibit on the judicial fates of Nazi perpetrators, prepared by folks from the commemorative site of the concentration camp Neuen Gamme and displayed at the Hamburg town hall. I will report on this in more depth later; suffice it to say that many of the death sentences for camp SS wo/men were never enacted, many of the prison sentences commuted, and those in prison released in 1955/56 as a condition to join NATO.

A day where I watched the inaugural address live on TV, shivering over the anti-semitic word choice of America First and, more generally, nauseated by the nationalism and populism.

A day where I’ll spend the night in some ritzy hotel near the airport to fly home tomorrow – wondering if I will have the strength to join the women’s march in PDX shortly after my arrival, having to get up at 3:30 am.

A day where I am thinking how an artist can contribute to fight normalization of the unspeakable.

I’ve learned about several exemplary women artists during this trip, all of whom defied convention and pursued change. I had reported on Paula Becker Modersohn already, but also encountered Dorothea Tanning again (wife of Max Ernst) a truly innovate Dadaist, Leonor Fini who I fell in love with, and Leonora Carrington (I had never heard of the latter two.) They were part of a terrific exhibition on surrealism in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, with large parts of the exhibition displaying works from private collections, true discoveries.

And then there was Leonore Mau, exhibited at the Museum im Jenisch Park, a first rate woman photographer, fearless as they come, traveling in pursuit of honest documentation of the world until the age of 97.

Someone else has better words than I for why we need to have these artists, support these artists, be these artists in the years to come. I admire him as a friend, as a journalist, as a learned, thoughtful man and am glad that his writing below can lift the darkness hanging over all of us on this January 20th, 2017.

http://www.orartswatch.org/the-poisoned-art-of-donald-trump/

I’ve been on the road so much that regular blogging has fallen behind. Part of that was access to the net, but part of it was also the need to work through the many impressions and emotions triggered by being here.

Yesterday the highest court in the country ruled NOT to prohibit the NPD, the neo-Nazi party called national democratic party. In a 298 page long verdict the court declared that all of the accusations against the party where true – its closeness to the NS philosophy, its attempts to destroy democratic processes and structures, its disrespect for human rights and its active attempts to pursue its national socialistic goals. However, the party was deemed ineffective, not likely to succeed in its pursuits of NS goals, its membership too sparse to be a true danger. Thus it can continue to exist – as can now multiple neonazi smaller organizations that have not  – yet – succeeded in undermining the republic.

Also yesterday, a major figure of a rising populist party, the Alternative for Deutschland or AfD, criticized the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin with the words that Germans were the “only people in the world who planted a memorial of disgrace in the heart of their capital”. People reacted with dismay, disgust and multiple editorials to Hoecke’s speech, worried about the use of Nazi language and attempts to minimize the suffering the Nazi’s had wrought.

Also yesterday, Maier, a German judge from Saxony, declared that the “guilt cult”  (Schuldkult) had to end, arguing for an end to commemorating the holocaust. “I declare it done with, as of now.” Requests for commentary were not answered by his employer, the German ministers for Justice. Luckily, you find lots of opposing public voices, and tons of street art from the other side of the spectrum.

Memory is preserved with markers, memorials, and the stumbling stones that are ubiquitous – naming those killed and deported in front of the buildings that used to be their homes.

Long before the Nazis, Jews were given tiny plots in public cemeteries to bury their dead. When you come to these plots you find grave after grave narrowly spaced, as here in the town of Giessen.

Here is a memorial (and empty lot) for the largest synagogue in Northern Germany, defiled and destroyed by the Nazis.

Here is a marker for the last functioning medical office that still tended to Jews in the Third Reich in Hamburg until it, too, was closed.

And here is a Jewish school in Hamburg – under permanent police protection – they sit in the little barrack in front of it. (About 3000 Jews live in Hamburg, the school has some 160 students. There were 17.000 in 1933 according to the census.)

In 2015 close to 1.000.000 asylum seekers arrived in Germany. Those numbers decreased to 280.000 in 2016. This decrease was caused by the closing of the borders that the refugees had to traverse in order to get to Germany. It was also influenced by the deal with Turkey to keep masses of refugees there (a deal that is haunting us today given the developments regarding violations of human rights and attacks on democracy in post-coup Ankara.)

Refugees, even in smaller numbers, still need housing, work, financial support and schooling in language and culture. I am truly astonished how many average citizens of Hamburg are involved in volunteering and donating to all of these aspects of integration. I visited a donation station and was impressed. I heard from friends how many of their immediate surround is and has been involved for years now in teaching German, helping in soup kitchens and the like.

There are, however, things that I found even more astonishing. Cultural institutions lend their space, even have it remodeled, for the temporary housing of those fleeing war and destruction. A well known theater across the central train station, for example, allowed people to crash for the night there if they were stranded upon arrival.

The Hamburg Museum for Industry housed Syrian mothers and children or pregnant women in a refurbished factory hall that used to be – and now will be again – an exhibition site. Clearly good news.  (The museum is worth a visit in any case, always interesting shows.)

Let’s not talk about the bad news today, the ever increasing populist movement and power grab, the xenophobia and crime against those seeking safety.

Ad for a public discussion of the rise of rightwing populism in Germany and Europe.

Blabla alone has never accomplished anything. Don’t just talk, act.

Smash the G20 – enemies of freedom are our enemies as well.

I will report more on both aspects in my artist talk on February 5th for the Refugees’ Dream exhibit at Cameraworks. Don’t forget to save the date!

On December 10th, 68 years ago much of the world agreed that we need to protect human rights. A true achievement.

The links below inform about what that entails, and how much ground we still have to cover. Nobody should suffer because of the color of their skin, their nationality, their religion, or their gender and sexual preferences.

http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/

http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/udhr60/declaration.shtml

Let us hope the clock is not turned back with populism and its more foreboding cousins rising their ugly heads all over the world.

In anticipation of snow: The part of me that wants to remind us of why the Black Lives Matter movement is needed decides to quote this:

“And I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, ‘love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

-Peter Tosh

The part of me that just wants to laugh for a second is ready to quote this:

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”

-Mae West

I’ll do equal justice to politics and wit;  and a bonus Peter Tosh reggae song, one of my favorites: of course about Equal Rights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SN7Pko_jCM