Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Vladimir
I’ve always seen it as my obligation to dive into my family’s secrets, perhaps in a quest to figure out what cast the long shadows that have always hung over it. With my mom’s family that was easy. There were archival documents, references, a long paper trail. My father’s family always seemed bland in comparison. [...]
Filed under: Father, History, Russia, Third Reich, World War II | Closed
The whisperers
I lived in Berlin for a year just before the wall came down, the only time I lived in Germany as an adult. It was a strange time, for many reasons. But what stood out, unforgettably, were people’s faces. They looked distorted, like George Grosz drawings, as if they had put on a mask, but [...]
Filed under: Cemeteries, History, photography, Russia, Youth | Closed
Tags: 1989, Berlin, Brighton Beach, cemetery, faces, gravestones, Jewish, mortality, New York City, Orlando Figes, portrait photography, Russia, suffering, The Whisperers, Washington Cemetery (Brooklyn)
The dead in your backyard
I grew up in a very pretty village in one of the more picturesque parts of (then) rural Germany. It did have a small factory, but the overall vibe was agricultural. The farmer a couple of streets down would sell you a liter of fresh raw milk for one Mark, and our house was surrounded [...]
Filed under: Childhood, Germany, History, Third Reich, World War II | Closed
Tags: Baader Meinhof, cemetery, childhood, concentration camp, forced labor, Germany, Harald Isermeyer, Hitlers Hinterhof, hometown, mortality, Nike missile base, Rote Armee Fraktion, Third Reich
It is with profound joy
While we’re on Klemperer, I’d like to add a digression on the birth announcement of my mother, which appeared in January 1943. It read something like “With the most profound joy we would like to announce the birth of our daughter Brünnhilde. May she give birth to many courageous warriors. Munich, The Brown House.” The [...]
Filed under: Books, Germany, History, Linguistics, Mother, Third Reich, Victor Klemperer, World War II, Writers | Closed
Tags: 1943, birth announcements, Das Braune Haus, death announcements, family announcements, Lingua Tertii Imperii, LTI, Martin Bormann, my grandfather, my mother, The Brown House, Victor Klemperer
The pursuit of happiness
A few years ago I read all of Victor Klemperer’s Diaries – from 1933 to 1959. I read them in the subway on the way to work, at a time when I felt overwhelmed and miserable. I figured it would be therapeutic to read about the daily life of someone who had it so much [...]
Filed under: Books, Germany, History, Third Reich, Victor Klemperer, World War II, Writers | Closed
Tags: bombing of Dresden, Dölzschen, diaries, Eva Klemperer, Hadwig Klemperer, happiness, miserableness, Muschel, persecution of Jews, Q train, stoicism, Third Reich, Victor Klemperer
The final loosening
Walter Serner’s Letzte Lockerung (hard to translate: last loosening? final loosening?) was one of the guidebooks of my teenage years. It billed itself as a guide to conmanship, and contains several hundred themed aphorisms and directives on how to live life with a certain kind of haute grifter style. It is imbued with a 1920s [...]
Filed under: 1980s, Books, Childhood, Germany, History, Third Reich, Walter Serner, World War II, Writers | Closed
Tags: aphorisms, cool, detachment, Dorothea Herz, Dorothea Serner, guide to living, Letzte Lockerung, mortality, murder, Walter Serner, World War I
Blijf hier, Josephus Thimister
One of the Fall 2011 collections I couldn’t stop thinking about was Josephus Thimister’s. His name is half the reason I am so mesmerized. Josephus Melchior Thimister is just a beautiful Dutch name with a medieval sheen. I speak Dutch, so I can really roll it off my tongue. What a marvellous designer and what a strange odyssey [...]
Filed under: Fashion designers, History, Russia | Closed
Tags: Antwerp, collections, fashion, Josephus Thimister, World War I
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