European Diary 5 - A Small Town in Germany

A week ago Monday, Significant Other and I took a train (all the trains are new and sleek and sexy) out of Berlin to his hometown, which long ago was a prosperous thriving little town that succumbed to the bombing, the Russian Army, and the DDR. In February 1990 it was a most depressing place with its hideous department store with nothing to buy, and the hotel with awful gray linoleum and hairs stuck to the thin white bar of soap by the sink.

Youth and roots and all the people one knew exert a magnetic pull, which is why we were on that train on a cold but sunny morning. The first surprise was that the funny little building next to the railroad station where the royal lady always secreted herself away from common eyes was being restored and it will be a lovely addition to the station area. We walked through town toward the Old Family Property, whose buildings exist now only in paintings and photographs and especially memory. A trek up the hill through crumbling gateposts. The trees mostly bare, but some indolent autumn charm still present. S.O. kept exclaiming how the distances had shrunk, but of course he had trod them once on childish legs. We saw the unmarked grave of the dead Russian near what once was an asparagus patch. Not a brick is left of the old house, and squatters have taken over the property and built their little garden sheds. There is, however, a nice new boardwalk leading to the Biskmark Tower, a destination that hikers visit. On to the cemetery and the family graves, and a few harried moments trying to find them. They cemetery is peaceful and well cared for, but I noticed that many of the more recent inhabitants died in their fifties and sixties. Few in the last half of the twentieth century died old. The stress of the war and being on the wrong side of the country with a bad government that pitted citizen against citizen obviously had a life-shortening effect.

We trekked back down into the town and admired the new church spire. The brick church was bombed and burnt and lay in ruins for years until the country was reunited. There was a measuring error (measure twice, cut once?) on the new steeple, and it is much smaller than the old steeple. There is still plenty of work to do on the church, but it's getting there. S.O., the least religous of men, became very sentimental about the church. In the bare apse there was a charming Christmas exhibit of creches throughout the world. The 13th century altar was so simple it looked absolutely modern. Something about the churches resurrection felt life affirming.

Many buildings have been re-habbed and while the town may never return to its former state, but it looks vastly improved from 1989-1990. We had a tasty lunch in an old inn by the Havel River, with ducks in abundance, and walked back down the main street to admire the new department store with its washers, driers, and even dishwashers in the show windows.

We climbed back onto the sleek new train and travelled through a huge windmill farm en route back to Berlin. Have you ever been close to one of those big windmills? The blades slice the air: whip, whip whip, and the sound is like some immense prehistoric bird flapping his wings in a futile effort to fly. A little scary.

Go stand really close to a windmill and listen. Visit your childhood home. Get on a train. There's a big world out there with no relationship to your television set. Go.

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