Ost Identity
How come some thirty-somethings who never experienced the GDR think of themselves as East Germans? And does one have to have experienced the GDR in order to write about it? Read my essay in SAPIENS magazine
Dating in the Borderland
Anna had reserved a room for me in a small Gasthaus one village over from Kella. During GDR times, Pfaffschwende had been just outside the Schutzstreifen, the high-security “protective zone”. The narrow road to Pfaffschwende had been the only one by which Kella residents could access the rest of the GDR. As she and Andreas drove me… Read more Dating in the Borderland
The chapel in the no-man’s land, and the monk who pushed the envelope
… and other stories from Kella, the little village that found itself next to the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. After Kaffeetrinken with a view of Braunrod – the former “window on the GDR” – Anna took me up the hill behind her house to the chapel I had read about in Daphne’s book.… Read more The chapel in the no-man’s land, and the monk who pushed the envelope
30 years later: Kella and its neighbors commemorate the opening of the border
This article from the Werra Rundschau’s January 1, 2020 issue, about the festivities marking the 30thanniversary of the border opening between Kella and Braunrod, describes the improvisation that was necessary to set up a border crossing in the absence of any guidance from “above”. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, had thrown the… Read more 30 years later: Kella and its neighbors commemorate the opening of the border
Of borders, identities, and friendship
Today’s post explores how “our everyday lives are criss-crossed by border zones” (anthropologist Renato Rosaldo) and how not only physical but also social borders shape our identities. Find out what the late anthropologist Daphne Berdahl had to say about this and how she came to settle in Kella for her field work shortly after Reunification… Read more Of borders, identities, and friendship
The True Flatlands, and the True Meaning of a Childhood Holiday
Sneak preview! This is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of my book-in-progress. In it, you will find out about the true flatlands and the true meaning behind June Seventeenth, a beloved summer holiday of my childhood that turned out to have an sinister history. Maybe one has to grow up in a flat landscape to… Read more The True Flatlands, and the True Meaning of a Childhood Holiday
People of Geisa: Lessons from a bike mechanic
Somewhere along my first breezy descent from Point Alpha to Geisa I had noticed that the numbers on the odometer were not moving. While the bliss of flying down the hill almost made the moment seem timeless, there was likely another reason. I checked whether the sensor lined up properly with the plastic sleeve that… Read more People of Geisa: Lessons from a bike mechanic
