Finally, I Get Some Research (Started)

I slept for 9 hours last night without chemical assistance (unless you count the beer with dinner) and didn't make it to breakfast until the ungodly late hour (for me) of 9 am.  Luckily, there was still plenty of food left at the buffet.

By the time I picked up the rolls and filling for my small sandwiches, it was nearly 11, so I just went straight to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin at Unter den Linden, checked my coat and bags, walked up to the pick up desk, and was promptly told that for reasons she didn't understand, my book wasn't there yet.  Perhaps it might be after 4 pm.  When I went back to the coat check and recounted what had happened the coat check woman repeated "perhaps, perhaps" the book might be there after 4 pm.

This east German era little man might be saying go, but the Staatsbibliothek keeps telling me to wait.

Since I was getting on and off at the Friedrichstraße station, I snapped a few shots of the Holocaust memorial there.  This first side represents the children who left this station to survive on the Kindertransporte. Thy are in a lighter bronze, with full suitcases and tags to match them to their luggage when they arrive in England.

Opposite them are those who were deported to their deaths two and a half years later from this same station.  They are in a much darker bronze, marked with a Jewish star, and their suitcases are almost empty.

Only a small tattered doll (and someone's trash).

The newspaper collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is housed in a former warehouse at the docks of Westhafen.  Really quite different from your average archive.

 I ate my sandwiches and apple and then went in to do some work.  It wasn't quite as awkward as yesterday, but it still took longer than I would have liked to figure out the procedures at this archive.  Finding and ordering the microfilm wasn't so bad, but it wasn't until I left that I figured out what was going on when it came to making copies.

Basically, in a nutshell, I can pay by the photocopy or buy a USB stick for 10 euros and then make as many scans to it as I like.  I only figured that last part out after I used up the few coins I had making six copies of pages from the Berliner Tageblatt of March 1921.  Luckily, all the main material will be in the June 1921 section, when they covered the murder trial.  But after an hour and a half of going through both the morning and evening editions for the later half of March and all of April from 1921, I was feeling somewhat queasy and very tired.  I forgot how much energy it takes to go through a daily newspaper quickly scanning for articles.  I'll buy the USB stick when I go back on Thursday.

I needed some air and also I wanted to pick up a cell phone, so I headed for a big technology store I know in west Berlin near the Zoo station.  I finally picked out a phone and a starter card, but to activate it they needed my passport number, and I had left my passport in the small safe in my room.  I'll go back tomorrow.

Still needing air, I walked down past KaDeWe towards Nollendorfplatz for some coffee and cake.  Instead of cake I got something called a Apfelzimt Taler, which means an apple-cinnamon dollar cookie.  It was pretty good, and the whole thing came to 3.8 euros or less than a third of what I paid at Cafe Einstein (and with much quicker service, too).  Afterwards, I noticed this on a nearby wall.

The weather has been improving all day.  Here's the sunny late afternoon cafe scene near my pension.

I had thought about going back to the Saturn store to pick up the phone, but decided to get dinner first.  This turned out to be a good idea since I accidentally left my metro pass in the hotel and having been carded twice today, I'm not risking it.

It's asparagus season here in Germany, and almost every cafe has their special Spargel Karte.  I ended up at a little cafe in Prenzlauer Berg called Sowohl Als Auch. 

For some reason, I felt I needed to eat more vegetables, so I ordered the carrot-orange soup with roasted sunflower (or pumpkin) seeds, and the Beelitzer (white) asparagus with new potatoes and hollandaise sauce.  And a beer. 

Afterwards, very full, I walked back to the pension. 

Tomorrow I'm going to visit the Bruno Balz archive for the first time.  The Staatsbibliotek is opening afternoon tomorrow, so I thought my morning would be best served elsewhere.  If I can get a ticket, I'm going to try to see La Traviata at the Staatsoper.  I'm also going to try to get a vegetable kabob at someplace called Mustafa's in Kreuzberg.

Flâneur

Usually I try to shoehorn the events of the day into some sort of overarching framework.  Yesterday, for example, it was the weather.  Today has no such organized theme; instead, I'm going to be more of the flâneur, in the Walter Benjamin sense, strolling amiably from one experience to the next.

I was determined to begin to make up for sleep last night so I went to bed around 8 pm, when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.  I knew my problem would not be falling asleep, but staying asleep.  When I woke up at 10 pm, I took an Ambien.  I slept until after 6 am (for a total of 10 hours), though I awoke several times and had particularly odd dreams.

Breakfast is at 8, but I went out early to walk around the neighborhood.  My old laundromat on the corner has closed, but apparently there's another one about three blocks away.  I stopped by the grocers and picked up some rolls and an apple for later.  I would have picked up some yogurt, but not having a spoon, I had no way to eat it.

When I got back, a little after 8, the breakfast was open.  The pension has a nice spread.  When I stayed here three years ago, it had fallen a bit on hard times, but today it seemed like a healthy variety (though still not as sumptuous as an Israeli breakfast).  Still, there was bread, butter, jam, salad caprese, cereal, fruit, yogurt, eggs, bacon, cheese and salami, juice, tea, and coffee.

Afterwards, I got my stuff together and headed out to the Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm Zentrum of the Humboldt University, Berlin (and yes, it is named after those brothers Grimm).  All beginnings are difficult and today was no exception.  I've been feeling that my German was very rusty, no more so than today.  I couldn't even get the simplest sentence out of my mouth without making a mess of it.

I started at what looked like the reception, and the woman proceeded to give me directions that I didn't understand at all. It wasn't as if she was speaking fast; in fact, she spoke quite slowly.  The problem was I didn't understand enough of what she said.  Usually, when I speak to people in Hebrew or German I understand only a fraction of what they tell me.  I then extrapolate from what I understood to fill in the rest.  In Hebrew, I get about 75% or so.  Today, in Germany, I felt like I was only understanding about 25%.  All I could make out was that I needed to get a Mensa card (it doesn't refer to the genius society, but rather to a cafeteria), and then I also needed to go to someplace on my right.

The place on my right turned out to be a locker room, but there were no keys to the lockers.  Rather each one had a push button.  If the button was depressed, it means the locker was being used.  But there was no key or lock to unlock the closed locker.  After much confusion, someone finally explained that in order to lock it, I needed a Mensa card.  I bought one and she then explained that if I press the card against the lock, it locks it and then if I do it a second time, it unlocks it.  With my bag and jacket locked away, I could now enter the library and get a card.

One big hang up was that since I don't have a German home address, I was not going to be permitted to check books out.  That's alright, I explained, I don't need to check them out as long as I can read them in the reading room.  In fact, what I really want to do is copy the material so I can read it later.  I filled out the form and received a card and password.  I promptly set out to order my book, only to find that it's checked out until tomorrow.  I've requested it and they will email me when it comes in.

It turns out there are several other copies of it over at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.  There are three of these state libraries in Berlin, and the one on Potsdamer Straße had two second editions, so I went there first.  As with the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Zentrum, I needed to get a library card.  Here, at least, I understood the directions better.

As with the earlier library, without a German address, I couldn't check books out, but I could read them in the reading rooms.  I purchased a 4 week permit and went about ordering my books.  Unfortunately, both second editions are checked out until the end of the month.  They did have another copy of the first edition, but that one is located at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin's Unter den Linden branch.  Off I went walking again.

I didn't know when end of Unter den Linden it was located at, so I decided to walk to the Brandenburg Gate, which is only 8 or so blocks away.  Unfortunately, the library is at the other end, so I ended up walking quite a distance.  I went inside, found a terminal, and ordered the book.  According to the computer, I could pick the book up at 17:00.  As it was only a little after 14:00, I had some time to kill.  I walked past Museuminsel to Oranienburger Straße to check out the hostel where my students and I will be staying in two weeks.  It looked clean and new, and is only three doors from the S-bahn station.

It's also about a block away from one of the most beautiful synagogue (facades) in Europe.  Unfortunately, the rest of the building was destroyed by the East German government in the 1950s.

Somewhere along the way back to the pension I ran across something called "EuroShop," which is basically a 99 cent store but in Euros.  I picked up a set of plastic cutlery.  Back at the hostel I changed.  The weather has been extremely variable today, going from cold and overcast to warm and sunny.  The libraries have all been warmly heated, so I chucked my long sleeve shirt layer, and headed back to Unter den Linden.  I decided to splurge and instead of getting cafe au lait at the little place by the pension, to go Cafe Einstein.

I ordered my cafe au lait, and as it the stammhaus location near the Tiergarten, it came with two mugs, one of coffee, the other of  steamed milk.  I also ordered an Apfelstrudel with vanilla sauce, though the waiter forgot it to bring it until I was almost about to start my third and final cup.  It was very good, though at 12 euros, it was about three times as expensive as what I would have paid in the neighborhood.

By the time, I finished it was almost 17:00.  I walked around the corner to the Staatsbibliothek, checked my stuff, walked up to the 1st floor (over ground), asked for my book, and was told that it wouldn't be ready until tomorrow at 11.  So much for my first day of research:  lots of work but almost nothing accomplished.

On my way back to the S-bahn station, I passed an enormous bookstore, so I wandered in.  In the large English language annex, I picked up a copy of Michael Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I had been meaning to read for several years now.  I also noticed that my Doktor Onkel (he was on my dissertation committee, but wasn't the chair) Saul Friedländer has a new book out on Franz Kafka.  I opened it up and right at the front he had reproduced a letter to Kafka.  It was one of those things that when you find it in the archive you just jump up and down with excitement (well, you would if they permitted it, so you ended up just smiling to yourself in a particularly knowing way).  In this letter, a man had written Kafka complaining that Kafka had made him miserable.  He had given Metamorphosis to his sister, who didn't understand it, who gave it to his (and her) mother, who didn't understand it, who had given it to their cousin, who didn't understand it.  They all demanded to know what it meant, but when he read it, he didn't understand it either.  Please, Mr. Kafka, he wrote, what does it mean?  I laughed out loud.

I stopped off a drug store to pick up some stuff I needed.  I forgot to pack talcum powder and I didn't like the puny amount of soap provided by the pension for the shower, so got a small bar and travel case.  I also picked up a replacement umbrella.

For dinner, I headed off to a place in the neighborhood called Zum Schusterjungen, which is supposedly a little bit of DDR (that's East Germany to you westerners) tucked away in Prenzlauer Berg.  The weather was much nicer today, and yesterday's dark, under-the-El greasy spoon looks almost elegant (well the El does, not the currywurst place).

Prenzlauer Berg has been increasingly gentrified, but there are a few bits of the older feel still left: 

The place seemed nice and homey on the inside, with a simple, traditional menu.

I started off with the Spargelkremesuppe (Cream of Asparagus Soup) as it is Spargelsaison.  It was delicious, with large slices of white aspargus.

At the table behind me, one gentleman in the party was enjoying the traditional nature of the menu.  "Sauerbraten mit Rotkohl!" he loudly and theatrically exclaimed, in the kind of excitement that Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory used when she said "Blueberry pie and ice cream!"  I had the schnitzel, which was hot, large, and tasty.  I was too full for any dessert, and so I left to walk back to the pension.

Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up some rolls and salami to make sandwiches for the lunch.  I'm heading to the Westhafen branch of the Staatsbibliothek in the morning, which is where they have their newspaper collection.  I'll check on the book I ordered after lunch.

A Cold and Rainy Day in Berlin

I don't think taking over night flights is getting any easier.  I did manage to sleep for nearly 4 hours; I think the only time I slept longer was on the flight home from Israel in 2011, when we were bumped up to business class and my seat reclined flat.  No such luck this time, as I was pretty much wedged into a corner.  Thank God for Ambien.  Woke up just before the breakfast service.

Berlin airport puts most U.S. airports to shame.  Not because it's so large or fancy; only because it's well organized.  I cleared passport control and customs within 15 minutes of getting off the plane.  The exit ramp from the plane fed right into the passport control queue, which was set up just to handle a few gates.  I was through in no time at all.

When I changed planes at Newark, I walked by the security checkpoint and they had big fans set up since the AC wasn't working well.  I've seen the same fans at Kennedy when I went through passport control there.  It's so embarrassing!  We're the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth, but we can't properly cool our airports?  This is how visitors to the U.S. see us.  We should hang our heads in shame.

Bought a 7 day metro pass and took the bus to Alexanderplatz.  I had read in the paper last week that this may be the summer without a summer in western Europe, as it's been cold and rainy (though not yet summer).  Eastern Europe, on the other hand, is expected to be warmer than usual, so it made it difficult to pack.  Well, the weather in Berlin is cold (12 Celcius), damp, and windy.  Thankfully, today was probably the worst; the weather is expected to improve over the next few days.

I got to the pension around 10 am and put my stuff in the room.  They still needed to clean it for me, so I decided to just go walking.  It was cold and slightly drizzly, so I just took my windbreaker with the hood.  I figured that after sitting on a plane for 13 hours, my legs would be happy to get out and move.  I was hoping to recalibrate my body clock by being in sunlight, but there wasn't much chance of that happening.  I also am hoping that the exercise I get from hours of walking will make up for not going to the gym.

My path led me all over downtown Berlin, sometimes on a tram, but mostly by foot.  I ran across a small little Holocaust monument at the Friedrichstraße station:  it had two groups of children.  On one side were a boy and girl leaving on a Kindertransport with their tags; on the other side were four children wearing Jewish stars being deported to their deaths.  The title read "trains to life; trains to death."

Unter den Linden is mostly a construction site these days, so I walked to the Tiergarten to check out the new memorial to Roma and Sinti.  There's a translucent wall separating it from the rest of the park on which is written a chronology of the persecution in German and English.  As you enter the memorial area you can suddenly hear plaintive music of one violin (it's almost inaudible outside the monument.  The space is sunken, with a low pool in the center.  Surrounding the pool, submerged under water, is a poem in English and German about the Roma victims.  On the broken stones that ring the space around the fountain are the names of camps and ghettos where Roma and Sinti were imprisoned and murdered.  I wish I could have spent more time there, but the drizzle had now become a steady rain and my windbreaker was starting to get soaked.

I walked across to the Reichstag, but it turns out you need to reserve a time to visit.  I just grabbed any bus I could find to get out of the wet, and made my way eventually to the Hauptbahnhof to buy a newspaper and a simple lunch.

The room wasn't going to be ready until 2, so I stopped off near the pension for a Milchkaffee and, for lack of a better term, a piece of rugelach (both were very good).  I went back to the room around 1:30 and thankfully it was ready.  I set up my computer and made sure everything worked, and then took a much-needed nap.

I'm trying to move my body as quickly as possible to the new time zone.  I didn't want to sleep too much or I won't sleep tonight.  After about an hour, I got up, changed by shirt, took an umbrella, and went for another walk.  I wanted to check out a new installation I saw by Museuminsel called "Destroyed Diversity," about all the artists and intellectuals who were driven out of Berlin by the Nazis.  I couldn't help be reminded of the famous novel from the early 1920s, Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews), what was then a piece of speculative fiction imagining what would happen to Vienna if all the Jews were expelled.

Even with the umbrella, though, I was getting drenched.  The rain wasn't that hard, but the wind played havoc with the umbrella.  I think I'm going to have to buy a new portable one tomorrow.  Bebelplatz is still a construction site, but thankfully, I was able to see the memorial to the book burnings (in between struggling some more with the umbrella).  I picked up the schedule for the Komische Oper and then decided to get an early dinner.

I decided to try this place, one metro stop away:

 

It's a hole in the wall underneath the U2 line at Eberswalder Str.  I went for the classic, currywurst and a bottle of beer.  I forgot that the standard size for beer is a pint (technically, half a liter):

There were some buskers out performing in the cold, trying to make a little money.  The guy was playing something experimental on his guitar while his girlfriend (?) performed rather contemporary-style modern dance moves.

I think that's it for today.  Tomorrow I head off to the Humboldt Library to see if I can get them to digitize a trial transcript from 1921 for me.

Matt's Confirmation

Here are the photos from Matt's confirmation ceremony.

From before the ceremony starts:

Waiting to go to the bimah:

 

Lined up on the bimah with the rabbi:

Getting ready to address the congregation:

Called to the torah:

 Blessed by the rabbi:

 

 

Matt's Birthday Excursion

Matt in Santa Monica:

Matt winning air hockey:

Riding the rollercoaster:

Silly picture taken by the rollercoaster:

Bumper cars:

Winning stuffed toys on the midway:

Riding the carousel:

Lunch at Ye Olde King's Head

Dinner at the original El Cholo Cafe

At the Griffith Park Observatory:

Infra red photo of Matt:

Matt in front of the Tesla Coil:

Sunset at the observatory:

In the planetarium, waiting for the show to start:

LA at night from the observatory:

The observatory at night: