Some Final Thoughts on the 2018 #FemGeniusesinBerlin

It’s been a while since I contributed to “Some Final Thoughts.” So, bear with me, please, as I shake some of the rust off.

Despite earning tenure and promotion to Associate Professor this spring, this year had its rough spots—some worse than others, especially the death of one of my closest aunts. Because of that, a few people—some who I thought were close to me and others who I knew weren’t—recommended that I cancel this course. In some strange way, I’m glad they did, because it reminded me of two very important things:

A lot of people who compliment me on this course have no idea what it is, what it does, and/or what it means—not just to me but to my students and my friends and comrades in Berlin.
This course means a lot to me and my students and my friends and comrades in Berlin.

My faith in the course was rewarded by a great group of students. They were thoughtful, kind, patient, interested, curious, and outright hilarious. I had so much fun with them, and I miss them already even though it’s only been one week since the course concluded. I could fill this page with memories:

Charles declaring, “Those two left at the same time.”
Me and Charles, singing, “If you liked it, you shoulda put a ring on it.”
Laila’s hilarious faces and hand gestures—I wish I could type the sound she made to complement her monster face and hands.
Dana’s and my “cheese fight.”
Our first long-distance trip in the course.
Izzy’s visit.
The constant references to John’s future run for Senate.
Sarah’s broad-shouldered dinner jacket.
The search for mom jeans and the finding of a pair “in pristine condition.”
Dereka’s new nose ring.

And as always, we had such a great time with and learned so much from everyone in Berlin who gave their time and energy to the course. Best of all, I think everyone knew just how much we appreciated them, because these students made every effort to ensure that from start to finish. If you haven’t yet, please check out the student podcasts (index below) and share them with anyone you know who may be interested in what we study here.

2018 FemGeniuses in Berlin Podcast Index:
Click here to view a slideshow, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter to see more pictures and videos!

“Jewish History & Culture Walking Tour and the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand” by Noah Shuster
“ReachOut Berlin” by Madi Doerre
“Examining German Colonialism” by John B. Capers, Jr.
“Joliba Interkulturelles Netzwerk” by Laila Marshall
“Romanja Power and Cultural Preservation at the RomaniPhen Feminist Archive” by Anna Wermuth
“Talking Feminisms on Reboot.FM” by Sarah Leve
“1968 and The Berlin Wall” by Abby Williams
“Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh” by Charles Meyer
“The Queer Berlin Walking Tour and Visit to the Schwules* Museum” by Dereka Thomas
“LesMigraS” by Diana Muñoz
“Street Art & Graffiti Walking Tour and the Urban Nation Museum” by Zoë Frolik

To read and/or listen to the finales and view the indices and slideshows for previous FemGeniuses in Berlin, click here.

Witnessing Powerful Art: A Conversation with the Editors of Winter Shorts

By Ivy Wappler

The FemGeniuses greeted the day with a rainy walk to the U-Bahn and a stuffy, damp subway ride. Peeling off our wet jackets, we settled in for class. This morning, we were lucky enough to sit down with the editors of Winter Shorts, the latest installment of the Witnessed Series. It was a pleasure to hear from Sharon Dodua Otoo and Clementine Burnley, co-editors of the influential collection. Otoo, a London-born artist and activist, moved to Berlin in 2006 with her three sons (she now has four). She described the motivation for the Witnessed Series as a desire to use her international connections to create momentum, shared understanding, and support for Black German activism through writing. Burnley has been in Berlin for 6 years, and writes poetry when she isn’t working for MSO Inklusiv. In 2015, MSO focused its work on youth, Black, and Queer people of color communities, collaborating with organizations like Street Univercity, Jugend Theater Büro, Katharina Oguntoye’s Joliba, and the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland. This year, they’re working with Wagenplatz Kanal, a Queer grouping within the Sinti and Roma community, a Black Trans organisation hosted by Der Braune Mob, and a youth organisation in Heidelberg.

Otoo and Burnley emphasized that Witnessed, the first English-language series about the experience of Black people in Germany, is not meant to replace anything already written in German about the Black German experience. Witnessed is, rather, a diverse collection, a reflection of the myriad experiences that comprise a Black German collective consciousness. Previous installments include The Little Book of Big Visions How to Be an Artist and Revolutionize the World edited by Otoo and Sandrine Micossé-Aikins (2012), Daima by Nzitu Mawakha (2013), Also by Mail: A Play a Olumide Popoola (2013), and The Most Unsatisfied Town by Amy Evans (2015), which is based on the deeply controversial Oury Jalloh case. The original book launch and reading of this play was a collaboration with Roses for Refugees, a project Otoo developed that sought to engage with refugees living and protesting in Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg in order to improve the policies and discourses around refugees in Germany. A catalyst for activism, Witnessed also organized and hosted youth workshops in schools, along with performances of the play.

After Otoo and Burnley discussed their work, we asked questions about the texts we read for class from Winter Shorts, including Burnley’s “Boom,” and Otoo’s “Whtnacig Pnait (Watching Paint).” I found it interesting that Otoo explained that the latter was inspired by her son’s struggles with dyslexia. The protagonist hates school, in part due to this and also his new, unfamiliar home in Germany. Still, when the boy finds himself in a magical, secret safe space for people of color, he still feels somewhat out of place. This story, Otoo shared with us, was her way of saying “Look, I’ve been listening!” not only to her son, but also to all people on the margins of the Black community, estranged by forces like ableism, cissexism, and heterosexism.

I loved reading fiction for a change, and these stories were no disappointment, inciting rich discussions of racism, hegemonic narratives, and the role of art in activism. For example, I asked, “What role does autobiography play in your stories? How much of your writing is rooted in personal experience?” The answers I received were far more nuanced than I expected. Otoo articulated that, for her, even if she writes about something directly from her own life, that the very act of writing it down is interpretation. She is wary of the term “autobiographical,” as it may limit the interpretations of her work. Her stories are invitations for connection and inspiration, not simply narrations of disparate, specific happenings. Burnley responded, “I can’t write what I don’t know,” explaining that even though everything she writes is fueled by something she has seen, heard, or imagined, as soon as she’s written a story down, she no longer has anything to do with it. “What is more important,” she argued, “is what the person reading the story brings to it.” For Burnley, delineations of fact and fiction matter not: “Sometimes you write a story, and it’s complete factual experience, but for me it doesn’t make a difference. It’s still a story.” These responses made it clear, then, that no matter how connected to reality stories are, what matters most is how the reader can relate to the story.

As a follow-up, Heidi raised a concern that too often marginalized writers, especially Black women writers (the literary community she’s most studied) are assumed only to write autobiographical content, that they rarely considered to be creative. Otoo agreed and added that the literary perspective of white men seems to be the neutral perspective, rich in variation and creative freedom, while perspectives of Black women and other marginalized groups are seen as a specialized, specific and connected to the narration of their marginal experiences. She suggested that since the wealth of literature catered to the masses is written by white men, the small amount of writing done by PoC or QPOC is usually assumed to be simply nonfictional, and not creative. It seems that writers from minority groups have been affected by what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “the danger of the single story,” something that Burnley mentions in the introduction to Winter Shorts. When dominant narratives are written only by those in power, those without power suffer. Burnley actually touches on this frustration through one of her characters, Mimi, in “Boom.” Upon researching the Bab el Mandeb straits for a vacation, “Mimi was at once pleased and annoyed at the morbid romanticism of the language and the way it entirely avoided mentioning the slave trade and the more recent wars in the region” (47). Otoo, Burnley, and the writers of the Witnessed Series are all painfully aware of the danger of the single story, and aim to complicate limited narratives about the Black experience with their colorful collection of writings.

Talking to Otoo and Burnley this morning helped us see a real relationship between creating art and Black political thought. All the scholars in the room seemed to agree that this work against the danger of the single story, the Witnessed Series, is certainly political. Along these lines in the introduction to Winter Shorts, Burnley reminds readers of Toni Morrison’s insight: “If there is a book you want to read that hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Burnley laments that capitalism has turned the appreciation of the arts into an elitist endeavor that many do not have resources enough to access. But she urged us today that her art, and subsequently her manifestation of political thought, is not always found in the high, abstract realm, “because we don’t always have the time or the money.” Among capitalist frameworks that commodify creativity and impose limiting structures such as genres, Burnley sees an opportunity for artful dissent. “That’s freedom for me,” she states in a matter-of-fact manner, “writing what I want.” Otoo agrees, “I like to write in a way that leaves room for interpretation…leaves room for dreaming.” Through their collections of art, Otoo and Burnley have invited their readers to dream of liberation. Through conversing with them and getting acquainted with their work, it is clear that they see art as a powerful political tool.

The curation of the Witness Series, including Winter Shorts, is a glimpse into the multiplicitous nature of the Black German experience, meant to engender awareness and solidarity for their movement towards liberation. Winter Shorts does a beautiful job of showcasing the difficult everyday moments in which multiple intersections of identity manifest. Clearly, in these personal stories, rife with racially charged struggle, is where the revolution is situated. Otoo and Burnley are uniting people with these stories and inviting collaboration and change to be made. As Heidi writes in her book-jacket praise for Winter Shorts, “The revolution happens in our hearts, minds, and spirits during moments when we might least expect it.” I want to thank both Otoo and Burnley for sharing their keen, revolutionary, and poetic minds with the FemGeniuses this morning.

Ivy Wappler hails from Long Island Sound and is grateful to spend her summers in New England, and her winters in sunny Colorado. She is a Feminist and Gender Studies major, and an Environmental Issuesminor. After school, she hopes to explore environmentally and socially responsible tourism. She may also end up reforming sex education. An avid foodie, Ivy is ready to experience Berlin through its food and drink when she’s not in class. You may find her taking walks through sunny streets, seeking out farmer’s markets and green, open spaces.

Generation ADEFRA 2.0: How Creativity & Collectivity Intersect

By Alejandra Hernandez

Waking up this morning was surprisingly not as difficult as I had thought it would be. I willed myself to stay awake yesterday despite all of the naps I almost took while riding the U-Bahn. As I reflect on my first week in Berlin, I am baffled by how much history and how many narratives I have been given the privilege to hear and learn about. I was particularly excited for today’s class, since we were going to learn more about Generation ADEFRA 2.0. ADEFRA, an organization based in Germany that was created in 1986 by six Black lesbian German women, focuses on the empowerment of Black women. According to Jasmin Eding in “…And I Let Myself Go Wherever I Want To,” the word ADEFRA means “’the woman who shows courage’ in the Ethiopian language, Amharean” (131). In a few words, the organization enables Black women to explore what it means to be Black in a predominantly White German society. The organization has had a tremendous impact on various Black communities in Germany, and I was excited to engage in dialogue with three of its most influential members.

Upon our arrival, Cheanna, Amy, and I were warmly greeted at the door of Begine by Peggy Piesche. Piesche is a Black lesbian women who was born and raised in East Germany, staying, as she put it, “until the bitter end.” Peggy works in education, more specifically in Literature Studies, European Studies, and Diaspora Studies,, among other subjects. As we sat down, the entire class began to trickle into the room. Then came Dr. Maisha Eggers. Eggers was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. She migrated to Germany where she does social work and various forms of education, such as Gender Studies. Finally, Katja Kinder joined our group. Kinder is from Berlin, where she works as a conflict mediator and counselor. She is also a founding member of ADEFRA. With the addition of a couple more chairs, we all sat and began to simply talk to one another.

Piesche, Kinder, and Eggers were all brought together through ADEFRA. As they began to talk about their involvement with the organization, each of these individuals expressed a lack of language they felt before they found ADEFRA. ADEFRA flourished into a safe space for Black women and gender non-conforming individuals. They each emphasized how vital it was and continues to be to come together as a collective and work from a creative space in order to define who they are on their own terms by creating safe spaces, sharing knowledge and experiences, and articulating these knowledges and experiences. For example, both Piesche and Kinder shared with the group how, as lesbian Black women, they had to come out in many ways. Additionally, Eggers expressed how difficult it was for her believing she was one of few Black woman in Germany. ADEFRA became a space in which they could begin to create language that allowed them to define and explore their intersectional identities. Kinder recalled during the inception of ADEFRA how members searched the street for Black women, handing out hand-made flyers and encouraging these women to attend meetings by word of mouth.

Thirty years later, the room I now sat in, still remains a safe place for these Black women of Germany. As they shared their stories, I felt incredibly privileged and honored to have been invited into the physical meeting place where ADEFRA holds their meetings. Piesche, Kinder, and Eggers recounted the challenges of being Black in a White society, particularly during the 1980’s. Along these lines, Kinder also explained how the building next door remains a living space exclusively for lesbian women. Over the course of the past week, we have continually heard about the isolation that many Black Germans experienced, especially in 1980s Germany. While I could in no way begin to comprehend what it must have felt like to grow up being completely isolated, I can identify with the need for a safe space. At a predominately white institutions, such as Colorado College, many of my peers who identify as women of color and I have found it tremendously difficult to claim a safe space that is our own. I never imagined how emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting isolation could be. On that note, Piesche, Kinder, and Eggers stressed the importance of coming together collectively. As Eggers stated, “If you are dealing with oppression…there is no way you are going to do that in a place of isolation.” Thus, collective spaces play an important role in the creation of languages. Through these created languages, marginalized groups are able to define themselves and their experiences. However, with the creation of language comes the danger of it being consumed by mainstream culture. Along these lines, Kinder warned, “It is not me anymore as soon as it goes mainstream.” Thus, these safe spaces are imperative to members in communities to connect with one another and keep these languages and images of themselves. In this way, a collective and creative space can lead to collective reflection. Further, as ADEFRA continues to thrive, it has become a multi-generational organization. Piesche, Kinder, and Eggers lovingly call themselves the “queer aunts” of ADEFRA.

We later delved into a conversation about heteronormativity, a creation of colonialism. Piesche discussed how queerness has been “cannibalized” by the white world, which replaces itself as the original. People of color, who identify as queer, are then looked at in surprise because we come from “backward” cultures, when, in reality, Eggers pointed out how these intersectional histories have always been here. Here, I was reminded of Eggers explanation of the difference between sharing knowledge and sharing information. In “Knowledges of (Un-)Belonging Epistemic Change as a Defining Mode for Black Women’s Activism in Germany,” Eggers writes, “Referencing knowledges that are being produced away from (and outside of) the hegemonic center of the West is a further advance in the project of decolonization” (13). There has been an erasure and white washing of queer histories within communities of colors, which has worked to further silence us. As the “queer aunts,” Piesche, Kinder, and Eggers explain how ADEFRA is a “collective archive of queer Black knowledge.” They conveyed how it is important for them to allow for younger generations to find themselves on their own however, they also expressed the want to be there for them to share their language and experiences.

As the dialogue carried on, the group began to speak about how identity and knowledge is articulated. Both Piesche and Eggers shared how writing themselves into existence and reading it is crucial to a community. For Eggers, reading about how other black women dealt with their oppressions helped pull her out of her isolation. Writing makes her feel that is no longer alone. Piesche stressed the importance of not just looking at different genres but also different formats of writing is important, such as poetry. However, Kinder didn’t express these sentiments; “No I don’t have to be in any book, I don’t want to be in history…we exist, period.” She critiques the articulation of knowledge and identity through books as limiting. “We have so many books, but we still have all of this oppression…we need to think about much more than just books.” Though Piesche, Kinder, and Eggers had different standpoints on this topic, they emphasized that storytelling and sharing experiences is, nonetheless, powerful. In “Knowledges of (Un-)Belonging Epistemic Change as a Defining Mode for Black Women’s Activism in Germany,” Eggers also explains,

Sharing knowledge is perceived to entail a deeper commitment than merely consuming information. It involves engaging deeply with the power-critical analyses produced in everyday contexts. Within a critical pedagogy of decolonization, access to alternative knowledges can deeply influence action and the direction of social movement work (13).

ADEFRA’s activism is based on creating an informal, easy-going space where Black women and gender non-conforming individuals can meet each other where knowledge is shared rather than information. In the foreword to Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, Audre Lorde writes, “In the interest of all of our survivals and the survival of our children, these Black German Women claim their color and their voices” (xiv). ADEFRA plays a crucial role in the community for Black German women and gender non-conforming individuals.

Sadly, the class had to come to an end. I leaned back in my chair dazed by how incredible the conversation had gone. Meeting with members of ADEFRA and hearing their narratives was surreal after having read about them. As I said goodbye and headed down the stairs, I couldn’t help but think about collectivity and creativity. There are days when I think I can do everything on my own; I am strong. But what is so wrong about coming together? I thought of the ways in which I identify and how I think and move in creative ways. Kinder said, “Whatever is normative kills us because we live in a creative space.” Identity should be defined on your own terms, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on your own.

Alejandra Hernandez is a rising junior majoring in Feminist and Gender Studies. She is also on the Pre-Medicine track, and is planning to attend medical school. She was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, where she learned to love reading and dancing to Latin music. While in Berlin, she is excited to explore and learn about different cultures and communities.

Katharina Oguntoye and the Joliba Intercultural Network

By Grace Montesano

This morning Baheya, Ivy and I sat around our dining room table discussing the plans for the day and enjoying our breakfast—sort of. While Baheya and Ivy had opted to make eggs and toast, I went the muesli route. I was only partially surprised to find out that the milk I bought was actually liquid yogurt. The surprise was partial because I seem to make this mistake in almost every new country I visit. This wouldn’t be a problem for someone who could appreciate liquid yogurt, I’m just simply not that person. I dejectedly ate half of my cereal concoction (I needed the sustenance) and then left the apartment, hoping for a better experience with our first visit with Katharina Oguntoye, Founder and Director of Joliba Intercultural Network.

Joliba is housed in two unassuming buildings in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg in Berlin. Upon entering, we were greeted by several large paintings by Young Eun Sun, one of the current interns. Katharina Oguntoye also greeted us. Katharina was a highly influential figure in the early Afro-German women’s movement in Berlin. For instance she co-edited Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, which is regarded as the first and one of the most important books about the experiences of Afro-German women. Along those lines she’s been working towards liberation for many years, and it was neat to talk to such an important leader of the movement.

Katharina founded Joliba (another name for the Niger River, meaning “big river”) in 1997 as a place for intercultural networking and aiding immigrants. According to Katharina, this name was chosen because the Niger River connects many countries in West Africa, and the organization brings together many different people within Germany. This reminds me of the foreword to Showing Our Colors, in which Audre Lorde writes, “This book serves to remind African-American women that we are not alone in our world situation. In the face of new international alignments, vital connections and differences exist that need to be examined between African-European, African-Asian, African American women” (xiv). It is clear that the movement Katharina participated in so heavily with Lorde has informed the rest of her life’s work.

In her office, Katharina gave us a bit of history of the organization, and then we were able to ask her some questions. One of the themes she spoke about was her own experience with racism. In “What I’ve Always Wanted to Tell You” from Showing Our Colors, Katharina writes about the feeling of otherness she experienced when she was the only Afro-German that she knew. More specifically she explains reuniting with her brother: “It felt so good that the form of his hands and feet looked so much like mine. i loved him for making me feel that i was not alone, not an accidental exception” (215). Today in our discussion, Katharina strengthened this observation in several ways. She told us that Black Germans weren’t (and perhaps still aren’t) automatically recognized as German citizens. People would often ask her where she was from despite her being born in Germany. She went on to give the example of some anti-racist workshops she once co-led with her partner Carolyn Gammon. She said it was a very interesting exercise because she is Black German, and her partner is a White Canadian. This is the inverse of the way that most Germans conceptualize race, so some of the workshop participants are a little bit taken aback at first. I asked Katharina if there was ever any tension between the desire to be treated like a German citizen and to escape the othering, while simultaneously acknowledging that the white Germans had waged imperialist and colonialist efforts against several countries in Africa, including Ghana, Togo, Camaroon, Rawanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and Namibia. She responded that while there is a very specific and negative connotation to being “proud” to be German, she is happy to be German. She is glad to be able to claim the rights of a German citizen and to a certain extent not have to deal with the xenophobia that foreigners must.

Her experiences make a lot of sense, especially within the context of the racism of colonial Germany. As written in Showing Our Colors, “In the consciousness of the colonial avengers Blacks remained subhuman creatures to be civilized and disciplined. It is no wonder, then, that the occupation by Black soldiers was felt by much of the German population to be especially humiliating” (43). From the introduction to the book, we learned that for some Afro-Germans, “The nicest thing they [were] ever called […] was ‘war-baby’” (vii). With these quotes in mind, we can really begin to understand that the racism against Afro-Germans was exacerbated by the colonial history in which Black people were seen as less than human. It also makes sense that Katharina could desire being treated like the German she is, while also critiquing the Germany of the past, especially considering colonial Germany’s role in enhancing racism towards Afro-Germans.

After having this discussion, we took a short but beautiful walk through part of the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin to the other Joliba building, where met several more of the interns—none of whom are Germans. One thing about Joliba is that it truly is an intercultural experience. Another really important aspect of the work at Joliba that we learned about is the importance of appreciating culture and having joy. Katharina introduced us to cultural projects, such as children’s books and the kora. She emphasized that this type of cultural exchange and “fun” activity are so important to this movement, because the pain and difficulty of fighting injustice every day takes a physical and emotional toll on a person. Along these lines, in Jasmin Eding’s profile of ADEFRA (an organization we will be visiting with later in the week!), she writes, “We are working on our vision to make ADEFRA a place for empowerment for women and their children, a place of comfort, a place to learn and to grow, a place to heal” (131). I trust what Katharina has to say about self-care, not only because other scholars like Eding (and Heidi!) seem to agree but also because she said it with the authority of seeing a movement grow from the beginning to the present, with all the ups and downs and failures and successes.

I really appreciated this experience of being able to see a successful organization that actually helps people that is also founded on progressive principles. It is very difficult to understand for the first time the source of your oppression. It’s complicated and painful even though it might be rewarding and helpful. However, it is even more difficult to take that knowledge and create something to change the problem. What was so interesting about this visit is that we had read Showing Our Colors, and now we were seeing Joliba after 20 years of operation. As Katharina said to us, the movement started with Showing Our Colors so in the span of a week, we have seen both ends of 20 years of activism. This visit also elucidated some of the readings from this week by giving us a palpable context, i.e. meeting Katharina. There is such a large difference between reading someone’s work and then getting to speak to them about it face to face. After reading her essays, then seeing her (briefly) in the documentary, a chance to ask questions was great!

I have purchased some eggs and toast for tomorrow. Hopefully the day will start well and end well with the exciting sessions we have in store!

Grace Montesano is a rising senior majoring in Feminist and Gender Studies as well as Political Science at Colorado College. They love discussing politics, and are known for making obscure references to various media that no one else has heard of. Grace is skeptical of the 9/11 story we have all been told, and believes the jury is definitely still out about the existence of mermaids.

Jewish History Walking Tour

By Amanda Cahn

At nine this morning, Carolyn Gammon found our class outside of Humboldt University in East Berlin. All of us sat on the cement, tucked into a corner of half-shade and half-sunshine. We first walked into the courtyard of the university, where we sat on benches and she began by saying, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” In the context of the tour, this meant that there is always a lot that we don’t see or learn when we take tours. She also connected her saying to recent political events. For instance, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey, publicly critiqued Germany for committing the first genocide of the Herero and Namaqua in the 20th century. This information was not publicized a great deal, and Carolyn believes that the media is intentionally suppressing this information. This clearly set an interesting stage for our tour about the Jewish history in Germany, as it encouraged us to think about the kinds of narratives we learn and those that are suppressed.

Our thinking about this continued when we learned there was a recently constructed statue of Lise Meitner behind the benches on which we sat. Meitner discovered how to split the atom, and is considered by some to be deserving of the Nobel Prize. However, she most likely did not ever receive it due to her identity as a Jewish woman. We found the same theme of privileging certain identities when we entered the university building. In the large entrance room of the second floor, photographs of male German scholars lined the walls, celebrated for their accomplishments. We had to walk into the small hallway on the side to see the photographs of female German scholars, who seemed almost hidden in comparison. It is noteworthy that many of them were Jewish as well. The photographs appeared to have been added to the collection as an afterthought.

Next, we exited the building back into the heat and crossed the street, finding ourselves in front of another beautiful building. It turned out to be the courtyard in which the Nazis burned over 20,000 books in 1933. It was a demonstration of power, as well as a way to control what knowledge was and was not circulated. After the book burning, those in danger who were able to began to flee the country. Now, a memorial exists at this site, which includes an underground room, visible through a glass sheet, that has enough empty bookshelves to hold as many books that were burned. There is also a plaque showcasing a quote from Heinrich Heine‘s Almansor: A Tragedy (1823), which can be translated to, “Where they burn books, they will also burn people.”

Next, we walked to the statue of Martin Luther, who was the leader of the new Protestant church in the 1500s. What was most intriguing about this part of the tour was learning that Luther became extremely anti-Semitic after he failed to convert many Jews. For instance, he published a 900-page tome entitled On the Jews and Their Lies, which led to a lot of violence toward the Jews. However, his statue still stands in Berlin, because few people actually think about him in that light. As Carolyn said, “Germans are good at remembering 20th century anti-Semitism, but not earlier accounts.”

Afterwards, we visited a park which had previously been a synagogue, before it was bombed. Nearby, there had been a pre-deportation prison. When the propaganda minister wanted to remove all of the Jews from Berlin, they were taken there as a surprise, right when they arrived to work one morning. Because they were Jews married to non-Jews, 2000 white, non-Jewish women peacefully protested, because they wanted their husbands to come home. The men were released, which just goes to show how much of a difference white, non-Jewish Germans might have made if they had tried to stand against the Nazis, because if the women had not fit the very specific identity requirements of the Nazis, they likely would have been murdered.

After our break, we learned about the small gold plaques in the ground called stumbling stones that commemorate Holocaust victims created by artist Gunter Demnig. There are 55,000 placed all over Europe. The first ones we saw commemorated a 2-year-old and 12-year-old who were murdered at Auschwitz in 1943. In “The School Lives of Jewish Children and Youth in the Third Reich,” Marion Kaplan writes, “By July 1941 about 25,000 Jewish children and youth under age 25 remained within the borders of pre-1938 Germany. Close to 20,000 under the age of 18 were murdered” (49). The way in which Nazis murdered so many young children really demonstrates how much they had dehumanized the Jews.

After this, we walked to Berlin’s oldest Jewish cemetery, which is now a green space like the park, because the Nazis removed not only the gravestones but the bodies as well. According to Carolyn, many say to “beware of the green spaces” in Berlin, because they are often sites of past atrocities. Along these lines, outside of the cemetery, there is a sculpture that represents Ravensbrück, which was a concentration camp for women and children. Regarding concentration camps, I was surprised when Carolyn said that many people in the concentration camps were actually slave laborers who weren’t Jewish and that we just hear more about Jews more because the Nazis killed half of the world’s Jewish population. Along these lines, in “Troubling Categories I Can’t Think Without: Reflections on Women in the Holocaust” Ruth Linden claims,

The tendency, evident in Holocaust scholarship of 1960s and 70s, to privilege the experiences of one group (in this case, the ‘strugglers’), while turning our gaze away from other groups. In this way, Jews outside of the ghettos and camps and non-Jews persecuted and murdered by the Nazis (namely, Sinti, Roma, homosexual men, Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hutterites, people convicted of crimes, and Slavs), have become marginalized in Holocaust discourse (24).

On the one hand, I don’t think it’s at all okay that the other groups were often left out of the discourse, since it could be easily interpreted as the message that their lives don’t matter as much. On the other hand, I do understand why the Jews have been the focus, since it was the Nazi’s most successful attempt at “wiping out” an entire community.

Throughout the tour, I kept thinking about how the German-Jewish history has affected Germany even in the contemporary period. In the “Foreword to the English Language Edition” of Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, Audre Lorde asserts that in 1990s Germany, there was still a “dormant neo-Nazi element,” which resulted in the continuation of “aggressive racism and anti-Semitism in Germany” (xii). Twenty-six years later, Carolyn said that she believes Germans are facing their crimes against humanity. However, they need to extend their acknowledgement to other victims as well, such as the Afro-Germans for whom there is no Holocaust memorial.

We ended our tour outside of the Neue Synagoge, which was one of the targets of Pogrom Night (also referred to as Crystal Night). The Jews have always had to fight to survive, and I thank God that the Nazis were unsuccessful in wiping us out. It is terrifying to think about such atrocities, but absolutely necessary in order to try and prevent history from repeating itself. All in all, it was an extremely educational tour, and I think that everyone in the class was appreciative of the opportunity.

Amanda Cahn is from Portland, Oregon and a rising senior at Colorado College, with a major in Feminist and Gender Studies and a minor in Spanish. She is passionate about advocating for reproductive rights and has worked with Planned Parenthood teaching sexual education in public high schools, as well as analyzing statistical data from their various sexual education programs. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, reading, and spending time with friends.