TV Tower

Some Final Thoughts on the 2017 #FemGeniusesInBerlin

 

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp (Zlevor)

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp [Photo Credit: Annie Zlevor]

By Annie Zlevor

Throughout this trip, I encountered many difficult questions that I have been struggling to answer. After three weeks of exploring Berlin, meeting with local activists, visiting museums, and attending walking tours, I find myself only a little closer to understanding their answers. More often than not, my experiences have left me with new questions, wishing I could spend more time in Berlin. On my final day in the city, I would like to consider these questions and reflect on how my recent experiences have allowed me to more critically examine them. I hope to apply what I have learned in the course and continue furthering my understanding of identities, forms of oppression, and memorials.

First, I want to consider our navigation of identities and subjectivities. How do we see ourselves and acknowledge how others see us? This question has helped me reflect more deeply on my own positionality and how society chooses to perceive it. In the spaces I have been welcomed into during this trip, it was important for me to understand how my own experiences exist in relation to the experiences of others. Having a greater awareness of this has better enabled me to listen critically and appreciate the narratives people share. Therefore, I discovered that my primary role ought to be that of a curious listener. This blog serves as an extension of this curiosity and as an ongoing attempt to understand the marginalized communities of Berlin and my role in it.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Zlevor)

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe [Photo Credit: Annie Zlevor]

After speaking with local activists, I began to question how and when people decide to confront forms of oppression and when they choose to affirm or challenge stereotypes. These questions reminded me of our “Rethinking Masculinities” panel and our discussion with Post-War Generation Black German Women. Spending time with Black and Turkish activists in Berlin has allowed me to better understand how individuals chose to deal with racism and sexism. While each experience is unique to the individual, it was clear that in their navigation of public space, they are never divorced from activism. As Musa Okwonga plainly stated, “You’re Black all the time in Berlin.” And although it is the Afro-German’s right not be discriminated against and exhibit self-determination, they must to spend their life in opposition to racism. They are not getting paid to spend their time confronting oppression, yet the burden so greatly lies on them.

How people choose to confront different forms of oppression also reminded me of our discussion with Salma about their work with Gladt and SAWA. I felt that Salma consciously and efficiently navigated what needed to be achieved in their own fight against racism and sexism. Although it is exhausting work, it seems as if they effectively prioritize their goals when trying to combat oppression in a community. As someone who works day and night to support queer communities in Berlin, Salma has to carefully decided how to spend their time. They described the sacrifices they had to make in order to achieve their short-term initiatives. For example, instead of spending their time arguing with the local government at the risk of receiving cuts to Gladt’s government funding, Salma decided to temporarily halt a particular kind of political activism. For the sake of Gladt, Salma now chooses to spend that time helping queer people secure a permanent place to live. While this achievement might not seem monumental to some, it is life-changing for those people who now have a place to sleep at night.

Memorial in Schöneberg (Mills)

Memorial in Schöneberg [Photo Credit: Nikki Mills]

Additionally, after visiting many museums and memorials, I hope to gain a greater understanding of how certain histories have been told. I personally need to take more time to consider who writes these stories. More specifically, I want to understand the implications for those who speak for themselves and those who are being spoken for. Also, it was important for me to learn more about what groups of people were involved in the creation of Jewish memorials. I was curious if Jewish-Germans often gave input on their construction and who decided what to include in it. As Sabine Offe writes in “Sites of Remembrance? Jewish Museums in Contemporary Germany,” “We do not know whether individuals, confronted with the obligation to remember, do indeed remember what they are supposed to” (79). However, while some forms of remembrance can be more accurate than others, figuring out a way to accurately commemorate an event such as the Holocaust is beyond complicated and nearly impossible to accomplish. As a result, I am reminded of the importance of looking at historical sites more critically. This causes me to further question how we decide to honor a community that is not monolithic. For instance, I hope to better understand how a memorial can erase the individual experiences of a population. As R. Ruth Linden describes in “Troubling Categories I Can’t Think Without: Reflections on Women in the Holocaust,” a generalized representation of a group of people “fails to be accountable to lives that are actually lived: situated in bodies with limited means of making sense of…world-historic events in which they participate as…cultural subjects” (27). As a result, this adds another layer to the complexities of memorials and how people choose to represent communities. I hope that we more often attempt to honor the experiences of individuals since it can be easy to erase these differences when trying to honor an entire group.

Unlike most of the Jewish memorials, there were two important instances during our trip where I noticed groups of people deliberately telling their own story: the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (FHXB) Museum and the Roma and Sinti Historical Walking Tour. The FHXB Museum exhibit was a collaborative piece that the local community came together to create. They directly told the history of the district where generations of their own families grew up. I felt this participatory exhibit was representative of strong community relationships and also much more effective in the telling the histories they chose to portray. Additionally, the Roma and Sinti walking tour did much of the same work. The Roma high school students who led the tour self-organized and researched all the material presented. Further, when I asked the students what their parents thought about the tours they were giving, they responded, smiling: “Our families are very proud.” The energy and passion the students exhibited on the tour I feel could have been easily lost if non-Roma and Sinti people led it.

Roma and Sinti Memorial (Zlevor)

Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism [Photo Credit: Annie Zlevor]

Lastly, after three weeks of listening to and engaging with marginalized people in Berlin, I am left wondering how I can take what I have learned out into the world. Firstly, I hope to do this by recognizing the importance of going beyond academic work. While reading and discussing articles and books are beneficial in developing a basic understand of the material, the practical application of Feminist and Gender Studies outside the classroom is a hard-fought war. By spending time both inside and outside the classroom, I feel as if I can most effectively support marginalized communities and become more consciously aware of their situation. As Sidonia Blättler and Irene M. Marti describe in “Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt: Against the Destruction of Political Spheres of Freedom,” if people understand the complexities of human relationships, this subsequently “drives them toward solidarity with outcasts and emboldens them to a collective struggle against the oppressors” (89). I feel my future goal must be to join this collective struggle. By knowing my place and understanding my own identity in relation to others, I feel as if I can do this and support marginalized groups in their fight against forms of oppression.

Cheers

Photo Credit: Heidi R. Lewis

2017 FemGeniuses in Berlin Blog Index:
Click here to view a slideshow, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter to see even more pictures and videos!

“#FemGeniusesInBerlin 2017: Our First Two Days” by Hailey Corkery
“Taking Down The Wall of Religious Intolerance: Jewish History in Berlin” by Olivia Calvi
“Gladt and SAWA with Salma: Representation in Political Social Work” by Nora Holmes
“The Anne Frank Museum and It’s Place in Contemporary Germany” by Liza Bering
“The Told and Untold Stories of Berlin: A Walk-Through History” by Talia Silverstein
“Navigating White Spaces: An Intersectional Analysis of Activist Work by Men of Color” by Ryan Garcia
“Africa in Wedding: Germany’s Colonial Past” by Jannet Gutierrez
“A Young Jew’s First Week in Berlin” by Nikki Mills
“A Permanent Home for Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg’s History: The FHXB Museum” by Annie Zlevor
“The Porajmos: The Hidden Narratives of the Roma and Sinti” by Hailey Corkery
“Writing Ourselves into the Discourse: The Legacies of Audre Lorde and May Ayim” by Nikki Mills
“A Day in Amsterdam: Seeking the Voices at the Margins” by Olivia Calvi
“‘Nobody Flees Without a Reason’: A Walk Through Berlin’s Queer History” by Ryan Garcia
“Memorialization: The Past in the Present and Why it is Important Today” by Liza Bering
“ADNB des TBB: Intersectionality and Empowerment in Anti-Discrimination Support Work” by Nora Holmes
“Mauerpark: Graffiti as Art” by Jannet Gutierrez

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

Annie Zlevor Blog PhotoAnnie Zlevor is a rising junior from the shores of Lake Michigan in Racine, Wisconsin. She is an Organismal Biology & Ecology major and a Feminist & Gender Studies minor. Annie is also a pre-medicine student, and hopes to attend medical school. In her free time, Annie enjoys eating Lebanese food, going fishing with her family, and taking lots of naps. Currently, you can find her spending some time outside the lab learning about Berlin’s hidden histories. She is excited to be exploring Germany for the first time and hopes you enjoy reading about her experiences.

#FemGeniusesInBerlin 2017: Our First Two Days

Photo Credit: Liza Bering

By Hailey Corkery

After a long ten hours (or more for some) of travel, we had finally arrived in Berlin. The new city greeted our jet lag and fatigue with cool temperatures and pouring rain as we stepped off the plane. The ten of us, a group of Colorado College students with varying degrees of interest in Feminist & Gender Studies, gathered after claiming our bags, most of us meeting for the first time.

After a while of driving through streets of mostly earth-toned buildings, looking especially drab due to the weather, the van eventually pulled up to a bright orange structure: The Happy Hostel. At our temporary home, we met our professor, Heidi R. Lewis, and course associate, Dana Maria Asbury. Over the next three weeks, they will be taking us through many different tours and activities in order to teach us about how identities of marginalized people are constructed in Germany.

Once we settled into our new temporary home, we fought the urge to sleep by starting our required readings and films. Of the six analytical pieces, two really resonated with me: Sabine Offe’s “Sites of Remembrance? Jewish Museums in Contemporary Germany” was one of them. Here, Offe discusses how Jewish museums are used as both physical sights and institutions for their visitors to access the memory of Jewish relations in Germany, as well as for German visitors to deal with secondhand guilt. These ideas were very new to me and were especially intriguing due to my Jewish heritage. I had always been on the other side of the conflict, related to a victim, rather than being a part of the “guilty” third-generation. Because of this, I only thought of Jewish museums as places of mourning and remembrance. I had never thought about how museums serve as places for very different things for those affected (a place to remember what happened to them or their loved ones) and those who are or feel responsible (a place to deal with secondhand guilt).

Another piece that was particularly memorable to me was “We Don’t Want To Be the Jews of Tomorrow”: Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11” by Gökçe Yurdakul and Y. Michal Bodemann. This work discusses the inter-ethnic relations between minorities and immigrants—specifically Jews and Turks—in Germany, which I was not previously informed about. This reading forced me to think about how unaware Americans generally are of other nations’ inequalities and power relations. Our country is very focused on itself, and our media is filled with mostly American politics, stories, and events. Many other countries, however, are informed about most of the issues occurring in America. This reflects extremely poorly on the U.S., and makes me question our media’s priorities regarding the distribution of information.

The two films also had an impact on me, especially The Holocaust: What the Allies Knew. This documentary analyzes World War II, and presents evidence of the allies’ early awareness of genocide, examining why they often did not do anything to stop it. Though I had learned about World War II in high school, the curriculum never mentioned anything about the allies’ prior knowledge of concentration camps. I found this information extremely shocking and disturbing, and I also reflected a lot about how it is rarely discussed. A lot of history that casts a country in a bad light is not included in our schools’ curricula, which is problematic because it tells a false narrative and continues to add to the cycle incorrect information being fed to the American people.

Photo Credit: Nikki Mills

After doing some work and resting at the hostel for a while, the group got together to look for food. We hopped on the (somewhat confusing) public transportation and headed toward a neighborhood called Kreuzberg. While exploring the area to find a restaurant, we stumbled upon a large crowd of people listening to live music. We got closer to see what it was for, and discovered that we had ended up at Berlin’s Karneval der Kulturen (Carnival of Cultures). The carnival included multiple stages, bars, activities for children, and dozens of food stands filled with cuisine from around the world. It also featured a parade that celebrated different cultures, which we, unfortunately, did not get to see. Despite missing out on that, we spent our first night exploring the festival, eating amazing food, and getting to know Berlin and its people a little better (while also getting to know each other).

The next day we traveled to Heidi’s flat to discuss our expectations for the course. Though most students’ hopes for the class were similar to those of Heidi and Dana and each other, many people had at least one personal learning experience they wanted to get out of the class. One talked about how their goal was to learn more about queerness and the white washing of the LGBTQIA+ community in Germany. Another wished to find out more about racism in Germany and how it manifests itself in Berlin, which led us to discuss global racism and how Americans and United States media are so focused on their own country that many people from the U.S. are unaware of inequalities and events occurring elsewhere. My biggest expectation was to learn about what it’s like working for a non-profit organization when we visit some during the course, since I have interest in the field.  We also talked about our expectations for Heidi and Dana. We let them know that we expect them to be understanding and supportive both regarding the course and not.

The expectations mentioned were not solely about the academic course; some regarded the experience of travelling abroad with a group. There was a discussion about sharing space, both with the citizens of Berlin and the members of our group. Multiple people mentioned an extremely important factor: discomfort due to privilege. As Americans, no matter how oppressed each of us may or may not be back in the States, we automatically have a certain privilege in Germany. For example, most of us do not know German, but most Germans know English. As Americans, we can walk into places of business and other German spaces speaking English with few problems, if any at all; we will most likely be able to communicate with the employees without even trying to speak their first language. This privilege we have as Americans, as many different privileges often do, may make us feel guilty or uncomfortable while we are here in Berlin. Another causation of our discomfort as Americans comes from being stereotyped by Germans due to the current political climate in the United States. We may at times feel extremely guilty; the looks or attitudes Europeans give us may convey that they think we personally agree with the decisions President Trump has made. This discomfort is and will be a challenge for us to deal with, but everyone in the group agreed that it is something we need to and will embrace in order to fully appreciate our experiences here.

Photo Credit: Ryan Garcia

A few hours after class ended, we met Heidi and Dana at the Berlin Fernsehturm, also known as TV Tower. We were given the amazing opportunity of eating dinner in a restaurant towards the top of the structure. This restaurant was inside of a revolving sphere that rotated 360º per hour. This movement, along with the large windows by our tables, allowed us to see a bird’s-eye view of Berlin from all angles. Though the weather was rainy and cloudy, the city was still visible and spectacular to see from so high up. I have never been to Berlin before and honestly did not know much about it before arriving here, so this gave me a better sense of both how the city is laid out and how beautiful it really is. Our group was unfortunately split up between two tables, but it was nice to get to know half of the group a little bit better over an incredible meal.

After this dinner and every other activity from the first few days, I feel like I know everyone extremely well considering the amount of time I have known them. The beginning of this trip has been so fun and rewarding, and has only made me more excited for what is to come!

Hailey is a rising sophomore at Colorado College from the Washington, D.C. area. She plans to major in Sociology and minor in Feminist and Gender Studies. At CC, she is part of Students Against Sexual Assault (SASS) and Ellement, an all-women acapella group. This is her first course with Heidi and first time in Berlin, and she is extremely excited for all the learning and exploring to come with this experience.

Some Final Thoughts on the 2016 #FemGeniusesInBerlin

By Claudia Harrison

IMG_0094Our last Friday morning was especially colorful. The FemGenuises met in a familiar setting, Mauerpark, for a Graffiti workshop with Berlin Massive. Our instructor, Pekor Gonzles, gave us a little history lesson before we began. Mauerpark translates to “Wall Park,” so called because the site was formerly part of the Berlin Wall, specifically its Death Strip. “Right here was where you got shot,” Gonzales recounted about the once heavily-guarded area. Today, the Mauerpark is one of the city’s green spaces, very popular with young people. We had experienced this for ourselves the Sunday before, lying in the field next to the Mauerpark Flea Market, where we saw lots of people our age laughing, playing basketball, and picnicking in the grass. Often, performers take advantage of the laid-back setting, and the amphitheater’s karaoke draws large crowds every Sunday afternoon.

Graffiti is now legal on this remaining strip of wall, which is covered in bright, beautiful designs that change from day to day. Still, while Berlin has come to be known for its graffiti, Gonzales explained that it is still considered a young movement. The oldest people he knows who participate are around forty-five. This is because modern graffiti, popularized in the subways of New York City in the 1960s, did not really appear in Berlin until the late 1970s. He also tells us that graffiti culture has always been competitive, with artists writing over each other striving to create the largest, boldest tags. But it has also been inclusive. Anyone with talent can have their works recognized. For example, as Simon Arms writes in “The Heritage of Berlin Street Art and Graffiti Scene,” the first graffiti artists in Germany “weren’t ‘real’ Berliners, but outsiders: draft resisters, anarchist punks and Turkish migrants. They either opened businesses or formed squats and, with no resistance from the West German government, began turning walls into monuments to their own thoughts and beliefs.”

IMG_0124Because graffiti is largely anonymous, it can be used as a sort of secret code between the artist and her community. Thierry Noir is thought to be one of the first to do this, using the Berlin Wall as a canvas for his cartoonish creations. Influenced by classic painters such as Pablo Picasso, as well as pop-culture icons like Lou Reed and David Bowie, Noir left colorful, blocky images that represented the resistance to the dark shadows cast by the Cold War. Noir and Christophe-Emmanuel Bouchet began painting in April 1984 and continued without pause until “the fall” in November 1989. In “Thierry Noir: The First Graffiti Artist Fired Up by the Berlin Wall,” Jonathan Jones writes, “The end of the Wall in 1989 was a sunny day for humanity. But in its monstrous strangeness, this scar running through a city had provided artists, novelists, musicians and film-makers with a dark subject matter and surreal inspiration so often lacking in the safe, consumerist world of the postwar democracies.” Traces of his work are still visible at the East Side Gallery of the Wall.

Graffiti has historically reflected the fringes of a community, voicing their concerns and forcing the minorities in control to listen to the majority. The goal of this re-purposed stretch of the Berlin Wall was to “make something against racism and for equality,” Gonzales told us. He added, “We are trying to create something accessible to everybody to improve the city.” Since street art originated in the inner city, it has a long multi-cultural background and has often contained anti-racist messages, used to transform spaces from oppressive to liberating for the people within. Its non-traditional form gives it more room for innovation than other art forms as well as inviting deep contemplation. Along these lines, according to Arms, modern street artist Mein Lieber Prost, “positions his characters to look like they are taking in their surroundings, laughing aloud at something happening right at that moment. It is natural, then, on seeing Prost’s characters pointing at them, for people to wonder what the joke is, asking themselves: is it me? Each character forces passersby to question their surroundings and (hopefully, if they don’t want to leave paranoid) to find a satisfactory answer.”

IMG_0173After hearing the history of street art in Berlin, it was thrilling to try it for ourselves. Gonzales gave us a brief tutorial on how to hold the cans of spray paint, and cloaked in protective ponchos, masks, and gloves, we went straight to work. Although I do think I improved by the end of the session, graffiti is much harder than it looks. Getting a clear, straight line requires a swift, steady hand that always knows exactly where to go next. Gonzales’ talent and style after years of experience was fascinating to watch. When showing us how to make a letter he drew a magnificent “S,” shrugged and said, “This is just the classic kind of flourish an artist would add to a letter, but I’m sure you can get more creative than that.” Afterwards, he outlined the entire background in thirty seconds. Each of us had our own letter to design and lots of background to fill in. Without trying, our piece came together as a rainbow of color.

For our design, the FemGeniuses semi-ironically decided to paint the phrase “Stay Woke” adorned with a hash tag and two large exclamation points to give each student their own letter or symbol to paint. Behind the rainbow letters are purple clouds and rain, a tribute to Prince, who died this past April. His legacy as a musician, defying traditional conventions of race, gender, and sexuality, is one we were all excited to honor.  Underneath the clouds are pieces of a broken island with the ground underneath revealed to be multi-colored. We never discussed the exact symbolism of the piece, but it lends itself to the interpretation of the passer-by. On either side are the designs of Chase and AJ Lewis, two emerging artists with very different styles. The design turned out beautifully, in large part thanks to Pekor’s finishing touches, and we were all in awe of the result. To think, the FemGeniuses of 2016 have our own section of the Berlin Wall! By next year, the message will be entirely painted over but the layers of paint remain a part of the wall itself along with so many others.

IMG_0192 (2)In the evening we gathered at the docks for our final farewell cruise. Dressing up, for the first time since our group dinner on the first Monday of class, gave the whole trip the kind of circular feel that I relish, and everyone seemed relaxed and happy once again. On the boat, we talked, laughed, and reminisced in between a few facts delivered intermittently by the automated tour’s loudspeaker. Over fruity summer cocktails, we watched the sun go down and cool breeze set in, and I relished the bittersweet feeling of knowing I’d never be in Berlin for the same reason or with the same people ever again. I thought back to some of my favorite moments:

Having met so many brave, intelligent, passionate people in the last few weeks, I am inspired to try to be more heroic in my own life. On this trip I’ve learned that fighting oppression requires determination and the ability to think critically about one’s society but most of all it requires heart. Building communities out of compassion and empathy is essential for the well-being of humanity and ourselves. I leave Berlin knowing that my experiences here and the people I’ve made connections with will fuel a lifetime of activism.

2016 FemGeniuses in Berlin Blog Index:
Also, click here to view a slideshow of the course.

“Introducing the 2016 #FemGeniusesInBerlin” by Heidi R. Lewis
“The Ghost of the Third Reich: Educating Ourselves about Berlin” by Ivy Wappler
“The Wall” by Nitika Reddy
“Difference is Key: Audre Lorde and Afro-Germans” by Amy Valencia
“Jewish History Walking Tour” by Amanda Cahn
“Katharina Oguntoye and the Joliba Intercultural Network” by Grace Montesano
“Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years” by Cheanna Gavin
“Marketing Narratives and Misplacing Others: Queer Berlin Tour” by Amelia Eskenazi
“Generation ADEFRA 2.0: How Creativity & Collectivity Intersect” by Alejandra Hernandez
“Queer Spaces and Clubbing Culture in Berlin” by Claudia Harrison
“Activism: To the Blogosphere and Beyond!” by Lila Schmitz
“Little Istanbul: Our Walking Tour through Kreuzberg” by Amy Valencia
“Witnessing Powerful Art: A Conversation with the Editors of Winter Shorts” by Ivy Wappler
“Superqueeroes at the Schwules* Museum” by Grace Montesano
“Hidden and Recovered Narratives: Women in the Center of Berlin Tour” by Amelia Eskenazi
“Our Second Weekend in Berlin” by Amanda Cahn
“Beware of the Street Signs: The Hidden Realities of Colonialism in Berlin” by Baheya Malaty
“Reaching Out in the Fight against Violence” by Alejandra Hernandez
“Building a Community of Voices from Silence” by Lila Schmitz
“Empowerment, or Help as Needed” by Nitika Reddy
“Challenging the Discourse of ‘Ally’” by Cheanna Gavin
“The Power of Our Own Spaces: A Conversation on Colonialism and Belonging with Iris Rajanayagam, Melody Ledwon, and Mona El Omari” by Baheya Malaty

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

HarrisonClaudia Harrison is a senior Classics–History–Politics major from Washington, D.C. Her second day of college, she decided to spend the next four years trying to understand all of human history and thought. While she’s still actively failing at this task, she believes taking her first Feminist and Gender Studies class this summer may be a step in the right direction. In her free time, she can be found reading obsessively, over-analyzing TV shows, and boring her friends with useless facts about everything.

Site Seeing (and Thinking, Analyzing, Understanding, etc.)

By Willa Rentel

Willa 5With a blanket of grey sky over our heads, light rain hitting our cheeks, and remnants of a less than adequate night’s sleep on our faces, the FemGeniuses boarded a tour boat docked on the Spree River. As the ship began to creep forward, it quickly became clear to me that this tour would be unlike many of the critical and socio-political tours we have been lucky to take during our time in Berlin. As we glided down the river, passing under bridges and being urged to take notice of buildings on the banks, I felt a bit frustrated by the passive site-seeing our guide facilitated due to his failure to attach any sort of critical lens to his comments on the various sites and buildings we passed. What frustrated me further was the idea that some of the tourists that surrounded me might not have the opportunity to understand the plethora of narratives I have been lucky to learn about on this trip. If this is the only information about Berlin they are being presented with, they’re bound to have a more-than-skewed and less-than-full understanding of the social, political, and cultural history of this politically-charged city.

Willa 3“On our left, the TV Tower, which houses a wonderful restaurant with spectacular views of the city!” I found myself waiting for the guide to shine light on the socio-political meaning behind this tower, which, according to Simon Arms, stands as a symbol of the legacy of political history in Berlin. A tower so socially and politically charged that East Berlin graffiti artist Tower created his pseudo-name with it in mind. “Tower, as in the communist TV tower; Tower, as in the skyscrapers that dominated the skyline of almost every major city—built not only for the people who lived there, but for the egos of the people who ran them” (3), Arms writes. Next, we were urged to direct our eyes to a building known as The Palace of the Republic, once the site of the German Democratic Republic parliament, now home to various restaurants, hotels, and auditoriums. I chuckled at the thought of such a shift in function of this building. Could it be yet another representation of the development of Germany’s political past, evidence of a shift toward a German capitalistic society during the last half-decade? Disappointingly, the guide failed to present any critique or delve past the functional importance of the structure.

Willa 3The boat also passed the Jewish Center, a building hidden peaking through a gap in the buildings well beyond the riverbank. As the guide directed our gaze to the center, stating not much more than the name, I thought of Sabine Offe’s interpretation of the critical functionality of Jewish museums in “Sites of Remembrance?  Jewish Museums in Contemporary Germany.” She argues that Jewish museums “are places of remembering. Or, rather, they are sites that have been established intentionally to make people remember, institutions representing collective memory […] the result of political decision making, even in those cases where they came into existence by seemingly quite individual motives” (79).

Willa 2As the guide pointed out the Moltke Bridge, I was not taken in by the architecture of this beautiful red, brick structure, but by the graffiti that covered the concrete on either side of it. I considered what this graffiti was communicating to its viewers, what political and social message it was sending, and how it represented an act of resistance. Because of this, I was reminded of Jonathan Jones’ article wherein he writes of the importance of the first graffiti on the Berlin Wall, Thierry Noir. Jones writes, “This scar running through a city had provided novelists, musicians, and film-makers with a dark subject matter and surreal inspiration so often lacking in the safe, consumerist world of the postwar democracies” (1).

11202116_973927834298_748751754440202050_nAs our pace began to lessen and the boat slowed to a stop on the bank of the river, I began to question what frustrated me so about the tour, why I felt so unfulfilled by the site-seeing experience I would have once been happy to enjoy quietly from my seat. Yes, the buildings were beautiful, the architecture of the bridges we passed under was intricate and admirable, and I loved being on the water, but after three weeks of critical examination of Berlin’s past and present through exposure to a breadth of narratives, passive enjoyment of buildings around me felt impossible. I couldn’t seem to quiet the corners of my brain that were begging for an acknowledgement of the socio-political implications of these sites, and I can thank this course for that.

WillaWilla Rentel is from Croton, New York, and will be entering her second year at CC this coming fall. She is planning on majoring in Sociology and absolutely loves people and good conversation. The Sociology class she took 5th block of last year focused on the growing income gap in America revealed to her an interest in majoring in the field. An avid thrift shopper, Willa loves searching through racks of clothing to find great, quirky gems. Willa loves music and is constantly altering her playlists on Spotify. She prides herself on being open to most any genre, but currently loves listening to The Talking Heads, Al Green, FKA Twigs (and most everything in between). Willa really, really loves strawberries. She also loves lying in hammocks, the smell of lilac flowers and swimming (in the ocean and ponds particularly). Her favorite television show of the moment is Broad City, and she is currently making her way through season two with impressive speed. Willa has a strong passion for social justice and feminism and would like to use her degree to pursue her passion further.

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Rain, Towers, Rainbows, and New Beginnings

By Stefani Messick

LGBTQIt would feel more realistic to say that it was six months ago that I stepped off the plane to find myself in Germany’s capital; as I blog, however, it has been 21 days. The experiences I have shared with my peers in this short amount of time will remain pertinent and influential in my memory for years to come. As bittersweet as it is to already be leaving, I think it is safe to say that the FemGeniuses are experiencing stimulus overload, exhaustion, and maybe even a touch of homesickness. Nevertheless, our final day in Berlin was brimming with adventure, laughter, and reflection.

Despite the weather forecast, we woke up surprised to find gloomy skies followed by bursts of rain. The apartment was buzzing with nostalgia and delight, and after we said our first goodbye to Blaise, several of us headed to Hackescher Markt to seek out some last-minute Berlin memorabilia, perhaps for our family members whom we promised souvenirs or maybe as a last-ditch effort to spend the rest of our “monopoly money” euros. The tourist atmosphere was stifling, and after a while, we headed to BBQ Kitchen to grab some lunch, minus Casey, who was determined to find schnitzel before she left Germany. With our stomachs full, we easily traversed the bustling cobblestone streets and navigated various forms of public transport. We’ve come a long way since first arriving in Berlin with wide eyes and frantic expressions (at least I have).

FestivalOur main attraction for the day, the Lesbian and Gay Festival, was 13 U-Bahn stops from “home.” The streets there were colored with lesbian and gay pride, the air boisterous with affirmation and eccentricity. The product of small town Colorado, I could count on one hand the number of LGBTQ people I knew and had met while growing up. During my time in Berlin, however, I have seen more couples and met more LGBTQ activists than I’ve known in my brief 18 year existence. Nollendorfplatz brought more immediate comfort and relief than I was expecting. Before the rain started again, our group navigated the colorful streets in childlike awe and happiness, collecting brochures, stickers, and buttons—text in English not required. We all wished, however, that we had at least a basic knowledge of German language in order to enjoy a drag queen’s stage performance or read informational pamphlets of various activist groups. For me, the experience was valuable even without total linguistic comprehension. Although it soon began pouring, the weather couldn’t rain on the parade—there were enough rainbows around to keep the people smiling.

On the train that afternoon (after we left the festival) and again that evening (after we returned to check out the night scene), I exchanged social discomforts with other passengers. Kadesha told me about the rude commentary of a couple, which included the German term for lesbian, “lesbisch,” followed by laughter. And later, I was pressed to boldly stare back at an ill-mannered man whose eyes couldn’t seem to be separated from my new Amnesty International t-shirt and short hair. Throughout the trip, I had heard from several of my classmates that they felt particularly Black in Germany, and before these incidents, I hadn’t fully understood what they meant, since my whiteness, at least, helped me blend in. Discrimination and loathing isn’t always overt, and I find this to be a dangerous issue. When those with the “normative” privileges can instill discomfort in the “other” without laying claim to its problematic subtleties, oppressions scoot under the radar, beyond basic discourse and action. That’s why I find the experiences we had in Berlin with activists and authors who are at the front of various socio-political movements so significant. Where awareness is lacking, intersectionality and kindness suffer.

Our late afternoon and early evening was peppered with unique experiences as well. In the lively Alexanderplatz station square, we found ourselves in the midst of another cultural event, the Afrika Festival. We instantly wished we had come here in place of our visit to the Hackescher market, but that didn’t stop us from purchasing several hand-crafted, distinctive products from the kind vendors. In our interaction with an eager salesman and musician, Kadesha managed to acquire two free hand-carved creatures, an elephant and a hippopotamus she promptly named “Hippa.”

TV TowerA short walk away, we found ourselves craning our necks in order to see the tip of the TV Tower. We entered Berlin in style with our meal at 368 meters (1,207 feet), and our exit was no different. Our accommodations the entire trip never failed to disappoint. 147 floors above the ground, we ate a three-course meal on a revolving floor that allowed us an exquisite 360-degree view of Berlin. Together, we shared tasty delicacies and laughable memories from the trip. Although we all came from different places, including Peru, Turkey, Malaysia, and the United States, we were collectively one unit from Colorado College. We embarked on an adventure with an esteemed professor who helped introduce us to the revolutionary activism in Germany surrounding race, gender, sexuality, class, and migration. Each of us left with some new perspectives, whether on an international or personal level, and for that, I feel eternally blessed. As a child, when I dreamt about travel, I never imagined it occurring so soon in my life or that I would also be meeting and conversing with the authors of the books I studied for this course, the front-runners of a historical movement. Now, as we enter the air to go back from whence we came, we have new knowledge in our minds and new outlooks in our hearts.

FarewellTschüss!

 

 

 

 

 

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Stefani IIStefani Messick is a rising sophomore at Colorado College and hopes to major in English and Education. She also runs for the cross country and track and field teams, and has been finding time to run laps around the block near the apartment where she lives in Berlin, rain or shine. She prefers shine.