Book Talk: All the Frequent Troubles of our Days

 

I’ve just finished All the Frequent Troubles of our Days, by Rebecca Donner. For me 2022 has so far been a year of extremely good books, but this one left me in awe. I’m not one for idle praise or liking a book only because I have a connection to it or its author. Donner is a brilliant storyteller, and I was pulled in from the first chapter. She ended the story with touching and poetic words, and, not knowing it was over (there were 74 more pages!), when I turned the page and saw “Acknowledgements” I actually shouted “No!” Although she ended the story beautifully, I was not ready to stop reading. So for the first time in my life I read every one of her acknowledgments and am now going through her end notes.

When I taught high school German in Wisconsin, I alternated the curriculum each year in my combined level 3 & 4 class. One topic was the resistance: one year I taught “die Weiße Rose” (the short novel followed by the 1982 movie), and the next year I taught a unit focusing on the 2000 film “Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace.” Since I was teaching at a Catholic school and we were expected to begin class with a prayer or reflection, I was able to teach my students one of Bonhoeffer’s prayers: “Gott, in mir ist es finster, aber bei dir ist das Licht.” In the film Bonhoeffer prays this prayer through the wall with the prisoner in the cell next to his.

Many of the names in Donner’s book are familiar to me. In fact, when my mom first told me in autumn 2021 that there was a book out about Mildred Harnack, I knew her name right away. Admittedly I was more familiar with her husband and brother-in-law than with Mildred, as she only gets a brief mention – if that – in general sources about the resistance.

Indeed, while reading Donner’s biography about Mildred I found myself wondering many times how it is that I’d never realized her importance in the story of the Circle (known by many as “die Rote Kapelle”). How greatly this would have enhanced my teaching of both stories – die Weiße Rose and Bonhoeffer!

Mildred was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin – 68 miles from the school where I was teaching.
Mildred was the only female U.S. citizen to be executed by the Nazis.
Mildred was the only U.S. citizen to be executed on direct orders of Hitler.

Those points alone would have brought the stories closer to my students.

Now to the book. Rebecca Donner used primary sources where she still could, having found Don Heath Jr., Mildred Harnack’s young courier in Berlin, and speaking with her own grandmother, Jane Donner Sweeny (nee Esch), Mildred’s niece. Additionally, as she tells us in the Author’s Note, she used letters, postcards, memoirs, diaries, and handwritten notes, along with secondary sources such as newspaper articles, archived documents, and the first biography of Mildred Harnack.

The twelve sections of the book follow the people and their stories chronologically, though there are now and then helpful flashbacks or jumps forward that helped me keep track of who everyone was and how they influenced or told about the events. The people involved in the resistance came alive for me on the pages, as Donner described their personalities so vividly. I can only imagine daring what they did under the watchful eye of such a brutally sadistic regime.

We think such a thing as Hitler and his Nazis could never be in power again, and if so we (the western world) would handle things differently. But then I read about how many Germans were unconcerned in the early days of Hitler because he was just eccentric and claimed Germany wanted peace, and later how the western world tried to deal with him first with diplomacy and appeasement. If he gets the Sudetenland, maybe he’ll be satisfied and quit. That rings too many bells at this point, considering Crimea, Ukraine and Putin.

I can recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII history, especially in the resistance movements. Also to anyone wanting to read about women who faced great risks to fight for a better world. I believe those who know the stories of the two most well-known resistance groups better than I do will be intrigued by the connections between them and the names they’ll recognize:

• Mildred and Arvid Harnack
• Falk Harnack
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer*
• Klaus Bonhoeffer
• Hans von Dohnányi** (married to Bonhoeffer’s sister)
• Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
• Hans and Sophie Scholl (siblings involved with die Weiße Rose)

*Well-known German actor Ulrich Tukur acted in both "die Weiße Rose" as Willi Graf, friend of the Scholls and resistance fighter, and 18 years later as Dietrich Bonhoeffer in "Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace." 
**Justus von Dohnányi, the grandson of Hans, is an actor and directer who acted in the film “Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace.”

…as well as details from the resistance story Donner also tells about in her book:

• Falk Harnack meets with Hans Scholl in November 1942 about distributing leaflets and connecting the resistance groups (depicted in “die Weiße Rose”)
• Bonhoeffer secretly sent messages to his fiancé and family by marking one letter every 10 pages in books (backwards) that prison guards allowed visitors to bring to him
• Bonhoeffer and von Dohnányi were involved in the “Valkyrie plot” to kill Hitler, which failed and led to their arrests
• Bonhoeffer, as a Lutheran minister, had conflicting thoughts about being involved in the plot to murder a person even as despicable as Hitler
• Prisoners held in brick cells and carefully watched still found ways to communicate with each other
• forms of active and passive resistance

…and the places that Donner mentions:

• University of Wisconsin, Madison and State Street
• Wannsee, near Berlin
• the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens, largest department store in Europe)
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Alexanderplatz, Berlin
• the Black Forest, where Mildred and Arvid take a hiking vacation to rejuvenate
• UW-Madison, Sterling and Bascom Halls: Arvid and Mildred met because Arvid mixed up the two neighboring lecture halls

Bascom Hall? Or Sterling Hall?
Madison, Wisconsin

The familiarity of these names, events and places drew me in, but it was the details I did not previously know that made this book special for me. A book only gets a top rating from me when it makes me think more deeply about something or when I learn something valuable from it. And I certainly learned a lot from this book about Mildred’s life, the lives of those close to her and the resistance movement. It's also pretty impossible to read a book like this and not ask yourself what you would have done under those same circumstances.

 

Plötzensee Memorial, Berlin

When I was on the student exchange in 1986, the coordinator of the exchange in Esslingen (now my Schwiegermutter/mother-in-law) took us to Berlin for 5 days. While there, we visited the site of the Berlin prison, Plötzensee. I took a few pictures of the site, as well as the large memorial urn that contains dirt from each of the concentration camps, but didn’t know much about the significance of it then. That is where Mildred and Arvid Harnack were executed.

Memorial urn at Plötzensee
"Die Urne enthält Erde
aus deutschen Konzentrationslagern"

Lastly I will mention, though it is not important to Mildred’s story or Donner’s book, I share a family connection to Mildred and Rebecca if you dig through the family tree thoroughly enough to explore the Esch and Jung lines. Apparently Rebecca and I are 4^th cousins, meaning we share an ancestor. 

The book will be available in Germany in August 2022, and Rebecca Donner herself told me the German translation will be released in September 2022!

Gott, zu dir rufe ich!
In mir ist es finster,
aber bei dir ist das Licht;
ich bin einsam,
aber du verlässt mich nicht;
ich bin kleinmütig,
aber bei dir ist die Hilfe;
ich bin unruhig,
aber bei dir ist der Friede;
in mir ist Bitterkeit,
aber bei dir ist die Geduld;
ich verstehe deine Wege nicht,
aber du weißt den Weg für mich.

     ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Reading Banned Books

In the midst of the horror of Putin’s attack on and invasion of Ukraine, it seems petty to write about anything else. Another part of me says those of us who are able also need to keep living and functioning while we still can. The outpouring of aid in the way of helpers, goods, and money going to those having to flee their homes because of that man’s madness is at least something to give us hope. Reading and writing is a way for me to keep a grip on what still works in this world.

Before Putin’s war started I was planning my reading strategy for the next few months: focusing on books banned at some time and place in the US during the last several decades. That began after I found out that Art Spiegelman's Maus had been removed from the 8^th grade curriculum in a Tennessee district due to nudity (it’s a graphic novel about the Holocaust featuring mice as the main characters) and a few “naughty words.”

Not pictured: Looking for Alaska
I gave it to a friend to read.

Notice: This post contains no spoilers. 

I ordered the book again (having left my first copy in my German classroom when I left the US), though I accidentally ordered the German version. Therefore I can’t speak to the “naughty words” other than assuming “verdammt” (damn) was a problem. And indeed, there is a drawing of a human in a bathtub – the author’s mother in a flashback scene – and two curved lines and dots amount to human breasts. In a drawing. These book-banners are unbelievable. Spiegelman’s graphic novel is a brilliant way to introduce young readers to the horror of the Holocaust. The fact that the Jews are mice and the Nazis cats softens the shock a bit for younger readers. But because of two breasts and a few swear words, this group of parents and/or school board members thinks the book should be removed.

From there I moved to the Handmaid’s Tale, which I found less shocking than I expected to. That one has been banned/challenged for profanity and “sexual overtones.” Those who aim to ban books haven’t been listening to their children or their children’s friends, have they? It's more than a little ironic that the book-banners don't object to the fact that an entire class of women are nothing more than breeding machines with no rights, but a few swear words put them on alert.

Looking for Alaska was the next one, having earned a spot on the Office of Intellectual Freedom's Top Ten Most Challenged Books list several years running. Challenged because of a sexually explicit scene that could lead readers to experiment and for profanity. I’m sorry to say I don’t even remember the sexually explicit scene. Very briefly put, it tells the story of several teenagers at a boarding school and the struggles of growing up. 

George, by Alex Gino, was my next banned book, having appeared as #1 on the above Top Ten list for the last 3 years in a row. This is a YA (young adult) novel about a child in grade school who was born a boy but is sure she is really a girl. It’s a story told from the point-of-view of a trans girl, and that apparently scares book-banners. One of the stated reasons for the challenge is that the book contains a transgender character. I think they fear that reading such a book might make a reader say, “Yes, that is the life I want for myself.” I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that’s not the way it works.

My most recent book was The Kite Runner. I’d heard of it before but didn’t know anything about it. This multigenerational novel tells the story of two boys from Afghanistan: Amir and his family’s servant’s son Hassan. I got choked up on the last page, and that does not happen to me often. The objections to the book that I find most ridiculous are that it could promote Islam (several of the characters pray, some regularly) and that it contains homosexuality. It does NOT contain homosexuality, for heaven’s sake. There is a rape scene and both perpetrator and victim are boys. But that is not homosexuality. Do we describe a rape scene where the perpetrator and victim are different genders as “heterosexuality”? Honestly…

I’m now reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, and feeling somewhat scornful of myself for not having read this earlier in my life.

The other books I have read so far this year, with the exception of Getting Along with the Germans, would very likely also be banned or challenged somewhere in the US because of “profanity.” It seems that the appearance of even one “goddamn,” “fucking,” or “holy shit” can get a book challenged by people who clearly don’t spend much time around the young readers they are pretending to protect from the realities of the world. 

I watched the part of a school board meeting in McKinney County, Texas in which students, parents, and teachers were invited to speak about a list of 282 books a set of parents wanted removed from the library shelves, and my jaw dropped several times. Already during the second speaker a man had to be thrown out for trying to shout her down for opposing the ban. Happily there were others who also spoke against the challenge. Here is an open letter from the author of one of those books, which I have on order. The letter fell on deaf ears because it was published before that school board meeting. What else would you expect?

One parent said he objects to his tax money paying for books he finds offensive to be on the shelves. I could almost understand that, until he said parents who don't object to those books should just go out and buy them. Some children can only read what the library provides because their parents cannot afford to order from Ama*on every time their child wants to read a book. How much of that first dad's tax contribution goes toward a $14 book? Or even 282 $14 books? He needs to sit down.

As one person on Twitter wrote, “Parents, your kids have access to the entire internet on their phones almost all day long. Books are not the problem.”

"STOP BANNING BOOKS!!!"

On the other hand, the best way to get kids to be interested in something is to tell them they shouldn’t be. The best way to get kids to read a book is to tell them it’s off limits.

But seriously. Stop banning books. Go to your child's library, give the librarian a list of the books your sheltered child is not permitted to read, and leave the rest of the world alone. Better yet, when your child wants to read a book, you read it also and talk about it together. Oh damn. I forgot. One of the challenges to the book George (see above) was that "schools and libraries should not 'put books in a child's hand that require discussion'." Good grief.

By the way, book banning is not a thing in Germany nowadays. It was once, but they've wisened up since then. 

Reverence for Life

Not long after I moved to Germany during a visit in Wisconsin I was introduced to Dr. Hans-Udo Jüttner, who has since become a friend. He was on the brink of a project for which he needed some assistance, namely transcribing the nearly 400-page hand-written Tagebuch (diary) he wrote in 1962-1963 while working with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in his hospital in Lambarene, Gabon, Africa. He'd written this Tagebuch mainly in German, with occasional English and some French, French being the official language of the country. Gabon was occupied by France in 1885, became a French territory in 1910, and gained its independence in 1960, just two years before Udo arrived there.

Udo needed his Tagebuch in electronic form because he wanted to see about getting parts of it published. 

Through my years of teaching in Wisconsin I had come across many unique styles of handwriting, which I sometimes had to decipher in order to grade homework and tests. I expected the English and German would be no problem, but I do not know a word of French! Udo gave me a copy of the first pages of his Tagebuch, and on the way home in the airplane, I had a look. 

What an honor and a privilege to be trusted with this man's personal diary of a time and place I knew very little about. It did not take me long to decide I would like very much to be part of this project. 

I'd heard of Dr. Schweitzer of course, but I did not know much about him. During the next several months while I transcribed the Tagebuch, I also ordered and read some biographies about Dr. Schweitzer and explored the hospital's website. Schweitzer certainly led a fascinating life but was also a controversial figure in some respects, which didn't surprise me by this time.

Statue of Dr. Albert Schweitzer
in Gunsbach, France

I finished my part of the project in March of 2014, and I was giddy with excitement to hear from Udo in mid-July 2021 that his book has recently been published! After picking it up at our local bookshop, I opened and started reading it while walking back to my car, not being able to wait until I got home. It is available directly from the German publisher, at this point only in German. 

Udo's Tagebuch is a personal look behind the scenes of the work done in Schweitzer's hospital in Lambarene, not only the medical work of the hospital and the leprosy village, but especially the Alltag (everyday life) in a jungle setting. There was, among the responsibilities, the manual work of building and improving the structures, managing the various animals living in the complex, treating the patients and providing for them and their families' food. He also tells of the constant stream of visitors from all over the world arriving daily in the hospital, alone or in large groups - reporters, globetrotters, Nobel Prize winners, tourists, and famous as well as lesser-known donors and admirers. They were all welcome to share the daily meals with Schweitzer and his staff on the banks of the Ogowe river in Lambarene.

The medical care patients received was provided free-of-charge, but those and their family members who were able were required to help out with various tasks and chores around the complex. Udo was in charge of working with and managing these groups of workers for his first three months in Lambarene.

Udo also includes a letter he wrote to his former teacher at the Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium in Marl-Hüls, in which he describes life in general at the hospital and the organization and schedule of work days. This wasn't in the original diary I transcribed, and I poured over this like every other part that was new to me: the foreword, the final thoughts, the notes, the photos and captions.

What makes a Tagebuch most enjoyable are the personal observations and thoughts of the writer. Udo shares his joys and satisfaction of projects well done, frustrations, questions, hopes, and feelings about Dr. Schweitzer, who was a role model for Udo, though not infallible. He also explains how he came to spend those 16 months in Lambarene and how reading Schweitzer's biography when he was a teenager inspired him to pursue a medical career.

Udo has long been an active hobby-photographer, and the photos in the book were taken by or of him. Dr. Schweitzer did not like to pose for photos, so those of him tend to be candid shots, which I find wonderfully authentic. It was especially nice for me to see photographs of my friend back when he was the age my son is now!

Udo und ich in Esslingen

I feel truly fortunate to have been introduced to Udo and invited to participate in this transcription project! He did need to edit and cut parts because the original would have been too long for most readers (the final version is 172 pages), and I think I'm glad I wasn't involved in that part because I would have had a hard time cutting anything! 

One example of this involves birthdays. Dr. Schweitzer made the birthdays of his co-workers special by celebrating them at the evening meal with a speech, songs, gifts, togetherness and Gemütlichkeit. While transcribing, each time I came to the point where Udo said it was someone's birthday, I found myself thinking, "Oh good! What is he going to say this time?!" But these birthday celebrations weren't important for the purpose of Udo's book, and therefore it's understandable that he and his editor decided to cut most of them. The reader still gets a taste of how birthdays were celebrated in Lambarene when Udo briefly describes his own birthday on...well, read the Tagebuch and find out for yourself! 😊

I was truly sorry when I came to the end of his Tagebuch and wished there were a sequel. There is, of course, just not in published diary form. After his 16 months in Lambarene, Udo returned to Germany but then spent five years at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. for his medical training in radiology, met his dear wife Joan, and after a brief return to Germany decided to pursue his medical career in the U.S. His extensive travel adventures include climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro for his 60th birthday, trekking to the Mt. Everest base camp when he turned 70, and returning to Nepal for his 80th birthday to the Rukmani Secondary School he helped found and continues to support in a remote Himalayan village. My dad (74 at the time) joined him on this trip, which also included a trek in the Himalayas in the direction of Gokyo-Ri.

Udo and Dad (Nepal, 2016)

I think when most of us come into the autumn years of our life, we want to look back to a life well lived. It's not the hours spent at work that come back to us for reflection, but the adventures we pursued, the people we encountered who made a lasting impression on us, the lives we hope we impacted, and the good we did. Albert Schweitzer's lifelong philosophy was "Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben" (reverence for life), and to me that encourages us to live our best life and do what we can to make this a better world despite our imperfections. I hope Udo knows the depth of the impression he has made on me, how much I have learned from him and from reading about his adventures and his time in Lambarene, and that I am glad to call him my friend.

Udo in Nepal (2016)

May & June Reads

The pause in my blogging was due to a trip to the homeland for my son's college graduation. I didn't bring my laptop and wouldn't have had time for blogging anyway. Now I'm back home and gearing up for another month of reading along with normal duties and responsibilities.

I made quite good progress on my 2018 reading list, and added Elisabeth to the mix and am halfway through that one. It's a bit daunting at 600 pages in German, but I am enjoying it immensely. I just didn't take it to the U.S. with me because it is too thick, and of course in the mean time I have been assailed by four other books that are begging to be read.

These are the books that are on my pile now (along with Elisabeth):

Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama, by John Boyne (not pictured)  X

I've wanted to read this book for a while - before or instead of watching the movie - and I stumbled upon it not long before leaving for the States. The original title is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Two nine-year-old boys meet and become friends, but they are separated by a fence and can't actually play together. The reader understands the situation, but Bruno, whose father has been tranferred to "Aus-Wisch" as the head commander, does not. Schmuel, Bruno's young Jewish friend, tells him only enough about life on his side of the fence to be understood by the reader, and eventually Bruno's curiosity gets the better of him.

MASH, by Richard Hooker  X

I ordered this book because of a reading challenge I read about in which you read one book published in each year of your life. That made me wonder what was published in 1968, so I looked up a list. I came to MASH and ordered it - to be delivered to my parents' house. It's a quick read - I started it the day after I returned home and finished it the next day. I enjoyed it (except for the long, boring football game chapter, but apparently that's a legend among fans who know the pilot movie), though I agree with some of the Goodreads reviews I read: Hooker was not a great writer. Apparently he was a surgeon with a great idea. And what grew out of his novel was absolute genius.

M and I turned the house upside down this evening looking for his DVDs of the series, which we haven't seen since our move but knew we had. We watched the first episode of the series, and as I type this we are watching the pilot movie. Although I only gave the book 3 stars of 5, I now highly recommend it to those familiar with the movie and the early episodes of the series. Do you know Father Mulcahey's original nickname? Do you know why John McIntyre's nickname is Trapper? Did you catch Hawkeye's first friend before Trapper John? He's in the book and the pilot, but didn't make it into the series.

Flight of Dreams, by Ariel Lawhon  X

This is a novel about the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. I understand it's historical fiction and therefore not to be taken literally, but I am still looking forward to learning more about it. I always read up on the actual facts, as far as they are known, while I'm reading a book like this. 

Der Vorleser, by Bernhard Schlink

My friend from Nagold recommended this book to me, and I happened upon it in a nice travel-size edition in the Nagold bookstore after we last met. I saw the film years ago but only remember the general premise (English title: The Reader). This is a perfect-sized book to take to Berlin when I'm chaperoning the Sheboygan exchange students, because I won't have any time to read anyway but it can fit in a small pocket.

The Secrets of the Heart, by Kahlil Gibran

I pinched this one from a bag in my parents' basement that had other books in it that were clearly mine. I don't remember this particular book, but Gibran is one of my favorite writers. I read part of it on the plane on my way home and didn't love it only because I wanted to be "wow-ed" like I was when I read the Prophet. I will finish reading it because Gibran's writing is mystical and wonderful.

The Razor's Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham

This is one of my all-time favorite books, and it came back to me during my trip to Wisconsin because I met a former student who wanted to give it to me. She graduated in 2006 and so I haven't seen her in 12 years, but she has an amazing memory and knew that I loved this book. When she heard I no longer possessed it (I can't imagine why I wouldn't have brought that over when I moved), she found me a copy and asked to meet. We had a lovely chat, and although I've read this book twice already, I am looking forward to my old friend again.

Incidentally, that student of mine is the same one I mentioned in the blog post above about the Prophet. 

So, then, what are you reading these days?

Book Review: The Awful English Grammar

"If I looked like Mr. Bean, I would cry myself to sleep every night."
"Too true."
"This is an example of the second conditional."
"It is?"
"Yes, it is. We use the second conditional when we're talking about a situation in the present that is plainly untrue or very unlikely."  

I have written before about how much I love bookshops and how important I think it is to shop locally rather than always using the convenience of Amazon. This week I took the bus to Nagold to have coffee with an English teacher friend of mine who had just returned from the US with students, and since I had an hour to kill before my bus back, I treated myself to a wee peek in the bookstore. I left the store with four new books and had finished one before the afternoon was over.

The Awful English Grammar/Die schreckliche englische Grammatik, by Jeremy Taylor, is a bilingual book with the English text on the left-hand pages and the German text on the right. I added the book to Goodreads, and you can read my description and review of it there. The book is a conversation between a British guy (Barry Buggins) who wants to teach English in Germany but realizes he doesn't know how to teach English despite being a native speaker, and a teacher trainer (Mr. Sully) who helps him prepare to teach.

I find this to be a brilliant book for anyone who teaches English to German speakers, a German speaker who wants to brush up on her English, and English-speaking expats living in German-speaking countries. Since Goodreads doesn't allow half-stars, I gave it four because of a few glitches I would consider mistakes: 2-3 typos, an incident of "There's a bunch of students...", and the translation of "No, really" as "Nicht unbedingt" (not really). Those are minor, but in a book about language, I'd rather there were no mistakes. And yes, I realize that is pedantic.

The conversations are mildly amusing at times, realistic in that they get off topic briefly now and then, and enlightening. The teacher's explanations are simple and easy to follow, and I like the way he leads Barry to his own understanding by asking "checking questions" and making mistakes Germans commonly make, getting Barry to correct him. Then they discuss why something is correct or incorrect.

The genius of this book is in its bilingualism. I have taught German to many Americans who are not experts in their native language. For a student of German reading this book, when he comes to a complicated construction ["If I had known how difficult English grammar was I wouldn't have taken this bloody course."], he can look on the right-hand page and find that sentence in German [Hätte ich gewusst, wie schwierig die englische Grammatik ist, dann hätte ich diesen verdammten Kurs niemals belegt."] That construction is called "third conditional," by the way, which is something a TEFL teacher (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) needs to know!

Yeah, I'm one of those who highlights and makes notes in my books.
M calls this "vandalizing," but please don't judge me. It's how I learn.

The grammar topics covered in the book are:

• verb tenses: forms of future, present and past
• conditionals, or the subjunctive mood
• prepositions (only a few because they'd require a whole book)
• countable vs. uncountable nouns
• mistakes commonly made in English by German speakers 

Lastly, the two characters use idioms throughout the book that are interpreted very well, which language learners can adopt. Idioms are fun! "You're pulling my leg!" Every native English speaker knows what that means, but a learner of English would picture the action literally. The German equivalent is (this was new to me) "Willst du mir einen Bären aufbinden?" An English speaker learning German would see that as "Do you want to untie a bear on me?" 

Both characters are British, so there are several moments where American readers will wonder. Here's one example where Barry corrects a "mistake" Mr. Sully makes:

  "Does [your sister] go to school on the weekend?"

  "You mean AT the weekend!"

Americans say "on the weekend" and Brits say "at the weekend."

If you are an English speaker learning German, a German speaker learning English, or a native English speaker considering teaching English to Germans, I encourage you to read this book. It doesn't take long - I read the English half in a few hours with interruptions - and it's a fun read for a linguaphile.

I even learned some things I didn't know before. For instance, English is one of the few languages with two forms of the present tense (p. 60). Can you name them or give examples? I also learned how to explain the subtle difference in meaning between "I work at McDonald's" and "I am working at McDonald's," which is something I'd never thought about before. 

"I think you'll find [German learners of English] are very smart people, and many new English teachers get eaten for breakfast by German students who know a lot more about English than their English teachers." ~Mr. Sully (p. 198)

March Reads

Stadtbibliothek, Stuttgart

After slinging through eleven books from January to mid-February, I hit a dry spell. Nothing I picked up was appealing, and after trying to force myself for the third time to read a Krimi a friend recommended, I finally put it down for good. I'd started out the year so well...

Schwiegermutter to the rescue!

Who needs a library card when this is only a small part
of your Schwiegermutter's extensive bilingual collection?

I shared my dilemma with her, and since she has a good idea what I like to read, she handed me an historical novel about a demesne (small feudal farm) facing the plague during the Middle Ages. I finished it in four days and came back for more 12th century stories. Since I braved my next drive to Esslingen with our car instead of the train and survived the ordeal, I could load up a bunch of books. Unfortunately I couldn't start reading them on the drive back.

These are also Krimis, but they take place in the Middle Ages,
and somehow that works for me. 

The titles sound a bit morbid, but she tells me the main character is a woman who was ahead of her time and knowledgable in the medical field, the human body, and autopsies (despite the fact that they were not actually permitted back then). I'm all for novels featuring strong female characters, and I am fascinated by life in the Middle Ages. Having just finished a biography about a Polish immigrant in Germany struggling with identity, language, and "home," I started on the first of the Ariana Franklin books this afternoon. And then promptly fell asleep. Not because it was boring, but because that's what happens when I read in the afternoon lying on the sofa. My only hope is to stay upright, and even that doesn't always work. I love naps...

I also picked up another book in a series I really like and recommend for anyone living in Germany:

These books each reveal 50 secrets of and from the city in the title, and the new one I'd ordered is the one about Berlin. I have read most of the books from Esslingen and Tübingen, and I have written (with permission from the author) about several of those secrets here and here. I bought the one about Berlin in preparation for my trip there with the Sheboygan exchange students in June this year, and already I've read about two things very close to our hotel that I've never noticed before. These books are fabulous for pointing out things that are in plain sight but that we don't notice when we're just walking around in a town or city.

They are only available in German, but I really do think there'd be a market for them in English! People love secrets and stories! I'd buy several copies of the Esslingen book in English to give as gifts. I wonder if I can plant that idea in the publisher's ear.

So I am content to say that I have my reading set and planned for the next few weeks. This is a relief, because I hate being "between books." I don't know how quickly I'll get through Franklin's books, but at some point I also need to get to the twenty other projects that are waiting for me involving cleaning, writing, more writing, more cleaning, and organizing.

What are YOU reading these days?

Do you have some good recommendations for me??

Modern-day Krimis need not apply.

Book Review: So sind sie, die Amerikaner

Despite an extended illness and finishing up my latest Integrationskurs, I found lots of time in January to read. I actually read six books and finished a 7th! The one I'm about to review is more of a booklet, really, with only 100 pages of light reading. 

This book is part of a series, written in German, about people of other countries. The series also includes books about Brits, Islanders, the French, Swedes, and the Japanese, among others. Judging from the one about my Landsleute, I believe the intent is for the writers to be whimsical while relating their honest opinions and observations.

The word that came to my mind when I was about half-way through with the book (I read it within a few hours) was: Volltreffer!  From my point-of-view the writer pretty much hit the nail on the head, though I believe most Americans would be offended and defensive if they could read it. I went to Amazon.de to see what reviews were there, being almost certain one of my Landsleute would have commented, and sure enough. Just look here and click on the comment to wayways's 5-star review. ("Wow, somebody really hates Americans!!")

Admittedly the writer does not focus on the many positive aspects of Americans and life in America, probably because those aren't particularly amusing. But I don't see her as just complaining, either. If you want to be comfortable living in America as a foreigner, you need to try to understand what makes them tick and avoid hot spots.

This is a good book to read in preparation for a quick trip to the States, though of course there's no way to truly explain the people of any country in just 100 pages.

Section headings are, for instance:
 Nationalism & Identity
 Typical Qualities
 Sense of Humor
 Eating & Drinking
 Customs & Traditions
 Free time & Entertainment

The author begins with a warning: "Americans are like teenagers: loud, curious, unable to keep a secret, indelicate, and with a tendency toward embarrassing behavior in public. When one accepts their basically adolescent ways, one can also understand the rest of their culture."

Those are her first two sentences, and I'm pretty certain that most Americans would already be ready to fight.

She goes on to say, "Amerikaner sind freundlich, weil sie nicht anders können." (Americans are friendly, because they don't know how to be anything else.") She's talking about Americans' interactions with strangers, and of course comparing it to the way Germans tend to be.

The writer points out a well-known fact - that Americans are proud to be Americans, because the U.S. is the greatest country on earth. People from most countries believe that about their home, but we Americans have proof: so many people from everywhere in the world want to come to America, and many risk their lives to get here. What more proof is needed? (p. 11)

She also notes that just 40% of Americans own a passport (compared to 75% of Canadians and 80% of Brits, p. 7), but there's a reason for that, too. The U.S. is so huge that one can travel for weeks without ever leaving the Homeland. With most Americans preferring to stay home (or not being able to afford to travel), this leads to a lack of understanding of other lands and peoples and their ways of doing things. From thence comes another common stereotype of Americans: that we know very little about the rest of the world.

For most of the writer's observations, I can say I know an American (or several) who illustrates her point.
"Selbst wenn die Vorortbewohner abgesehen vom Haus ihrer Nachbarn auch jedes andere Ziel zu Fuß erreichen könnten, würden sie es trotzdem nicht tun." (p. 22) (Even if the suburb dwellers could reach not only their neighbor's house but every other destination by foot, they wouldn't do it.)   *The front door of a favorite restaurant is an 8-minute walk from the front door of my parents' house, and they drive there for meals. In their defense, they would have to walk along the side of a road to get there because there's no sidewalk.

"In den USA entspricht die Ehe oftmals eher einer Serie monogamer Beziehungen als einem Bund fürs Leben." (p. 31) (Marriage is often more a series of monogamous relationships than a bond for life.) *An American I once dated was described by his sister as "a serial monogamist."

"Mittelschichtseltern stellen fest, dass ihre Kinder nicht nur keine Ahnung haben, welche Gabel man wann bei einem förmlichen Dinner verwendet, sondern dass sie selten überhaupt eine Gabel benutzen." (p. 37) (Middle class parents say not only that their children wouldn't know which fork to use during a formal dinner, but that they seldom use a fork at all.)  *One of the students I took to Germany years ago on a class trip (16 years old) did not know how to cut her Schnitzel with a knife. She tried to cut the meat holding the knife as if she were stabbing something with it. Most kid-friendly meals in America (sandwiches, hamburgers, bagels, tacos...) are eaten with the hands.


The writer did miss out on two pretty significant points that I consider important for Germans to know about Americans before spending time with them.

1. They are unable to look at themselves with a critical eye, and
2. They are not looking for honesty when they ask for your opinion. "What do you think of my new...?" or "Oh! You've been to America? What did you think?!" They are looking for a compliment, not an honest answer, so it's best just to think of something nice to say.

Do you disagree with me? Well, you might not be able to, because although I'm writing this blog post, I'm doubting the wisdom of publishing it. Not because I am afraid readers will disagree with me (I'd enjoy a healthy discussion about this!) but rather because I might lose friends - if people I know see this - and be labeled an American-hater. Which kind of illustrates my points, ya know?

The writer does mention positive qualities of Americans: many spend time volunteering, we really know how to have fun, we are friendly, polite, and optimistic, and we see most problems as challenges to overcome.

On the other hand, Americans almost always push blame onto someone or something other than themselves (p. 83). If you doubt that, just reflect back on the recent government shut-down (Jan. 2018). And what is every American kid's answer when his or her parents ask why s/he is getting a bad grade in any class? "The teacher hates me!" I taught high school English and German for 16 and 14 years respectively, and I assure you, we teachers do not give bad grades because we hate a student. Students earn bad grades when their work sucks or when they don't bother to do it. "But I spent all night on this assignment [that you assigned us two weeks ago]!"  Blaming others is a big part of the American psyche, to the delight of the 1.2 million lawyers working in the U.S., and it starts early.

Do I hate Americans? Nope. But I can look at myself and my Landsleute with a critical eye and not lose anything while doing so, and that criticism equates to most Americans as hatred. We all have quirks, and I think Germans have an easier time recognizing and acknowledging their own than Americans do. If you point out a German quirk to a German, rather than get defensive, he's likely to think a moment and say, "Yeah, I see where you get that."

I'll end with one funny American quirk the writer mentions that I'll bet you've never thought about. We use the oddest things to measure distance and size. (p. 53) We describe the size of a shopping mall parking lot in football fields. We describe volume in terms of how many bathtubs the thing would fill. And when someone asks how far away something is, we tell them how long it takes to drive there. "How far is Madison from Sheboygan?" "Oh, about two hours."

What quirks do you notice about your own people?

Can you look at yourself and your Landsleute with a critical eye?

Reading List 2018

I never read as many books in a year as I'd like to, which is one reason I don't set a goal on Goodreads. As a realist, I prefer to not set a goal rather than set one I won't achieve. I just read what I can and enjoy it as I go along. This post comes dangerously close to a reading goal, though, and I'm already feeling skeptical. But let's go with it and see what happens.

I don't like being "between books," which is why I generally read more than one book at a time. One of those needs to be small enough to fit in my purse for train rides and errands (yes, I have been know to whip out a book while waiting in the slow line at the Kasse), which my last novel of 2017 - Ken Follett's a Column of Fire - definitely was not.

In no particular order, here are the books with which I'm planning to start 2018 and how they found their way to my shelves. (X means I have since read/finished the book.)

Origin, by Dan Brown X

I have not read all of Brown's books, but the ones I've read were quite intriguing! Real discussion-starters. I learned he'd come out with a new one in 2017 and promptly put it on my birthday list. My kids ordered that one for me, along with a Column of Fire. I have no doubt I will like it, but it's not purse-size and won't be traveling with me. I'm not going anywhere until the second half of February, so this will probably be my January book.

Nachts ist es leise in Tehran, by Shida Bazyar  X

I heard about this one when I went to a book reading in Stuttgart about this book. There was a project in 2017 called "Stuttgart liest ein Buch" (Stuttgart reads a book), which encouraged people across the city to read a certain book and attend events at which they could then discuss it. The book they focused on was this one, and I decided to order it.

Moon Palace, by Paul Auster X

A teacher friend I met through the AATG (American Assoc. of Teachers of German) listserv who teaches English in a town not far from us gave me this book. Despite the fact that Auster is an American writer, I have never heard of him. Perhaps that's because all the writers I covered in American Lit were long deceased. My friend recommends the book, and I'm usually open to book recommendations!

Schwarzer Neckar, by Thilo Schuerer

Speaking of recommendations, this book has been loaned to me by one of M's employees (I'd also call him a friend of mine). There's a genre called Schwabenkrimis (Swabian crime novels), and this is one such book. I started reading it in the fall but couldn't quite get going - Krimis are not really my thing. It's the start of a series, though, and I really want to at least read this first one. If I like it as much as my friend did, maybe it will open a new genre for me. My challenge with such novels is to force myself not to browse the end when I feel like things are moving too slowly.

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By the way, did you notice on my photo above that books printed in English-speaking countries have their titles facing left on the binding, and those printed in Germany face right? (The Auster book is English but was printed in Germany.) This could be really awful for people with OCD. In order for all the titles to face the same way, the German books would need to be shelved upside-down!
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Ghostly Tales and Sinister Stories of Old Edinburgh, by Alan Wilson, et. al. X

My kids and son's girlfriend bought me this book while we were in Edinburgh together last June. This will be a good train book because it's a collection of short stories and a good size for a purse or backpack.

Scottish Folk Tales

The kids (they're adults, but you know how that goes) also bought me this book in Scotland, and since M and I are going there again this year, these two books will put me in the right frame of mind - as if I need books for that. If I haven't read this one by September, I'll take it with me.

the Darling, by Anton Chekhov

This was a gift from a student of mine from Russia, and I want to finally get to it! I'm familiar with Chekhov, but not this story. The book includes several other short stories as well and will be a good train read. I like to make sure I read at least one World Lit classic each year, so this will count for that as well.

Katherine of Aragon, by Alison Weir  X

My favorite genre is historical fiction, though putting this one on my list for 2018 is cheating a bit. I read most of it in 2017, but then abandoned it temporarily for a Column of Fire. This is not the first time I've spread a book over two years. Alison Weir is one of my favorite historical fiction writers, and I can already see myself reading all six in this series about Henry VIII's ill-fated wives (divorced-beheaded-died-divorced-beheaded-survived) as they come out. My son's girlfriend brought my attention to this series, and my Schwiegermutter already has the first two! The third is due out in May, 2018.

Pompeii, by Robert Harris  X

Don't you love it when you have a book on your shelf for so long that you don't remember how you heard of it or why you bought it? Hello, Pompeii! I don't know what to expect from this one except that, well, I know how it ends. I have another book by Harris - Enigma - but I couldn't get passed the first chapter. I don't know why I bought that one either, but I have higher hopes for Pompeii.

Coole Käuze, by Torsten Pröhl, et.al.  X

This book is fodder for my Steinkauz obsession. I bought this book to put under the Christmas tree for both M and me, but then my Schwiegermutter gave it to me for my birthday! It is chock-full of beautiful photos of Käuze (a type of owl) and information about their habits and way of life. I'll be taking notes for future blog posts about Alfred when I read this one.

Here I am wearing my
"OMG...I'm holding a Steinkauz!!" face.

Intriguing Owls, by Stan Tekiela  X

When my mom mentioned  our interest in owls to her cousin, he recommended this book. My mom passed the idea along to M for a Christmas gift, and thus it ended up under the tree. In this one also there is a lot of information about owls, wonderful pictures, and maps showing where in North America the various types of owls mainly reside. This one will be easier for me to read since it's in English, and it will be interesting to compare the information in the two books.

Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, by Dorothy Wordsworth

This will probably be the most daunting of the books on my current plan. Dorothy was the sister of William Wordsworth, and the two of them took a tour together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge through Scotland in 1803. These are her diary entries and thoughts as well as accounts of their travels. I know I will revel in the old-fashioned writing style, but it's a big, heavy, hardcover book that I'll have to read at home. My Schwiegermutter gave this book to me last year for Christmas, but I haven't started it yet. This will be a good year for Scotland reads!

The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

Here we have the winner of the "Not what I thought this book was about" Award. I'd put it on my Christmas list this year although I do not remember how I heard of it, and my kids bought it for me. It's much bigger/thicker than I was expecting (apparently I neglected to look at how many pages long it is), and the subject matter was a surprise as well. That makes me wonder, "What did I think the book was about?!" The beautifully-titled book is about the Great Migration in the 1930s of African-Americans from the South into the northern states. As I often do with a new book, I read the first few pages to get a taste, and I can say I am looking forward to reading more. I know I will learn a lot about something I hadn't spent much time on previously, and that is one of the main reasons I read!


We readers know what happens to our best-laid plans: new books slither across our radar, jump into our shopping carts, and demand our immediate attention. Most of the books I read in 2017 were unplanned, and quite a few had just been published that year! These are only thirteen books, which should leave room for interlopers along the way of the next twelve months, but several of them are intimidating in size. This is the closest I've ever come to setting a reading goal for [part of] a year, and if I fail miserably I'll probably never do it again. Just writing this post got me eager to get started, though!

Let the readings begin...

Could you become a German??

I don't put my birthday on social media because I don't want anyone wishing me a happy one just because a machine told him or her to do so. However, I turned 49 this year, and what was one thing on my wish list? This game...

This board game is based on the 330 questions that make up the Einbürgerungstest, or German citizenship test. Each card has one of the actual questions from the test, the four multi-guess possible answers, and the correct answer. Players roll the die and move their little Spielfigur around the board, answering a question on each space they land on. When a player answers a question correctly, he keeps the card. The first player to collect 17 cards wins.

Why 17? For the actual Einbürgerungstest, takers need to answer 33 questions (30 about Germany in general and 3 about the state in which they are taking the test) and get at least 17 correct. That's 51%. 59% was a failing grade in the school I taught at in Wisconsin. Happily, the majority of my students have scored very well on the test - most 90% and higher.

There are special spaces on the game board, indicated by several symbols.

• two Bundesadler = das "Bonusfeld" - the player landing on this space gets to answer two questions in a row.


• three hearts = das "Nachbarschaftsfeld" - the player landing here can ask her neighbor for help if she doesn't know the answer. Awkward when playing with just two people, one of whom is holding the card with the answer.


• a four-leaf clover = das "Glücksfeld" - one correct answer yields two cards.


• an airplane = das "Reisefeld" - "Friends decided to take a last-minute vacation. The player [landing here] unfortunately has no visa and therefore can't join them. Sit out one turn."


• an alarm clock = das "zu spät" Feld - the player landing here showed up late for the Einbürgerungstest. He sits out one turn."


• Lady Justice = das "Gerichtsfeld" - the player who lands here has defied the law. She must give up one of her cards.


• a circle with a red X = das "Wahlfeld" - it's election time in Germany! Unfortunately the player landing here does not have citizenship and therefore cannot vote. He sits out one round.

Since November 1st is a holiday in Germany and M didn't have to go to the office, he agreed to play a round of this game with me that morning. It could definitely be fun, but since both of us knew all the answers that came up, I guess it was a little dull.

What livened things up was that I kept landing on the special spaces - and NOT the good ones! In no time at all M had amassed seven cards, and I had only two! After I grumbled good-naturedly (I'm possibly the least competitive person in the world), with my very next roll I landed on the Gerichtsfeld and had to give up one of them! I protested when I landed on the "zu spät" Feld, because I would NEVER be late for something as important as a test! (In truth, I would rather be an hour early than five minutes late to anything. I just find a quiet spot and read the book I always have with me.) But how appropriate for a German game that a player gets punished for the very idea of being late.

In the end we actually both counted up 18 cards, but M had got there first.

I had to laugh every time M said, "Why the hell does a foreigner need to know that?!" For instance, since which year have we been paying in cash with the Euro? What possible need could there be for a Syrian refugee or an immigrant from Scotland to know that? It's enough to know that we pay in Euros now. Who cares "since when"?

Here are two more: What is a Gerichtschöffe and who can be one? Well, that's a special assistant to a judge who needs to decide on a case. It's kind of like a jury member or volunteer judge, but there are only two of them who listen to the evidence and give their inexpert input. Who can be one? Not a foreigner, unless she is naturalized and speaks/understands German at the level of a native speaker.

Having taught the Orientierungskurs twice now - and my third course will start in December - I am very familiar with the 330 questions and answers. And I'd like to suggest the gang of sadists who came up with those questions be tarred and feathered. Some day I'm going to go through those cards and make a pile of questions I consider important enough that someone applying for citizenship should know just to see how many are cruel. The writers of the test should each receive three lashes for every unnecessary question.

I like the fact that there's a game available to practice for this test, and it could be a fun party game for a mixed crowd of immigrants who have taken the Orientierungskurs and Germans. Too bad we don't have parties. Obviously I plan to use it in my class.

In other news, I'm nearly wetting myself over the new pile of thick books I have to read.

My head is spinning because I don't know which one to start with. To make matters worse, I am smack dab in the middle of a 600-page book about Katherine of Aragon, and this would be a dumb time to stop in order to start on a different really long book - or two! Dan and Ken should really plan this better and publish their new novels six months apart and when I have time to read them. Poor me with my First World problems...

I just found a box of civics questions for the US citizenship test. I might put that on my Christmas wish list! I'm a sucker for trivia games.

Have you found any good trivia games lately? 

Do you enjoy playing games that show you how much you still have to learn?!?

Summer Reading

Several of the bloggers I follow post now and then what they're reading or have read, and I always enjoy those. I've been binge reading for the past six weeks in one particular and new genre, which is one reason I haven't posted much lately.

It all started with Erzähl mir von Deutschland, Soumar, and I wish I could remember how I heard of that book. I really liked it, written as almost a conversation between the author and his friend, a Syrian refugee who'd fled to Germany. I contacted the author, Florian Schmitz, to ask if there were any plans to have it translated into English, but a publisher has to be interested first, apparently. He told me they are planning a reading of the book for sometime in the fall in Stuttgart, and I just found out today when it will take place (Oct. 26 at 20:00 in a bookstore in Vaihingen).

Ich komm auf Deutschland zu

Soumar and his story reminded me of many of my students and friends from Syria, and I found myself wanting to read more books like his. Amazon suggested I have a look at Ich komm auf Deutschland zu. The writer, Firas Alshater, is a comedian and a Youtube star - I have no idea how I missed that, but I've watched some of his videos and really like them! He usually gives advice to other foreigners about making their way in Germany, and his tips do not only apply to refugees. In his book Firas writes about his life in Syria before the war and during the revolution, his decision to leave Syria after being arrested, jailed, and tortured for filming what he saw happening around him, his journey to Germany, and his life since arriving here. That he can tell his story with a sense of humor speaks to his character and will probably appeal to many readers.

Both of these books go a long way to shattering - or at least challenging - assumptions and prejudices readers might have about Syrians, Muslims, and refugees.

Nujeen: Flucht in die Freiheit

The next book that crossed my radar while I was reading Firas' book was Nujeen: Flucht in die Freiheit. When I mentioned the book to my daughter, she said the late night talk show host John Oliver had talked about her. Nujeen has been unable to walk since birth and is confined to a wheelchair. She is from Kobani, Syria, and she and her sister fled to Turkey, across the sea in a flimsy boat to Greece, and over the Balkan route to Germany. At one point a BBC reporter saw her and interviewed her - which is what we see in the clip from John Oliver. She tells the reporter she would like to be an astronaut, and in the book we learn why. Despite the many obstacles made even more complicated by Nujeen's disability, their dream of living and learning in a country not torn apart by war spurred them on. Nujeen's sister pushed her most of the way, and at especially critical times others came to their aid and carried her.

So far all the books were in German, although I later found out that Nujeen's book was originally published in English, under the title Nujeen: One Girl's Incredible Journey.

I read reviews on Amazon of several of the books, and as usual I was more interested in the non-five-star reviews than the five-stars. I'm always curious what people with some criticism have to say. I was disappointed in some comments that said the writing was dull or cheesy, the story "lost interest toward the end," etc. These are real stories of real people who went through more suffering than anyone should. I love good literature, but writing style is not important here; the details and the journey are important. Of course, that's just how I feel.

A Hope More Powerful than the Sea

My fourth book was in English, but it is also available in German. The beautifully titled book, a Hope More Powerful than the Sea, was written by Melissa Fleming about the life of Doaa Al Zamel, a young woman who hadn't really intended on leaving her home to go to Europe. During the Arab Spring Doaa got involved in demonstrations in Daraa, their home town, which of course was risky. After it became clear that the opposition would not succeed and people identified as participating in the revolution were being arrested and killed, her family left Syria and settled as refugees in Egypt. While in Egypt Doaa met Basaam, who was at first unsuccessful at attracting her interest. Her family adored him, and eventually she warmed to him. Basaam wanted a better life for them than just living as refugees, and his dream was to go to Europe where they could make something of themselves. They were both hard workers and fighters, and he knew they could pursue the life they dreamed of. But first they had to make it across the sea - and Doaa was terrified of the water.

Good thing I was never a librarian. I'm no good at making displays.

Another thing that ties these books together is the information provided about Syria before the war, during the Arab Spring, and during the war. Still, the focus is on their personal stories more than history and politics. Enough background is provided to give readers an idea of why the questions some have voiced are not so easily answered. "Why didn't they just stay and fight for their country?"  "Why didn't they just flee to a Muslim country closer to their home?"  "How could so many men just leave their wives and families behind while they fled for Europe?"  (I hate the word "just," in case that wasn't obvious.) These writers don't preach, but they do explain pretty clearly what life has been like in Syria.

Unter einem Dach

After Doaa's heart-wrenching story I read one that had been in my Amazon shopping cart for months - Unter einem Dach ("Under One Roof"), by Henning Sußebach and Amir Baitar. Henning and his family hosted Amir, a Syrian Muslim, in their home near Hamburg for about a year. Each chapter or section of the book is written by one or the other of them, as they address all kinds of topics from food to religion to clothing to German culture and traditions. Amir, for example, is taken aback by couples openly and enthusiatically expressing their affection for each other in public. That just didn't happen in Syria. (Incidentally, I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and tell him I find that odd, too!) He doesn't understand why Henning doesn't change clothes when he comes home from work, but rather wears his work clothes (trousers and a shirt or sweater) until bedtime - as I sit here typing in the clothes I taught in this morning. I really enjoyed comparing his observations to my own - what do I find normal that he finds odd, and vice versa? Both Henning and Amir learned from each other and changed in little ways throughout the year because they had open minds and were willing to see the world through someone else's eyes. There were many things they didn't agree on, but they respected each other and gave each other space.

As with Erzähl mir von Deutschland, Soumar, I liked learning how the writers (the German and the Syrian) think and what goes on in their minds. I have spent a fair bit of time with my Syrian friends, but I still have so many questions and there is much I want to know. I know they'd be willing to answer my questions, but I haven't taken the step yet of asking them. One thing is certain - just like with Americans, Germans, Christians, and whomever else, each individual is his or her own person, and there is no way one can or should lump people together and make gross generalizations about them with any certainty. If you find someone saying to you, "Syrians are..." or "Muslims are..." you can stop them right there, because they are wrong. Of this I am sure.

Ich habe einen Traum

The last of the books I have read and currently know of in this genre (stories of refugees from Syria) is Ich habe einen Traum ("I have a Dream"), by Reem Sahwil. Reem is not actually from Syria, but rather Lebanon. If I understand correctly, ever since 1947, when her great-grandmother was forced to leave her home in Haifa (Israel), the family had been living in a refugee camp in Lebanon (Baalbek). That means for generations they have known nothing but a basically hand-made container village with dirty streets, but somehow with a life of its own including small family businesses like bakeries and repair shops. Reem was born prematurely, and the medical facilities are nothing to speak of there. She was therefore unable to walk and confined to a wheelchair for the most part. Her father worked hard and borrowed money to pay for two expensive operations in Europe, and upon her third trip to Europe her father made her, her young brother, and her mother promise to apply for asylum on the grounds of medical need. Reem's father would follow later on the arduous Balkan route. Reem became famous for a while because of this encounter with Angela Merkel, who was blasted as a result for being stiff and cold-hearted. Near the end of the book Reem writes about that meeting in her school in Rostock and the aftermath, as well as her feelings toward Chancellor Merkel (which were and are far more positive than those of some of the media and many internet commenters).

Of course I am interested in these stories because so many details are similar to those I've heard from my Syrian friends and former students. The places, situations, fears, and uncertainties are familiar to me by now, and with every story I hear or read I am more amazed by the resilience of these people and what they were willing to go through to get where they are today. And they keep pushing forward despite the many frustrations of dealing with German bureaucracy and administrators, the German language, and a stiff and sometimes cold country with inflexible rules about what is allowed and what is not.

I do recommend each of these books and wish they were all available in English. I don't feel like I did them justice with my summaries, but I would read every one of them again.