Stolpersteine in Stuttgart

Ein Stein. Ein Name. Ein Mensch.

A few days ago I read in our local paper that the artist Gunter Demnig himself would be in Stuttgart today to lay eleven Stolpersteine in several different locations. At one of those locations, Uhlandstraße 14A, he would be laying six Stolpersteine, two of which were sponsored by students at the Stuttgart High School, an American school on Patch Barracks.

Since hearing about Demnig’s art initiative quite a few years ago, I have looked for the Stolpersteine and told guests and student groups about them. Biographical information is available online about most of the people commemorated by the Stolpersteine, as is fitting to Demnig’s goal that the victims of the Nazi regime not be forgotten. “One stone. One name. One person.”

I arrived early, as I am wont to do, and just as the organizer (Frau Bouché from the Initiative Stolpersteine Stuttgart) started to ask if I was part of the group expected, the American students arrived. I snapped some photos from the background and let their chaperone know who I was, that I was there privately and wouldn’t post photos of the students anywhere. However I gave her my card and said if she emails me, I can send her any photos I take.

Frau Bouché spoke to the students a bit and told them Demnig would probably dash off quickly after laying the stones because he had more to do after these. I told the chaperone I am not shy about asking for certain photos in situations like this, and if I saw an opportunity I would ask Demnig to pose for a photo with the students.

I knew Demnig as soon as he arrived, as he is quite recognizable. He briefly greeted a few people and got to work. 

Gunter Demnig

The Stolpersteine Demnig laid at this spot were for Isak and Johanna Falk, their nearly-adult children Fritz and Carry, and Meier Rosenstein and his daughter Frieda Süß-Schülein.

After he finished he packed up his tools and buckets and I sidled up to him and asked if he’d pose with the American students because they were the sponsors of the two Stolpersteine for the Falk children. He graciously agreed and I got several nice photos. I can’t post them because of obvious reasons and because I told the chaperone I would not.

After Demnig drove off, the ceremony began in which Frau Bouché told us in English about the six individuals and their story. One of the students spoke very good German, welcoming those gathered and introducing her group, and another student read a poem she’d written for the occasion. 

The last thing Frau Bouché told us was that in 1943 her parents and older sister had moved into this very apartment where the Falk family had lived before being forced to leave this home in 1939 to take up positions in a Jewish nursing home near Heilbronn. She said her mother knew a Jewish family had lived there and it saddened her, but they did not ask what had happened to them. It clearly meant something special to Frau Bouché that she has been able to honor the Falk family in this way.

For more information about Gunther Demnig's Stolperstein initiative, click on the links above or here. To learn the stories of the people named on Stolpersteine in your area or ones you come across on your travels, google the person's name along with the word "Stolperstein." It may also help to add the name of the town in which the Stolperstein is found.

Stolpersteine continue to be laid in communities across 21 countries in Europe. It costs €132 to sponsor a stone, which is usually placed in front of the individual's last known residence. 

The 100,000th Stolperstein was laid in 2023.

Loving Southern Germany 5: Castle Ruins

Most tourists who come to Germany visit the well-known castles and palaces - Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Nymphenburg in München, Charlottenburg in Berlin... Many visit castles along the Rhein as well. They are expensive to visit, but it's nice to see how the upper crust lived many years ago. I don't begrudge anyone wanting to see these castles and palaces, but I am glad I will not ever again need to visit the over-rated Neuschwanstein, having taken enough student groups there over the years.

Neuschwanstein, Bavaria
This palace isn't even very old - it was built after the American Civil War ended!

Nymphenburg, München, Bavaria

Pfalzgrafenstein, on the Rhein, Rheinland-Pfalz

Personally I prefer the castle and fortress ruins - the more rustic and ruined, the better. They each have a history, sometimes steeped in mystery, leaving visitors to use their imaginations.

Many ruins are free-of-charge, and others charge a nominal fee to help with upkeep and maintenance. And they're all over, at least in southern Germany.

Within walking distance of our home not long after I moved here, we found Ruine Eutingen. To learn about the more remote ruins, you need to know German because they are not tourist attractions and little or no information is available in English. This Burg (fortress) was built in the second half of the 13th century and was the seat of the Lords of Eutingen. It was destroyed by Graf von Hohenberg in 1350 but eventually rebuilt, changed hands a number of times over the centuries, and abandoned and sold off in 1818. Today one can find the remnants of a tower and wall, a cellar vault, rounded window arches, and Schießscharten (arrow slits).

This turned out to be a nice afternoon's walk and adventure on my birthday a few years ago, because although we knew about where it was, we had to search and backtrack a few times before we found it hidden on a hill among the trees.

When fellow blogger Adventures of La Mari and I decided to meet, we chose the ruins at Hohentwiel near Singen. Our husbands and their pug Abner joined us to explore the ruins. This one is well-enough known that info is available in English. The first castle on this site was built in 914 and first served as the seat of Swabian dukes.

My Schwiegermutter enjoys exploring ruins as much as I do, and we made an excursion together to Klosterruine Hirsau, near Calw. The origins of the monastery go back to 830, and in 1091 the large church was built. These ruins are an architect's delight, with clear and preserved examples of Romanesque and High Gothic windows and elements.

Just right of center are the rounded arches of Romanesque style windows.
Just left of center in reddish brick you see the pointy Gothic arches of the Kreuzgang (cloister).
Marienkapelle in the background.

Some might see all this as piles of rocks, but I see Germany's romantic and turbulent past. And part of the beauty of southwestern Germany for me is that whenever I have time, I can check out a new one or visit an old favorite. They are easily accessible by train and bus, and an extra bonus is often a lengthy walk or climb to get there from the station, which is about the only exercise I ever get.

Nagold is a beautiful little town not far from us, and the ruins on the hill above town are worth the forest climb.

watch tower and oven of Hohennagold

cemetery at the Remigiuskirche with fortress ruins in the background

Although I haven't visited them yet, we did pass below the ruins of Hohenurach on a walk to the Urach waterfall on a lovely autumn day. I'd rather wait until the renovations are finished anyway.

With the exception of Hohentwiel, none of the ruins I've mentioned charge an entrance fee. Even Hohentwiel costs only €4,50, while Neuschwanstein will set you back €13, which doesn't include all the tourist crap Gedöns bits and bobs you'll be tempted to buy in the shop.

Let that stand as the fifth thing I love about living here in southwestern Germany, though there are plenty of ruins in other parts of the country as well.

For more on this thread, see:
  Beautiful Towns
  Landscape
  Food
  Holidays
and
  Wegkreuze

Highs and Lows July 2016

The early edition...

I haven't written much lately because I'm busy with teaching and failing at keeping the homestead in good shape. I've had things to say/write, but little energy to write them well, so instead I spend my evenings creating lesson plans and worksheets, reviewing the passive voice, and lying on the sofa with my cold fluffy pillow watching "the Mentalist" or "Big Bang Theory".

However, as always there were highs and lows this month, and I like reflecting at the end of the month on what's been going on - especially the positive things.

HIGHS

• the C1 (Deutsch als Fremdsprache / German as a Foreign Language) test. It was a good experience, and I passed it!!


• meeting a college friend of mine and three colleagues of his in Esslingen and giving them a tour of my favorite German city! It was my first official tour of Esslingen and so much fun! They were interested in what I had to tell them, were very enthusiastic about the places and views I showed them, and if they enjoyed it half as much as I did, then it was a near-perfect evening.


• the arrival in Esslingen of four young exchange students from Sheboygan, WI (my hometown).


• chaperoning this group and their German partners on a day trip to Ulm and leading the "Stadtführung Lite". They all joined me on the climb up the tallest church steeple in the world, and most of them went all the way to the tippy-top  (768 steps) while I waited at the third lookout platform.

The students climbed this; I did not.

• my daughter's 23rd birthday

• my son's 21st birthday three days later


• another day trip with the student group to Tübingen, my second favorite German city.

• seeing two of my former students at a film showing about Syria: before and since the war. I sat next to one of them, and during the "before" part it was so nice to hear him talk about his homeland. When a picture came up, he leaned over and told me what it was I was seeing. The "since" portion was heart-breaking, though.


• finding out that in August I might be able to take over an integration course at the local VHS from a teacher who is going on family leave. The best part about this is that two of my former students are in this class, along with two other Syrians I know from another class at the Hermann-Hesse-Kolleg and the Sprachcafé! I am just waiting for official permission to teach at the VHS level.


• in preparation for the above, taking a practice Einbürgerungstest (German citizenship test) and scoring 90% on my first try before starting to study. 56% is needed to pass. I just took that online practice test and scored 93%. Those darn colors pertaining to various political parties will get me every time - except for the Green party; I nailed that one.  The other wrong answer was a stupid misread of the question.
  
  Want to try your hand at the US Citizenship test? That one has 96 questions, so it will take a few minutes. I scored 92%. Here's a shorter one. Apparently the actual test is not multiple choice, but rather an oral test. The candidate is asked 10 questions, and she or he must answer at least six of them correctly.
  
  The pool of questions for the US test is 100 (from which the interviewer asks 10). The pool of questions for the German test is 310, from which 33 are asked (the last three are state-specific), and 17 need to be answered correctly.
  
  Back in 2008, all 310 questions appeared in the newspaper, and M copied the list and sent it to me. I still have this list, so handy that it took me less than two minutes to find it! It was one of those "I bet I'll need this some day" things, and sure enough.

my study material for the next few weeks
Update: I finished this book/workbook today.

• receiving an email from one of my former Syrian students. He was just checking in and letting me know what he's been doing lately, about the integration class he's taking, and asked how I was. It's always so nice to hear from these students!

LOWS

• the shooting in München on my daughter's birthday. Although this happens so often in the US that it hardly makes the news anymore, this type of crime is rare in Germany because the gun laws are quite strict. The shooter (an 18-year-old German-Iranian boy who had trouble in school and presumed psychological problems) had been researching mass shootings and acquired his weapon illegally - the serial number was scratched off. It also turns out that, despite knee-jerk reports that he was Muslim and shouted "Allah...", it now appears that he was a racist neo-nazi (I'm not going to capitalize that) who hated foreigners and Muslims.


• finishing our tour of Ulm and arriving in plenty of time at the Bahnhof to catch our train back to Esslingen, and seeing on the schedule display that our train wasn't running that day. Why? No idea, no information. Waiting another hour for the next train.


• the Republican convention, though this could be a high because most of what I watched about it was from late night comedy, and those guys are hilarious. I just didn't hear anything about or from the convention that could be viewed as positive. Hatred, paralyzing fear, the economy is in the toilet, and the world is going to hell - those are the messages I heard. I read something the other day about the dire state of the economy - the writer advised people to turn off the news, go outside and look around their neighborhoods and cities. Where is the evidence of the economic crisis? Are houses being built? Are gas prices low? Are people still driving SUVs? Are businesses advertising "Help Wanted"? Are people still loading carts full at the grocery store? Shopping in malls? Going on vacation?


• learning on the day of the film showing about Syria that the US had had dropped bombs on and killed several families - more than 50 people - near the town of Aleppo, having mistakenly identified them as IS fighters.


• reading a news story about a former student of mine from my first year of teaching at my last school in Wisconsin. I remember him well. He was one of the participants on my first trip to Germany with teenage students (17 of them!), and he was one of the good ones - great sense of humor, well-behaved, and just generally nice and thoughtful. I learned this month that he committed a heinous crime in Virginia - attacking a couple (the husband had just fired my former student's wife), slashing their throats, and leaving them for dead. He was apprehended and tried, and he was sentenced to 2 life terms in prison. How does a kind, funny, thoughtful, intelligent kid from a Christian family end up there 15 years after high school?
  
  I wrote a blog post about it but just couldn't publish it.

Since I don't like ending with negative things, I will close with this fat little brown bunny with floppy ears (Schlappohren) in a teacup.

Have a great August!!

My Mom's Visit

This month's Highs and Lows post is being supplanted by the following because 1.) I didn't have any lows this month - seriously, not one! - and 2.) most of my highs had to do with my mom's visit from the U.S..

While my dad is trekking and sight-seeing in the Himalayas, my mom popped over for a visit with us for almost two weeks. She arrived a week ago today, and one of the nicest things about her visit is that nothing is rushed. She has no "official" reason for being here - no cruise or other European vacation, no official exchange business, no parties to attend.

What this means is that my mom has spent some days seeing my life and what I do from day to day. This often includes hours of "down time" - she's taking a nap as I write this. We've been relaxing to the point of being dull some days, but everything we have done has been really enjoyable so far! There's more to come next week, but here's what we've done in the last week.

Good Meals

M and I have enjoyed cooking together for her.

Maultaschen in Brühe

Rouladen in the making

Rouladen mit Nudeln
(This is an older picture with Spätzle, but for my mom we made homemade noodles with our pasta press)

Spargel Überbacken
White asparagus with ham & cheese in a white wine-butter sauce

Züricher Geschnetzeltes und Rösti - one of our favorites

Forewarning if you ever plan to visit us: this is not a low-fat household and we don't know what to do for vegetarians. We cook everything from scratch, though, and buy as much from local farmers as possible. But it's all about the meat.

Bounty from Wisconsin

My mom brought a whole bunch of things I'd asked for, plus one surprise - a Marguerite Henry book I fondly remember from my youth, Five O'Clock Charlie! This was a gift from the son and daughter-in-law of my grandmother's sister. I associate this book with memories of my mom's Aunt June, because I always found it on her shelf and read it cover to cover when I visited.

Other items pictured: cutting boards in the shape of Wisconsin, refrigerator magnets and tea towels of Wisconsin and Sheboygan, Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate chips, a scarf my dad bought me in Argentina, a silicone pot scrubber, and Baker's string cheese (there are no words for how much I love this string cheese, bought fresh from the factory near my hometown (and then frozen for the overseas journey). The Wisconsin-themed items are for when I have occasion to give a gift and want to give something from the homeland.

Esslingen

On Monday we drove to Esslingen (I drove!!) to have a lunch meeting with friends who are in charge of the Esslingen-Sheboygan exchange and then met for ice cream and a chat with the Sheboygan, Wisconsin exchange students who are spending five months in Esslingen.

Kaffee und Kuchen

On Tuesday we drove to the Spargelhof in Bondorf where I always buy our asparagus - picked that morning - and in the afternoon we met six of my (former) students from Syria and Eritrea at a café in Horb for coffee. I was definitely looking forward to introducing them to my mom, and we had a lovely afternoon!

Moms Geburtstag!

Wednesday was my mom's 74th birthday, and she was treated to a lazy morning while I went to M's office for the English lesson. In the afternoon we picked up my Schwiegermutter from the Bahnhof, and in the evening we all four had a wonderful dinner at Straub's Krone.

 P.S. No, that is not a missing apostrophe in "Moms Geburtstag". In German possessives do not take apostrophes.  

our mums
friends since 1987, 19 years before their kids got married!

creme brulee with a birthday candle

American vs. British English

My mom and Schwiegermutter came with me to my Englisch-AG (where I teach conversational English at a school for students with mild learning disabilities), and we did several activities focusing on the differences between American and "proper" English, as I often call the two languages. It often seems true that Americans and Brits are "separated by a common language" (George Bernard Shaw)!

Ancestors' House in Nöttingen

On Thursday I drove my mom and Schwiegermutter to Nöttingen, where we met the couple living in the house my great-great-great-great grandfather built in 1797. They are such warm and gracious people! They had prepared for us delicious homemade cakes as well as a CD full of information about the village and the house - including details about the renovations they've done. The house is under Denkmalschutz, and when they gave us a tour they pointed out the parts of the structure that are original. They helped us visualize what the house and rooms looked like when Jacob Jung lived there.

a painting of the house done by a relative of the current owners

Damenreitstunde

My ladies' riding lesson is on Friday mornings, and my mom was kind enough to come along and snap a few photos despite it being a bit cold. This was nice for me because I could finally have some pictures of me with Mallory, the little horse I ride most often.

Syrisches Essen

On Friday afternoon we were invited to the home where several of my Syrian students live, and they cooked for us several Syrian dishes: Taboule, Freekeh, and a dessert. The food was delicious, and the Deurabisch (Deutsch-English-Arabisch) conversation was very interesting! We talked about religion, customs in Germany, Syria, and the US, their journeys from Syria to Germany, and their hometowns. They showed us on Google Maps where they used to live (much of which has been destroyed by the war). Several of these men lived in villages outside of Damascus just a few kilometers from each other, but they first met when they arrived in this tiny German village back in September 2015.

Pre-Mom's-Visit Highs

The following highs happened before my mom arrived...

• meeting one of my students twice for several hours so that he could tell me his story - of his life in Syria before the war and his journey from Syria through the Balkan route to Germany. His complete story is too long for a blog post, and since I will be talking listening to my other students and some of their friends as well, this may well be the start of a new project!


• our sixth Kochkurs at Straub's Krone, this time focusing on Spargel, Wildkräuter, and Rhabarber.

That's it for April! I hope you had a good month as well!