Bagsy
Eastern Europe in Germany
It was only months ago that the war in Ukraine debilitated my psyche. For the first couple of weeks I, as someone who otherwise avoids reading any type of news, was unable to tear myself away from live streams of the conflict. Not even freezing tissue samples could detract my attention; occasional glimpses of the horror on my laptop screen accompanied the desperation that my wireless earbuds channeled into my head as I dipped synovial explants into a bath of liquid nitrogen.
I was distraught. I am still upset. For both selfish and unselfish reasons.
Surely visiting Russia in the near future would be out of the question. It remains that way. But I even doubted the trip to Germany I mentally planned. It was unclear how the terror would evolve and whether it would spread. Should Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation be taken seriously?
Clearly, I went anyway.
In a way I was escaping the conflict: I did not bring my laptop with me, and I busied myself almost a little too much with sightseeing. I walked so far that I had no energy in the evenings except to eat something, shuffle through the photos I took that day, and pass out for the night. No time for doom scrolling – no time to tremble at the sights of Mariupol, the countless war crimes committed by Russian troops, the once heavenly but now unrecognizable cities scattered across Ukraine.
Yet at the same time I jumped closer to it, close enough to experience the consequences in real life rather than from behind my computer screen in America.
I already heard plenty of Russian on my first “real” day in Hamburg. In fact, later that night a man approached me and asked in broken German if I was from Ukraine. Thankfully he left me alone respectfully after I responded negatively to his asking me if I was married.
My appearance weighed on me more after this encounter. I spent a while on the Binnenalster, hoping no one else would ask if I was yet another victim seeking sanctuary here. But were they thinking it? I always feared I would be singled out in Germany as an American – not as an Eastern European. Was it so obvious?
Shame brewed within me for months leading up to the trip, hidden from fellow Americans who were bored of the war after a week and probably could not find Ukraine on a world map anyway. Now it felt like something I could not hide not because of a scowl on my face – after all, I was ecstatic to be in Germany – but because of the way my own existence, my own Dasein (thanks, Heidegger). A homeless man in Lübeck bid me farewell with “До свидания” after I walked by without acknowledging him.
I spent a lot of my trip listening. I eavesdropped on countless German conversations. I heard a woman in the streets talk to her mother on her phone as she passed by me, aggravated that her mother did not remember how they celebrated the past five Christmases together: how could she forget?
I also listened to conversations in Russian, which I overheard in every city. Unforgettable, even if I only understood the basics. I wondered if they could speak German and if so then how well. I wondered if they made Germany their permanent or temporary home, was it because of the war? Or were they only visiting?
I wrote fictional short stories in my head for most Russian speakers I encountered. It was never obvious where they came from and why. Like the man who approached me in Hamburg, I could only speculate. The single mother and her son who kept asking “why?” as he spun from a pole on the train maybe left Ukraine as well as a husband and father behind. The family who proudly posed in front of the Soviet memorial in Tiergarten and snapped photos of each other were tourists.
And the large group of people I encountered as I left Treptower Park, home of not just the largest Soviet memorial but also the largest memorial of any kind I had ever encountered, were maybe people like me who gravitated toward the site for some bizarre but hauntingly personal reason that they could not deny, even at a time like this as the Russian Federation falters in Ukraine, struggling to carry out its aggression disguised as a blasphemous mission that flies in the face of what this entire memorial is about. But who could blame them? Certainly not me.
The only non-Eastern European I found at any of these Soviet memorials was my German language partner who accompanied me for the day even though Berlin is not my cup of tea. To my delight he let me drag him to this overwhelming site without complaining even once. Thanks, Lukas.
Lukas and I walked everywhere. We felt the distance between everything, walked 25 kilometers in total that day. He treated me to some Currywurst because he did not want me to leave Berlin without having tried one. We strolled through Kreuzberg, and a black man mumbled “хорошо” to us. Lukas asked what that meant.
I came to Germany to experience Germany for what it is, to inhabit this language and culture in which I had nestled for so long. I rejoiced in being identified as a local despite not being ethnically German. Yet I could not shake this bond I felt with fellow Eastern Europeans, with whom I realized I had more in common than anyone else: we looked alike, shared a language – one I unfortunately cannot speak very well, and for some reason embraced Germany, an entirely different country whose history is equally complicated.
I was unable to avoid fragments of Eastern Europe even if I wanted to. The streets of every city I visited – even Lübeck and Potsdam – featured both unwavering signs of support for Ukraine as well as contempt for Putin.
But things felt heaviest in two places: Sachsenhausen, which I will describe in a future blog post, and Brandenburger Tor.
My first visit to the monument featured a couple of demonstrations, including one for Ukraine and the victims of Mariupol. I took a few photos, let it sink in. Surely this was normal for Berlin.
Somehow I walked through the gate without a cyclist colliding into me. I was too distracted and felt too self-actualized at once to pay much attention. I turned around and encountered the perfect photo opportunity that speaks for itself. I don’t want to know how many photos I captured of these three flags together.
Also on Pariser Platz not far from the Brandenburger Tor is the Russische Botschaft, an imposing embassy that ensures both locals and tourists shall never forget Russia’s influence on eastern Germany.
And now no one will ever forget the ugly war it wages on Ukraine; the embassy is not only closed off for obvious security reasons but also decorated with mementos and writings that were equally a spectacle.
For a while I lingered there and let myself feel bad. I was not the only one.
Even the German-Russian Museum, the site at which the Nazis formally surrendered in May 1945, was renamed as the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum in light of recent horrors.
I realized quickly on this trip that there was never a chance of someone in the streets dismissing me as an American. I had nothing to worry about. For a while I convinced myself that I did not want to be associated with the United States because I would be deemed unworldly, loud, needy, and whatever other words stereotype Americans. I dislike stereotypes, but still I consider myself so much the opposite of those things that I was concerned.
Ultimately I do not think I could have been pigeonholed like this because I have never felt very American anyway. I could never play the part, always see-sawing between two countries. I’ve always danced around the question of not “which country will I claim?” but rather “which country will claim me?” After all, I never had a choice of where I would grow up. That is not to say that I would have chosen somewhere other than the United States.
But Germany is the place that somehow balances the load.
On my final day I skipped the Stasi Museum to instead visit Marzahn, a district of Berlin that was the first to be claimed by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. It became infamous for its Plattenbauten, or large buildings composed of concrete slabs. Such apartment buildings were once highly coveted among DDR residents. Internet fearmongers warn that Marzahn teems with neo-Nazis. Of course I had to visit!
The only Internet truth I found that Marzahn mirrored in real life was its large Russian-speaking population. I did not encounter any neo-Nazis, or so I think. The architecture has not changed, which made for a fun photography walk.
Walking to the bus stop, I locked eyes with a slightly younger man who was heading in the opposite direction. He looked a lot like me. It was weird.
I boarded the bus and gazed out the window at all of the housing complexes. A pair of women across from me were speaking a language that for the first time in my life I could not identify. Maybe Tajik?
I liked Marzahn.
Then I came home.
Recently I have been in touch more consistently with my biological sister. Yesterday she said via text that she was so happy that “my dream came true” and asked if I could share my photos and impressions of Germany.
I did. She agreed that Germany and its architecture are beautiful; now she hopes to visit in the future.