Whispers in East Berlin
(Please scroll down to see entire artist statement)
This the story of a house built in 1941 in East Berlin. Four generations of my family have experienced the events of World War II, Russian invasion, Polish expulsion and Russian occupation and the Berlin Wall in this house. These photographs attempt to break open the legacy of my family's personal trauma and the dark memories of violence, loss, terror, separation and suppression.
There were always ghosts in the house. Breathing, moving, slowly. Changing the shadows. Whispers of movement of articles of clothing. They were memories. Not actual spirits. They were things that happened in the house in the past and they stayed. They didn't leave. And they were thick. They were not loud. They were the things we did not talk about.
The house was built by my maternal grandparents in 1939, right before my mother was born. In what is located in eastern Berlin. Four generations have been in this house. And even though furniture comes and goes, my great grandmother always sits in the front dining room. Quietly, alone, she is solemn and shut down.
My grandmother is laying on the sofa in the living room. Napping, she has been addicted to sleeping pills since the end of WW2. My mother is little and cold in the small bedroom upstairs. Her room is dark and she is alone.
Both of my grandfathers are in the room that I sleep in when I visit. My step-grandfather is occupied with fixing the poorly made East German made vacuum cleaner, from the plant he works at. His breathing is labored because of shrapnel he sustained during WW2. My beautiful grandfather is tinkering on the large miniature schooner he made, he has no idea that WW2 and his SS uniform will bring about massive destruction and change generations to come.
The Russian soldiers are in the same room that my grandmother is napping in. They are spitting out seeds from the cherry tree that my grandparents planted when the house was built. The cherry pits leave stains on the green rug. This becomes my mother’s first memory ever. She must have been 3. I wonder if this is where they raped my grandmother.
In the dining room, my mother is screaming, pleading not to be shot by my grandmother, who was only trying hard to fulfill the duties of a German Frau and commit suicide before she and her child ended up in Russian hands, as they were invading Berlin. There will be certain torture and/or death as revenge and victory from the Russians.
In other moments, my 6-year-old mother stands in between the oven and door, in the dark, for hours, downstairs, freezing, fingers numb, waiting for her mother to come home so she could start the fire. After the war was over, wood fire was scarce. In the room that I sleep in upstairs, shelved away, is the one illustrated book that my mother looked at over and over again, every night at as a child, to help her leave her world and enter one that was charming, lovely, full of color and gold.
The master bedroom window forever holds the view of the field across the street and the path that the Germans marched in mass expulsion from what was Germany, but became Poland. These were the ethnic germans who were lucky enough to survive the german genocide in the newly liberated Eastern European countries.
The corner in the living room has a radio on, declaring the separation of my family by a large concrete wall forfeited by guards with automatic weapons, attack dogs and mines. One day, without notice, Soviet Occupied East Germany cleared the location of my grandfather's burial site. The site became a part of the area called the 'No man's land". The actual area around the border wall, with a wide clear view of anyone approaching the wall. The wall was two and a half blocks from the house.The location of my grandfather's body became unknown. Perhaps he is still in the ground, in his orginal location.
The backyard is full of all the fruit and nut trees my grandparents had planted. And you can almost hear the squawk as the chickens laid their blue eggs with the magnificent orange yolks. The apples trees are full of bees and apples and are happy to get craggily and craggily.
The basement bomb shelter that has become a memorial for all of my step grandfather’s tools, holds despair and terror. It’s a space where, if you closed the door and stayed inside long enough, a person could lose their mind. The old wicker basket that used to hold my grandmothers linens has cracked.
The room off to the back right holds a quarter ton of coal. My mother still holds onto it, just in case Putin decides to cut off oil to Germany.
Oddly, I realize these presences are separate, alone and locked into eternity. But just how now makes sense to me. I knew so very little of my family. So much unspoken. And the unknown becomes more frightening.
I am little and everyone is celebrating my 11th birthday. My step grandfather has made me a birthday cheesecake, as per my request. A rather large heart made of raisin sits on the top along with two lite candles. They sing me Happy Birthday in English with very thick German accents. My mother remarried an American when I was 5. They are trying to honor my America-ness. It makes it even more heart-warming.
In this moment, I am content, safe and everyone else is happy. For a while. We are sitting in the garden, the birds are singing. I feed the pet turtles strawberries. The turtles were illegally harvested by my grandmother from the Bulgarian forest where she vacationed yearly. A typical Eastern bloc vacation. She is smiling.
All of these things stay in the house and garden. They never go away. I wonder about all the other things that stay in all the other houses in Altglienicke Berlin. In Berlin. Germany. Europe. The earth. I think we would do well to listen to them and honor them.
My grandfather, grandmother and my mother in 1939. My grandfather was an SS soldier. Part of the elite military force in Germany at the time. He was put onto desk duty after he incurred many seizures from his brain tumor. This is my grandparents wedding announcement along side some Forget-Me-Nots from the garden.
The family house was built in 1941. This is the neighbors house but ours in exactly the same. Except for ours in hidden in a myriad of trees and bushes. Only the very tip of the roof is visible from the street.
My mother standing in the field next to the route that was the road the Germans walked during the mass expulsion from Poland, after World War II. That land had been a part of German territory since the middle of the 1700s.
My mother's first memory was red cherry pit stains in a green rug in the house, where the Russian soldiers had spit them out during the invasion of Berlin, at the end of World War II. My grandparents had planted this tree when they landscaped the house in 1939.
My great grandparents had bought my grandparents this bedroom suite for their wedding present, 1939.
Apples from the garden's apple trees planted by my grandparents. Somehow a sense of sinister in the house is never completely gone.
Wedding photo of my grandparents, with blossoms from the apple tree they planted. My mother often commented how the color of the paint on the floor looked like blood. This jug is from the family farm which was part of former Germany.
The field next to the route that was the road the Germans walked during the mass expulsion from Poland, after World War II. My family had a large family farm on this land of many generations. It was lost after the War. And given to a polish family.
ID photos from my mother during the erection of the Berlin Wall in the late 1950s. The larger image is my mother looking on from West Berlin when she became a political refugee from East Berlin. Notice the barb wire.
Looking into the room that my grandmother told my 4 year old mother that she was gong to kill her first and then herself with the pistol she had. As Russia was entering Berlin, Hitler told the citizens the honorable thing was to commit suicide as they did not want to end up in the hands of the enemy.
After the war, their was nothing to burn for warmth and very little to eat. My mother had few toys. She did have this illustrated fairy tale book. For hours she would look at the images over and over again. This was her favorite.
The apples form the original apple trees planted in 1939. I have many memories of my grandmother eating two every night before she went to bed. And me pulling one off the tree as I was playing.
White currants planted by my grandmother before World War II. Often she made jam from them.
Old electrical light switches and wallpaper from East Berlin. They were poorly and cheaply made.
My grandparents would make a schnapps from the apples, currents or strawberry from the garden and put them in used liquor bottles to serve when the time was right.
The apple trees in blossom, looking out the upstairs hallway window.
My mother's hands from berries that are used to make jelly. My mother continues to carry on the traditions of living close to the land.
The view from the kitchen window.
My mother standing in the spot where her father was buried. She spent many a day and hour there as her father died in 1943 of a brain tumor. One day his grave stone was removed and the area was leveled. It became the site of the Berlin Wall. It was 2 and a half blocks from the house. Often, when she was a little girl, she would spend many hours sitting next to his grave.
My grandparents planted several hazelnut trees. Which are harvested in the autumn. The photos shows my grandmother and mother in 1940. The cross is from my great grandmother.
Momma looking out into the garden at twilight, in the room that my grandmother threatened to kill her. My mother screamed and ran around, finally to convince my grandmother to let them live.
Old family heirlooms in the kitchen that have been used by 4 generations of my family.
In the room, next to the basement bomb shelter. Old wicker baskets and jugs from the old family farm.
My great grandmother knitting with a paper hat.
The original wallpaper from the house. This room had served as a living room for many years, but is where I sleep when I visit.
Momma walking her dog in the field next to the house. This walk way leads to what was the wall. Finally, we are all free to roam wherever we wish.