Hannover synagogue

A while back, I went on a hunt for a place that is no longer there.
Hannover's main synagogue stood in Calenberger-Neustadt. The site is just a block from the basilica where we sometimes go to Spanish-language Mass. Catholics and Jews were neighbors in this part of the city for a long time. In 1588, in the midst of the Reformation, both Catholics and Jews were forced to live outside the city walls. This is the neighborhood they formed. And here is the synagogue:

It was burned by the Nazis and their supporters in 1938.

I had heard the story and seen the photos, but had never actually seen the place. Here is what I found:

No wonder I'd missed it before. On the site where the temple once stood is a small stone wall, locked up behind a metal gate. An outline of the synagogue is engraved on the wall with text written in Hebrew. And that's it.

Which brings me back to the question of, how do you memorialize shameful and tragic events? What's the right way to honor a dark past? Unlike the stumbling stones, which are powerful because they are so unavoidable, the site of the synagogue is removed and locked away.

Today there are about 6,000 Jews in Hannover, over a thousand more than in the 1930s. So next I went to find the current synagogue, tucked away in a residential area near the veterinary school.

It looks pretty normal except for the locked metal gates in front. The Jewish school and synagogue I saw in Hamburg had not only gates, but also armed guards standing outside. 
Maybe the Hannover memorial is understated and locked up so that it doesn't attract vandalism.

It's amazing to think that Jewish landmarks still need that kind of protection. It seems like bad guys have different targets these days...

Garden-sitting

I spent Sunday afternoon in the backyard. Except it wasn't my backyard. In fact, there is no house attached to it at all. I was at Andrew and Katja's Kleingarten. A Kleingarten is a bit of green space for city-dwellers, and has been a feature of German cities since the 19th century. I posted about Kleingartens a while back.

In early episodes of Scrubs, (which was not a profoundly meaningful TV show, but there is a place in my heart for a good sitcom) JD buys a half-acre of land, but doesn't have enough money to build a house on it. He only has a front porch. I feel a little bit like this when I go out to the garden:

Andrew, Katja and 3 year old Juno have moved to the south of Germany, where the sun shines more and the mountains are closer. But the garden still belongs to them. Brian and I are garden-sitting until they sell the place. Sure, we are cutting the grass and picking the tomatoes, but the most important part of garden-sitting is the sitting. We need to make the place look occupied. The garden Kolonie, which sounds like a condo association, has a lot of rules, because it is made up of Germans. One of these rules is that all garden owners must live in Hannover. No vacant lots and no absentee landlords. We need the garden to look lived-in (or sat in) for the next couple of months.

When Andrew and Katja are ready to sell the garden, they will have no trouble finding a buyer. The couple across the path is drooling over it already. They have a garden of their own, but ours (I'll just call it ours for now) is bigger, or better situated, or something like that. So they have been sort of loitering around, awkwardly. They are from East Germany, which automatically makes them a little weird. People from the West consider the Osties to be anything from quirky to socially inept to rednecks or stuck in the 90s.

The day we came to say goodbye to our friends, another couple was checking out the garden. They are both dentists, with one kid and one on the way. Probably the Kolonie would approve of them. Except they are jerks. The day that Andrew and Katja moved, the dentists contacted the Kolonie and started making arrangements to take over the garden. I imagine it will be all the talk at the next board meeting.

I can only hope that the garden neighbors are on that board. Our garden shares a fence with the perfectly manicured lawn of Olli and Susanne. They are in the garden every day - Olli shirtless and trimming the grass with scissors, Susanne in her bikini tending to the flowers. I'd put them in their early 60s and they have become Juno's adopted grandparents. They are very sad to see her go. We made a trade on Sunday - I gave them tomatoes and grapes in exchange for miniature plums called Zwetschgen (Just look at all the consonants in that word and tell me that German is not a hard language). I have not yet asked what they think of the dentists.

Of course, this is not the garden's first brush with drama. Andrew and Katja bought it in partnership with two friends, in a socialist arrangement that Karl Marx would be proud of. But as the East Germans across the way could probably tell you, socialism is a great idea that falls apart eventually. Apparently one of the former comrades, now living in Australia, wants to remove a tree he planted years ago. Who is going to dig it up, and where will they put it?  Don't ask me. My job is just to sit there.

Think about it again

In my newest job at the international school, I am the full-time college counselor. Three weeks in, I have much to figure out. I started meeting with each of the 12th grade students to discuss their plans after graduation. The ideas range from studying business at a nearby university to working on a sheep farm in New Zealand for a year. Earlier this week, I met with a student from Ukraine, who made this comment:

 "I used to want to go to university in the United States, but not any more."
Why not? I ask.
"It's because of the political situation, especially the current presidential election. And because of the gun laws there."

So a kid from a country caught in a tug-of-war between Europe and Russia, a place where thousands have died in two years of war, does not want to study in our country because it's not safe.

At first this sounds absurd. Everybody wants to come to America, right? That's what we usually think. But think about it again. Anybody who's following the Trump vs. Hillary vs. All-the-people-who-don't-know-what-to-do could say that our political situation is volatile. Those volatile people involved can legally carry handguns in public, and they aren't even the crazy ones. Throw in a little anti-immigrant sentiment and sky-high tuition costs, and you can see why a smart 17 year-old might be turned off.

And I admire that decision. There are plenty of 17 year-olds from anywhere who are choosing schools based on where their friends are going, or how good their parties or football teams are.

So if my Ukrainian student is not interested, then I can't argue. And I didn't. Instead we talked about universities in Canada, the UK and Germany. They all have different application standards and deadlines. I have my work cut out for me. Maybe he'd like to work on a sheep farm instead.