(Copyright © 1998 T Bruce Tober)
It's my first time to the continent. Finally made it.
But...
Berlin?!?!?!
I'm full of confused feelings about it. It was before my time for the most part. Most people who fought the war are dead. Mustn't blame the kids for their fathers' crimes/sins.
I don't know that any of my relatives dies in the war. Certainly not close ones. I don't know that I've ever known anyone (friend or family, at least) who lost anyone in the war.
I'm passing through Coventry as I write this. Coventry was devastated by bombing in the war.
I'm tired. It's going to be a long night. This train is supposed to get into Euston station at about midnight. But it left Brum late and so I don't know what time it will actually get in.
Can't sleep. Afraid I'll wake nauseous, headachy, or worse, serious vertigo.
Can't sleep. Too hyper. Yet shouldn't be. It's not as if I'll have a chance to do any touring. Or at least not much.
Will be my luck that the first Germany I talk with will be a veteran.
Fading fast. Dozing briefly but frequently. May be time for another fag. Had last one in the conductor's cabin. This entire train is No Smoking. On the other hand, there's no one else in this section of the car and the windows are open...
Arrived Euston at about 1 am after many fine delays on the train. Euston was closed up tight, no food, no drink, no tube. The last one left ten minutes earlier.
Had to take cab to Heathrow. Black cab. Might as well go in style, and safety, The streets around Euston Station are hardly the safest parts of the city at that time of night, neither are mini-cabs.
After paying the cabby his £40, I had just over £10 quid left. With any luck I'll be able to get some money from the cash machine in the morning. Or maybe I won't really need any more than that before I get to Berlin.
Berlin...
Just the name strikes some very mixed feelings deep within me. Telling the few people I rang that "I'm off to Berlin" before I left home last night, I had silly fantasies of sounding like a James Bond character, or some sort of diplomat or cloak and dagger type going on a secret mission during the Cold war.
Thinking about it, though, I cant help thinking about the war connection and my stamp collection. As a kid I collected stamps. I remember those stamps so well because I always seemed to have an affinity for or at least a morbid fascination with the war-time German stamps. Or maybe it's just that they were so plentiful in the big mixed collections of stamps I would get from H E Harris & Co and other such companies.
I vaguely remember knowing a little about the war back then and maybe had a love-hate relationship with those stamps.
---
Of course I've known people/friends/colleagues who last family in the war.
Growing up on Nana & Papa's farm, there were all "the refugees". Mike Keidjan (who along with Hal Lugerner and I were all next door neighbours, blood brothers, best friends), Sheila Trocki (one of Mike's many cousins in the area and one of the first girls I had a crush on). And a dozen or more others from Jewish refugee families, fortunate enough to have survived (most bore the camp tattoos) and made it to the USA.
Later, there was Abe Foxman, now, I believe, head of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, but when I knew him, just a colleague there.
---
But I can't hate the Germans or Germany of today. I'm not sure I could have hated those of 30 or 40 years ago. And I think that's all down to the discussion mom and I had on the bus that day in the early '50s. I was singing/chanting the choosing rhyme I'd learnt earlier that day, "Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a nigger by the toe"!
We were sitting on a bus. A few seats ahead of us was a black woman. Whether mom said what she said for her benefit or not is of no consequence. What she said made a lasting impression on me. It was one of the few lessons she taught me that I remembered always.
She told me never to speak badly of or call names to people who are different. "Because we're all really the same, black, white, yellow, red, whatever. It doesn't matter. We're all people, all the same inside."
I've left the arrivals lounge where coffee shop had been open and I'd been able to nap for an hour or so. As expected felt worse after the nap, chills had set in, seems there was a fan in the ceiling above me.
Now down in departures area where I'm beginning to see signs of the airport awakening. Cleanup crews are still at it, but other staff starting to arrive. Increasing numbers of buses arriving. Shops and kiosks starting to get ready to open soon. Increasing numbers of passengers begin drifting in.
Half an hour to Berlin.
Spent about an hour at Copenhagen Airport. It was beautiful and exciting, but then all major airports' shops tend to be.
I guess it's the language. It's harsh and ugly. It's loud and threatening. And the people. They look just like us, but harder, more serious. Can't imagine them cracking a joke let alone a smile.
But, is that reality or just my prejudice/bias?
I really wanted to stay in Copenhagen. But I'm not getting paid to be there. Was supposed to be there about two years ago to give a talk at Elsinore, but like all the other plans to get to the continent, it was cancelled, not enough people signed on to attend.
Getting ready to land.
Total balls-up!
Switch card (debit card) doesn't work in any machines here. Didn't work in those in Copenhagen either. Can't be used as a cheque guarantee card here either. so the company is going to try to wire money to the hotel. Meanwhile other problems too annoying to get into have been sorted.
Sat in on a few presentations. Dozed on and off through several of them, Not unexpected considering not been to sleep since Tuesday morning and then had had only four or five hours sleep. Today's session over at about 5 and came to my room and slept till 9:30.
Went to the bar, had couple of drinks and a sandwich. Toasted bread, lox, cream cheese and tomato. Wonderful.
Taxi from airport - City is as ugly as hell, except right around the hotel. Nothing to recommend it.
It's 12:15 an I'm totally pissed (in both yank and Brit senses). Airport is being renovated and is shit. Not sure if I'll be able to get duty free. Didn't notice a duty free shop.
At bar, woman sat down couple of seats away from me. Very pretty. Kept wanting to chat her up but put it off. she kept being approached by Japanese guy and turning him down, so I started thinking she's not a call girl. But then she finally left with an old git and oh well, my naivete never fails to surprise me.
Bed time.
Arrived at Tegal airport at about 1. On my way here realised reason Berlin looked so dismal on way in (and out for that matter). It's because we were passing mainly through formerly East Berlin (including Checkpoint Charley).
Most of it reminds me of the Atlantic City of the mid '80s - Destroy the city to rebuild it. Tremendous lot of construction going on there, also in what very little I saw of former West Berlin. But in the western part of the city, there's lots of modern buildings already up. It's a clean, modern city, or at least that part of it was.
Got to the airport and practically the first thing I see is that there is a direct flight into Brum and it leaves before the scheduled flight into Heathrow, so change my tickets and I leave in about an hour, arriving at 16:20 local time.
Excellent!