Germany | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Germany’ category

IHolocaustdenkmal, Berlin, Germany, fotoeins.com

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: observations from Germany

Primo Levi, Italian-Jewish author, chemist, and Auschwitz survivor, delivered a set of essays about life and survival in Nazi extermination camps in his 1986 book “The Drowned and the Saved”. Levi wrote:

… For us to speak with the young becomes even more difficult. We see it as a duty and, at the same time, as a risk: the risk of appearing anachronistic, of not being listened to. We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experiences, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental, unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It took place in the teeth of all forecasts; it happened in Europe; incredibly, it happened that an entire civilized people, just issued from the fervid cultural flowering of Weimar, followed a buffoon whose figure today inspires laughter, and yet Adolf Hitler was obeyed and his praises were sung right up to the catastrophe. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say.

On 27 January 1945, Soviet Red Army troops liberated the Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in south-central Poland. Over 1 million men, women, and children were murdered.

The United Nations declared January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day; the designation came during the 42nd plenary session of the United Stations when resolution 60/7 was passed on 1 November 2005.

Accepting and openly stating responsibility are critical first steps, but spending time, money, and effort to ensure the simple motto of “never again” is also an ongoing reality that isn’t solely up to the citizens of Germany. It’s a collective responsibility that we all should have to remain vigilant; that we all have to recognize and bolster actions which encourage and strengthen the universality of human rights, and reject the erosion and withdrawal of those rights.

I believe responsible tourism also includes paying appropriate respect at a memorial, especially the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. It’s my view this important memorial is not (supposed to be) a playground.

And yet, there’s something to be said about what it means to have freedom in the early 21st-century, allowing people to laugh and frolic in the public space, an undulating sculpture of featureless massive grey cement blocks, a testimonial to the systematic murder of millions of people.

Naturally, you have the freedom to play here, take selfies, and have a grand time. But it doesn’t mean I’m gonna laugh with you; for example: Yolocaust art project (DW 2017).

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salt-making, Halloren- und Salinemuseum Halle, Halloren, Salinemuseum, Halle (Saale), Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, fotoeins.com

My Halle (Saale): Making White Gold Since 3000 BC

What do the following six towns and cities have in common?

Hall in Tirol, Austria
Hallein, Austria
Hallstatt, Austria
Schwäbisch Hall, Germany
Bad Reichenhall, Germany
Halle an der Saale, Germany

Hall, more than a large covered room

With “hall” in their names, all six towns listed above are historically associated with salt production^1,2,3. The word “salt” is represented in Greek as hals and in Celtic (Brythonic) as hal. In pre-Roman Europe, the towns of Halle, Hallstatt, and Hallein were three centres for salt-evaporation⁴ which eventually became salt-making centres for the surrounding regions of Prussian Saxony, Salzkammergut, and Salzburg, respectively. Archaeological finds around Halle and along the Saale river⁵ uncovered evidence of heated brine (at Doläuer Heide) from the mid-neolithic age (about 3000 BCE) and briquetage ceramic vessels from the late-Bronze age (about 1000 BCE).

Mark Kurlansky wrote¹: “… Salt is so common, so easy to obtain, and so inexpensive that we have forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought after commodities in human history.”

Once a rarity, salt was a unique additive to improve quality of food preparation and consumption. Food preservation with salt also became a critical measure for survival, but also for improving the quality of food preparation and consumption. Whoever controlled salt production, sales, and distribution held power, wealth, and prestige.

German sayings with salt:

• “Freundschaft ist des Lebens Salz.” (Friendship is the salt of life.)
• “Das Essen ist versalzen, du bist verliebt.” (The food is too salty; you must be in love.)

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Göttingen: a circle of Nobel Prize winning scientists

What: Circular feature celebrating Nobel Prize winners, all of whom worked at the city’s university.
Where: Stadtfriedhof (city cemetery) in Göttingen.

Göttingen is a university town in central Germany. Not only will I find a memorial to Nobel Prizes, I’m here also to acknowledge my academic training. I spent many years studying physics and astronomy, and while I’m no longer active in science research, I enjoy the search and discovery of the final resting spots for scientists whose work formed a significant part of my education. Visiting their graves provides direct historical connection to “academic predecessors”; to go beyond the abstraction of simply learning their names and contributions to science, the gravestones belong to real people with keen minds, family lives, and all too human imperfections.

45 Nobel Prize laureates have been or are connected with the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen as of posting (2018). That’s a phenomenal number, as this single institution accounts for 8 per cent of all Nobel Prizes (585 as of 2017).

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Freistaat Bayern, The Free State of Bavaria

Bavaria: 100 years of statehood (2018)

Featured image: The blue and white diamonds (fusils) are a familiar Bavarian symbol, adopted in the late 13th-century by the Wittelsbach family who ruled Bavaria from 1180 to 1918.

As a product of the coastal and mountainous Canadian Southwest, I always feel the pull exerted by the Bavarian Alps regardless of where I am in Germany; it’s been this way over the past 18 years. But there’s more to Bavaria than fairytale castles, Oktoberfest, and BMW, although they’re spot on for the Wurst (sausage). And frankly, there’s a ton more to Germany than Bavaria, but that’s one of many reasons for this entire blogsite after all.

Located in southeast Germany, Bavaria includes more than a half-dozen World Heritage Sites, the pre-Easter Fasching/Fastnacht festival, the sight of Audis on the Autobahn, over one thousand years of wine-making in Franconia, and violin-making since the late 17th-century, among many things to explore, eat, and experience.

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17 for 17, Fotoeins Fotograms of 2017, fotoeins.com

17 for 17: Fotoeins Fotograms of 2017 (IG)

Featured: At the Germany-Austria border, from Fellhorn mountain near Oberstdorf: 8 March.

Another year gone, another 34-thousand images made^* …

As the image above shows, I also spent a lot of time this year at the Austrian-German frontier, much of it at altitude.

Below I look back at the year 2017 with a selection of 17 images. Each picture is a direct clickable link to the corresponding post on Instagram.

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