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Lessons not Learned

By Markus Ziener

There is a won­der­ful spot west of the city of Frank­furt in Ger­many. It’s in an area well known for its excel­lent white wine, its charm­ing hilly land­scape, and its wel­com­ing peo­ple. It’s called The Rhein­gau. Once you make your way up a hill from Rüdesheim, maybe com­fort­ably using the cable car, a fan­tas­tic view over the riv­er Rhine opens up. From there, the Nieder­wald land­scape park, you can see for miles to the West, over­look­ing the tran­quil Rhine val­ley and even have the illu­sion that you actu­al­ly see France.

“Ger­ma­nia” | pho­to cred­it: Markus Ziener

When I was there not long ago my daugh­ter asked me about the stat­ue named Ger­ma­nia that is hov­er­ing over the plat­form where peo­ple are gath­er­ing for the view. The 34-foot fig­ure is called Ger­ma­nia. In her right hand the lady holds the emperor’s recov­ered crown; in her oth­er she dis­plays the Impe­r­i­al Sword. I explained that the monument’s mes­sage was not a peace­ful one. Only a few years before the inau­gu­ra­tion of the stat­ue in 1883, Prus­sia had just fought anoth­er war with France, unit­ing the Ger­man princes for the first time into a sin­gle nation state. The Ger­ma­nia was noth­ing else but a warn­ing to the French: Stay where you are, don’t even think about com­ing here. This is ours.

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Access America

Transgenerational Transmission of Holocaust Memories and Survival: An Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Ethan Bensinger (Part II)

By Sabrina Völz

Ethan Bensinger speak­ing to a group of stu­dents in an upper-sec­ondary school in Lüneb­urg, Ger­many. | Pho­to cred­it: Sab­ri­na Völz

The fol­low­ing is the sec­ond part of an inter­view with film direc­tor Ethan Bensinger in which he answers ques­tions about the chal­lenges of mak­ing his prize-win­ning Holo­caust doc­u­men­tary, REFUGE: Sto­ries of the Self­help Home,  edu­ca­tion­al projects, and fight­ing anti-Semi­tism today.

 

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Access America

Transgenerational Transmission of Holocaust Memories and Survival: An Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Ethan Bensinger (Part I)

By Sabrina Völz

Ethan Bensinger (mid­dle) dur­ing a 2015 podi­um dis­cus­sion with Holo­caust schol­ar Pro­fes­sor Sven Kramer of Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty (left) and Dr. Jens-Chris­t­ian Wag­n­er, Direc­tor of the Low­er Sax­ony Memo­ri­als Foun­da­tion. | Pho­to cred­it: Christo­pher Rieckmann

When I first invit­ed film direc­tor Ethan Bensinger to come to Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg, I knew that 2015 would be a spe­cial year for Holo­caust com­mem­o­ra­tion. It marked the 70th anniver­sary of the lib­er­a­tion of con­cen­tra­tion camps all over Europe, among them Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. In light of the human rights vio­la­tions around the globe and the all-too-famil­iar top­ic of geno­cide, Ethan Bensinger’s one-hour doc­u­men­tary, REFUGE: Sto­ries of the Self­help Home (2012), is as time­ly as ever. This impor­tant doc­u­men­tary weaves togeth­er expert com­men­tary, archive mate­r­i­al, and the mem­o­ries of six res­i­dents of the Self­help Home in Chica­go, which was found­ed to give shel­ter and a lov­ing envi­ron­ment to those flee­ing per­se­cu­tion. These last gen­er­a­tions of eye­wit­ness­es to the atroc­i­ties of the Holo­caust recall the expe­ri­ence of Cen­tral Euro­pean Jews before, dur­ing, and after “The Final Solu­tion.” They tell of events (The Night of Bro­ken Glass, Kinder­trans­port), places of ter­ror and geno­cide (There­sien­stadt and Auschwitz con­cen­tra­tion camps), spaces of refuge (Shang­hai ghet­to, Self­help Home) as well as share per­son­al insights about lov­ing fam­i­lies, sur­vival, tear­ful reunions, and healing.

In the first install­ment of this two-part inter­view, Ethan Bensinger speaks can­did­ly about his her­itage, the rela­tion­ship of the Holo­caust to his hybrid iden­ti­ty as well as his moti­va­tion for mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary about the Self­help Home.

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Creativity Corner

AWP: In Love with Words, at a Loss for Words

By Daria Radler

awp

Writ­ers are a spe­cial breed. Con­stant­ly shift­ing through their per­cep­tion of the envi­ron­ment with detailed atten­tion, they store and ana­lyze any piece of infor­ma­tion on the end­less shelves of their flour­ish­ing mind. Every­thing is of val­ue. The way the grumpy barista was hold­ing the pen as he scrib­bled their name on their cup of take-away cof­fee; the momen­tary silence before a daugh­ter answered her moth­er, assur­ing her that she would be home in time for din­ner; the way he brushed her cheeks ever so slight­ly, trac­ing the out­line of her cheek­bone with the tip of his thumb as they sat on the park bench next to each oth­er, their eyes drink­ing in each oth­ers’ presence.

Writ­ers are like magi­cians. They turn to the world for inspi­ra­tion to cre­ate a uni­verse of their own, using a hand­ful of words to lat­er engage their read­ers. They feed the pages of a satir­i­cal play, a lost romance, or a spec­tac­u­lar crime. I’ve always found writ­ers fascinating.

When I came to Amer­i­ca as an exchange stu­dent in the spring of 2015, I was burn­ing with curios­i­ty but rather shy of expec­ta­tions. Lit­tle did I know that the U.S. would be my lit­er­ary haven.  Read more »

Creativity Corner

Hiking in the Anthropocene

By Michaela Keck

Cobalt Lake | Pho­to cred­it: Michaela Keck

This past fall, my trav­els and work oblig­a­tions had me fly into Cal­gary. I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend five addi­tion­al days in spots I con­sid­er breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful: Water­ton and Glac­i­er Nation­al Park. I crossed over the Cana­di­an bor­der and into Mon­tana on a late after­noon in Sep­tem­ber and drove past herds of bison toward the vil­lage of St. Mary just as the last rays of the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the moun­tain ranges that rise so abrupt­ly from the grassy plains.

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