The Otto Suhr Institute of Freie Universität, “which is housed in the building of the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, erected a plaque next to its entrance in 1988 in memory of the shameful role played by this institute under National Socialism.” “In the 1930s, its founding director, Eugen Fischer,…
I went on a journey to the lovely city of Erfurt in hope of visiting the concentration camp Buchenwald which will be covered in another post. To my surprise and to my own ignorance I had no idea the company called TOPF AND SOHNE was based in Erfurt and had done its manufacturing work no…
On one of my many wanderings around Berlin, I entered the area near the CHARITE HOSPITAL in Mitte. Now here is where things get confusing. I have no idea if this is part of the CHARITE HOSPITAL or the HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY as the border and boundaries of these top Berlin institutions are all merging. A huge…
In April I was invited to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of a POW camp near Hamburg called SANDBOSTEL. I had only recently found out that my father was a Polish Prisoner of War there, sometime in 1945. I recall my father telling me there was a death march toward Hamburg. But he never…
Whenever I get to a new country I try to go into the supermarket or drug store to find new products. There is something in my mind that says, “This is your new home, stay a while. Smell like they smell, walk where they walk.” I have this odd default fantasy brain that compels…
My obsession with wax began at an early age, mostly in the small fetish objects my mother brought with her from WW2 Germany. Old church candles with this Crayola Crayon “Flesh” color, and bee hive yellow honeycomb tones, plus the lucky pink Marzipan pigs sent to us from Germany back to New York for New…
I must have been about 4 when I found in my mother’s handbag, a photo of a woman under glass. Along with my German mother’s wooden rosary beads, pink embroidered hankerchiefs and odd mini metal saints in metal containers, I recall being moved by this beautiful lady under glass. Also severely disturbed. Pondering her beauty. Pondering…
Horse teeth.That is how I came upon Doctor Louis Auzoux. His horse teeth collection. Take a close look. These teeth are made of paper. I fell in love with Dr. Auzoux right then and there. Dr. Auzoux is one man I would like to meet through time travel. How he constructed with a secret recipe…