by Vera von Kreutzbruck
- Germany -

Andrzej Wajda was 13 years old when World War II broke out. Together with his mother he lived most of his life in the vain hope that his father might have survived the war: his father’s name had never appeared on any official list of Polish soldiers killed in combat. The truth, discovered years later, was that Captain Wajda had been shot cold-bloodedly by the Soviet secret police in a prison in the western Soviet Union. Andrzej and around 22,000 other people had waited for their loved ones in vain.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
- Germany -

This year’s 58th International Film Festival in Berlin is offering a heterogeneous mix of topics and genres with many documentaries, a lot of pathos, a few lost souls, war and violence, politics as usual, and last but not least, some comedy.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
Germany

• Hamburg boasts pint-sized anti-Nazi graffiti.
Photograph by Photocapy. •

The Nazis offered incentives to German women to procreate and introduced the “Lebensborn” program (fount of life in German) to create a master race of blond, blue-eyed children. Mothers with three or more children under 10 years old received “honorary cards” allowing them to jump shopping queues and get discounts on their rent. Cheap state loans were offered for parents, and there was the “Mother’s Cross” medal: bronze for four children, silver for six and gold for eight.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
Germany/Argentina

• Sept 12 - Austria: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner meets with Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. •

Vera von Kreutzbruck
Germany

• Emigrants preparing to depart from Hamburg. Photograph courtesy of Bildarchiv Denkmalschutzamt Hamburg •

The vast majority of them embarked from BallinStadt, a development conceived as a unique full-service departure point for emigrants. Encompassing 30 buildings, BallinStadt was so big that it was almost a small self-contained city itself, tucked within the bigger port of Hamburg. This innovative idea, perfectly suited to the times, originated with Alfred Ballin, general manager of the German shipping company HAPAG (Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft). What is left of BallinStadt is now located in the Veddel neighborhood of the Hamburg suburbs.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
Germany

By Vera von Kreutzbruck
Germany

Ever since the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe was inaugurated in Berlin two years ago, it has become a major tourist attraction. The vast monument consists of a sprawling field of 2,700 stone slabs near the Brandenburg Gate and is dedicated to the millions of victims as a whole. Together, the slabs symbolize a collective loss. But it’s not the only memorial in the capital city. A daring German sculptor has implemented an original project to remember individual victims.

Photo courtesy of the artist - www.stolpersteine.com

The idea is both simple and original. These discrete yet provocative memorials are small brass plaques containing the personal details of victims of the Holocaust, embedded into the sidewalk in front of their former homes. About six million Jews were murdered in Germany and Europe, as well as political dissidents, homosexuals, gypsies and people with disabilities.