A Whirlwind Tour with Ars Choralis

We arrived in Berlin on Thursday April 16th, flying over many wind farms and fields

of mustard grown for biodiesel.

We stayed in a hotel on Kurfürstendamm Straße for two nights.

That was our only full free day, so…  after having had no sleep during our night

flight, we toured Berlin on foot.  We walked for at least 5 hours.  It was beautiful!

The next day, we got a bus tour of Berlin in the morning, which included the one section of the wall that is still standing and Checkpoint Charlie.

Dick lived in Berlin during the mid-60s for two and a half years, so it was very emotional for him also, returning to a very changed Berlin.   After the tour and lunch, we had a rehearsal for “Music In Desperate Times” and an evening performance at the Heilig Kreuz Passion Church in what was once East Berlin.

It was very different for me to perform this program in Germany for a German speaking population.  It was not a packed house, but was a decent size.  I thought I had become immune to the emotional drain having done it so many times, but this was not so in Germany.  It added another dimension to it all.

I want to warn you that the stories and links I am providing for you in this section are very heartwrenching and hard to read.  Saturday afternoon, we went to Ravensbrück concentration camp. I was quite dismayed to discover that we were staying in the old SS barracks.  After very quickly dropping off our bags, we were given a tour of the camp.  Ravensbrück was the largest women’s camp in the Third Reich.  The SS guards were also women, except for the camp administrators and a few men who were the executioners.  The SS women were trained in sadistic forms of punishment, and apparently did their jobs very well.  Many of them were mothers and brought their children with them raising them in the barracks.  That is unconceivable to me.  I cannot understand how you can go to work, doing such a horrific job, come home to your child and be a loving parent.  What would you answer when your child asked how your day was?  The other thing that haunted me was that the people in the town, who saw the women regularly, never launched any kind of resistance and even had them working for them as slaves.  I kept aksing if there was any resistance in the town and was told that not one person in the whole town ever questioned what was going on.  I find that hard to believe, but have thought about it a lot since then and realize that they all must have been terrified of going there themselves for resisting.  The women also worked for Siemens making parts, which afforded them a little better treatment, until they were worn out from working so hard with so little food and were sent back to the camp.  They were then considered no longer of value.  Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.  Women were incarcerated for a variety of reasons including, being political prisoners, “asocials” (among these prisoners were many Roma and Sinti), Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, “criminals,” “work-shy,” and “race defilers.”  There were resisters, women who refused to give up work relationships or friendships with Jews, lesbians, unmarried women who had children, unemployed, or rebels.  I am not including many pictures from the camp here, but we will be having events to talk more about the experience and will have photos and written material at those events.  We have not yet scheduled them, but will be working on that soon.  Below is a memorial looking out over the lake towards the town.  Most of the ashes from the crematorium were thrown into the lake at this spot.  This a tribute to the camaraderie the women in the camp felt for each other regardless of thier backgrounds.

The concert that night was held in one of the few remaining buildings, a work building.  All of the inmates barracks were destroyed by the Soviets when they liberated the camp.  The SS barracks, the Commandant’s house, the administrative buildings, a couple of the work buildings, the crematorium and the jail are still standing.  Isn’t that a twist, a jail within a jail?  You can imagine the horrors that went on there.  The concert was very difficult for all of us.  There were survivors there, including one woman, sitting right in front of me, who sobbed through our encore.  I just tried not to think about where we were and concentrated on the music I was playing.

The next day was the Liberation Day Ceremonies at both Ravensbrück and Uckermark camps.  It was also very moving, with the first one, at Ravensbrück, very well attended.  There were many countries represented.  The second part of the day was a ceremony at Uckermark.  This camp was for younger women ages 16 - 21 who were considered criminal or “difficult”.  There are no records left from this camp, so it is relatively unknown.  The young women who went there were so ashamed of what happened to them, they have not come forward to tell their stories.  There is excavation and research being done now to try to tell the stories.  In January of 1945, the youth camp was closed, and it became an extermination camp.  I am still trying to process everything from this section of the trip.  I am very glad that we were smart enough to have planned another leg of the trip by ourselves afterwards.

I addition to the draining performances, we had time for lots of fun.  We ate wonderful food, drank wonderful beer and wine and got to know the other members of the group.  It has been a life changing experience in many ways.

Bavaria and beyond

After the concentration camp, the group had one night left in Berlin.  We stayed near the airport, had dinner with another couple and went to bed early.  Early Monday morning, we were all bussed to the airport where Dick and I picked up our rental car.

We did our own tour of the places Dick lived on Finckensteinallee and worked (Olympic Stadium)

in the mid-60s.  We also rode around Spandau a bit and saw a moated Citadel from the 13th century AD.By noon, we were on the road, headed south towards Bavaria (Southern Germany).  We took the Autobahn, knowing that we would be faced with fast drivers, but I had no idea how fast.  A couple of times, Dick was driving 100 mph, and the cars were flying by so fast, our whole car shook.  Although the car read kilometers per hour, we had our GPS set for miles per hour since that how we still think.  We were confident that we would make it to Schwangau by dinnertime until we hit a parking lot on the Autobahn.  It took us two and a half hours just to get off at the next exit.  People stopped their cars, got out and chatted with each other, walked up and down the road like it was a picnic.  I got the mandolin out and played for quite a while to pass the time.  The next morning we walked out of our hotel and saw this:

and this…

We toured two castles here

and hiked around Mary’s bridge and Swan Lake.

It was very relaxing and breathtakingly beautiful.  The photos really don’t do it justice.  Also, I can’t put too many photos in this newsletter, much as I would like to do it.  We will have an online album up before too long.  This is just a taste.

We stayed two nights in Schwangau, then left for Switzerland.  Our first night in Fahy, Jura, Switzerland, Dick took a nap, while I went for a walk and ended up in an authentic 17th century wine cellar with the natives.  I had learned enough French to charm them, though not enough to get out of there before sampling two different wines, including one from Alsace that was 19% alcohol.  I felt like I had stepped back in time and into an Edgar Allen Poe story.  Here I was in this small round stone room surrounded by racks of wine and a big wooden cask of cognac with 1952 stamped on it, drinking wine with 7 French speaking, very charming men and two women.  The room was damp and cool with water dripping down the side walls.  They all knew I was the American musician, and they were very happy to party with me.  What an introduction to Switzerland!  The canton (like a state in the US) of Jura, by the way, is where they got the term Jurassic.  It is a very old land.

That Friday night we did our concert.  I was able to say a few things and learned a French drinking song in French, Chevaliers de la Table Ronde.  Our friend, Ed Huitt, played fiddle with us on that one and a few others.

We sold quite a few CDs and had a great time!  We were very sad to leave the next day.  The end of our trip consisted of visiting a Augusta Raurica from the 1st century AD, driving through the Black Forest and spending a night in Stuttgart. Below is a picture of the heating system for the old Roman houses.  They built a fire under the floor.  There were clay tubes in the outside walls that carried the heat and smoke up the walls.  The roof came a little short of the outer walls to allow the smoke to escape.  Pretty clever, huh?

upcoming events

What an amazing adventure we had!  We have lots of stories to tell, so be sure to come to our shows.  We have a few coming up this month including Java Jazz (318 Delaware Ave.) in Delmar this Friday from 7 - 9 pm, a family show at The Perfect Blend in Delmar (376 Delaware Ave.) on Sunday May 17th from 11 am - 1 pm, a private event in Averill Park and a showcase for the Upper Hudson Library System.  We are also doing CRUMBS Cafe this month.  The recording will be held tomorrow at 7 pm at the CRUMBS Cafe studio (1348 Lilac St. Rotterdam, NY 12306).  Stop by and be on the air!  We will also let you know when it is due to air.  Also, coming up on June 13th from noon - 6 pm is a new local music festival, Rhythm on the Ridge at Maple Ski Ridge also in Rotterdam.  Cav & Kav will be performing, and Deb will be doing a songwriting workshop.  We’re looking forward to having great fun there!

Thanks so much to everyone who made this trip possible and to all of you who have shown us so much support.  This wouldn’t be happening without you.

Deb & Dick

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