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(GDR/DE) My father was the formative and defining part of my childhood life. But he was never present. He was dominant through his non-presence, the fatherly role model function he did not provide, the professional work he took very seriously and put a lot of effort into, and the many changes of location for the family of five. The whole family was orientated towards his ideas of life under socialism, convictions, and career. I was born in 1954 in Ronneburg in the GDR as the second daughter of a couple trying to realise the ideas of a socialist society as best they could in this time of awakening and ideals. Everything for the construction of a socialist society My father was the youngest son of a baker from Görlitz and had lost several brothers in the Second World War. There are photos of these brothers proudly posing in Wehrmacht uniforms. After the war, my father’s remaining brother joined the National People’s Army of the GDR, which probably indicates a military affinity more than a socialist conviction. My father, on the other hand, had a job as a cultural instructor at the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB), the only trade union in the GDR. It was considered the extended arm of the Socialist Unity Party (SED). My parents were both in the SED and worked in the union. But my father was the leading creative head. He studied cultural studies alongside his work by distance learning, then became an adviser and rose further and further in the union’s structures. By the time of the fall of communism in 1989, he was head of the department at the FDGB national executive in Berlin and was one of the leading figures in shaping the union’s work. As a convinced communist, he was instrumental in developing a socialist culture for workers. The best known is the “Bitterfeld Weg” project, from 1957 to 1965. The GDR leadership tried to bring workers and writers together. Workers who wrote and writers who toiled were to produce authentic socialist literature together. The project did not have the desired success. Still, my father was also active as a workers’ writer, wrote plays for GDR theatre, was involved in the organisation of the workers’ festival and worked in the Kampfgruppe, a civil defence organisation in the GDR. My mother also studied cultural studies and last worked in Berlin as the clubhouse manager of the Oberspree cable works. As a young wife and mother, she set her priorities similarly to my father. She also worked for the FDGB, but mainly as a district or local executive. In her later years in Berlin, she was active in the Central House of Young Pioneers. My mother did not have a professional career like my father. My father’s career determined the location changes, and my mother then took the job offered to her. My father was the head of the family. She subordinated herself for his career and probably also out of love. Weekly crèche – a model project of the GDR My parents had no doubts about the compatibility of professional and social commitment and triple parenthood. Moreover, society and the state supported this attitude by providing weekly crèches. This was an institution where children were cared for continuously from Monday at 6 a.m. until Saturday at 6 p.m. without parental involvement. Six-week-old infants to three-year-old toddlers were dropped off at the weekly crèche on Monday morning and picked up again after a week on Saturday evening. No one was politically forced to place their babies and toddlers in such a crèche during the week, but they could. The original idea was that shift workers would be relieved, and their children would be well looked after and cared for in state care. My parents were not shift workers. They mainly had regular working hours and still took the opportunity not to have to look after and care for their children during the working week. Since both worked at Wismut in Ronneburg, a mining company for uranium mining, he as a cultural engineer and she as a typist, they were free to place their children in the weekly crèche. This mainly benefited their leisure time, as they did not have to work in shifts. They worked in the AgitProp group (AgitProp = agitation and propaganda for the party group) of Wismut, sang in the choir and the homegroup (Heimatgruppe) and played in the orchestra. And my father was able to complete his distance learning studies in peace, undisturbed by screaming children. Such commitment was desired in the GDR and was massively encouraged, for example, by this childcare offer. I have a sister two years older and a brother three years younger. All three of us shared the same fate of staying the first years of life in weekly crèches – but in different years and institutions. I have a scar on my forehead that has to do with my week crèche trauma. As a little four-year-old girl, when I accompanied my mother on a Saturday evening to pick up my little brother from the weekly crèche, a caregiver waved me into the house. In a sudden wild panic, I ran away completely mindless and straight into a swing. I suffered a bleeding laceration, the scar of which can still be seen today, and was met with incomprehension from the adults! I had and still have no explanation for this feeling of panic. I think the early childhood psychological imprinting of the “week crèche” generation is a profound intervention in the psyche. This happened early in life, so it isn’t easy to talk about it. Nevertheless, some feelings and sensitivities that are perhaps typical for me could be explained based on the weekly crèche experience. These include, for example, the anxiety and stress symptoms that for a long time strongly affected me at collective events where there was a lot of pressure to succeed. But I will go into that in more detail later. The GDR courted this childcare model as a highly regarded achievement of the socialist workers’ state until the mid-1960s. Then, after several studies by Humboldt University and others, the weekly crèches disappeared relatively quickly. Why? The studies found that the children had glaring cognitive deficiencies and developmental deficits. This was not in the state’s interest but was counterproductive for developing the economy, politics and culture. Holzdorf – a bit of Bullerbü*, but a sad one *Idyllic village in Sweden set as the scene for Astrid Lindgren’s book “The children of Bullerbü”. In 1958 we moved to Holzdorf, a tiny village near Weimar. My father got a job as a lecturer at the FDGB school there. This FDGB school was a timber-framed castle that seemed huge to me at the time, with dark passageways and integrated living units for the staff. Next to the school, there was a sheep farm with sheep and poultry. We children roamed around unsupervised, always looking for little adventures. My parents must have thought that nothing could happen to us in this small place. But children always manage to put themselves in danger. Execution of the cock I still vividly remember the rooster attack. We children often played in the courtyard of the timber-framed castle. As the ducks and chickens of the sheep farm also stayed there, we had to watch out for the smeary droppings on the cobblestones. I am endowed with a strong sense of injustice and therefore felt that the ducks had no right to roam in our yard. So I chased them with a little stick to the sheep farm, which the reigning rooster perceived as a threat. He flew at me and pecked with his beak just below my eye. As punishment, his head was chopped off the next day in my presence. I had no desire for revenge against the rooster, but I still had to go along and witness the execution. The rooster, for his part, did his best to frighten me one last time. After the execution, it flew headless a few metres towards me. The whole experience, including the beheading, is still a trauma for me today. Big sister’s duty of supervision My little brother’s involuntary bathing is also still vivid in my memory for two reasons. One reason is that my brother, who was just one year old, almost drowned in the care of my six-year-old sister and me (4 years old). For the workers at the FDGB school, there was a concrete swimming pool with an entrance staircase, which was relatively deep at the back. We siblings played alone outside and walked along the pool when my brother fell in. He paddled like a dog with his arms and legs. Since we girls didn’t know how to swim either, jumping in after him wouldn’t have done any good. Panic! Fear! Then my sister remembered that she had seen a bent stick a few moments before. She used it to pull my brother to the edge of the pool, and then together, we pulled him out of the water. My brother was saved! Relief! The second reason is that I was now terrified of punishment because the misfortune could not be concealed at home. The little one was soaking wet. Reproaches and punishments awaited us, but mainly my big sister because we had not looked after him. My father would usually hit us with a slipper or carpet beater. I was a somewhat cautious and reserved child, but my lively and rebellious sister was often chastised. She also had a really bad hand in this because she was often put in charge of her younger siblings. If something went wrong, it was her turn. So it was no wonder that she didn’t exactly behave fairly and lovingly towards us little ones. But, on the other hand, she was also the one who stood in our father’s way when he wanted to beat up the little one. I, in contrast, was only afraid for my siblings, especially when they were threatened with punishment. This helplessness frightened me very much. To this day, I am constantly worried about my brother and my big sister; although we agree on almost nothing, we have shaped our lives very differently and do not shy away from any confrontation. How it could have been – a unique experience The third early childhood experience also took place with my siblings again. It had snowed a lot. We owned a single sledge and were allowed to go sledging. My sister and I walked to a tobogganing hill where many children and their parents were bustling. I had never been tobogganing before and looked at it somewhat sceptically. My sister, however, loved it. She whizzed down the hill again and again. She didn’t take me along, and I didn’t dare go alone. Of course, I didn’t have any fun watching, and I was also cold. My gloves were too thin, and my hands were freezing. I cried to myself and would much rather have been back home. When my distress was at its greatest, a girl’s father approached me and asked why I cried. I told him that I was terribly cold, especially my fingers. He then took my hands and rubbed them with snow. As he did so, he spoke kindly and reassuringly to me and predicted that I would feel better in a moment. I was only four, but I still remember that scene today. The experience that touch heals pain and that someone cares only about my well-being did me a lot of good. I wished so much that it had been my dad who took care of me. And once it happened. I experienced that my father cared for me intensively. And that had a back story. The after-school club, where almost all the children went, lasted until 4 p.m. I then usually walked the four kilometres home alone or with a friend. There would have been a bus that was always wholly overcrowded once a day. But you could only get on it with your pupil bus ticket, and that ticket was something special. Made of thin paper, it had 31 small squares that you had to punch when getting on the bus. But, unfortunately, over a month, it became more and more wrinkled and faded and eventually, you had nothing to show and were therefore not allowed on the bus. Anyone who has anything to do with children knows that flimsy documents have little chance of survival. Of course, this was also the case with me as a pupil in the first grade. Together with a classmate, I set off one day in winter on the way home, which led past a lake. Of course, it was strictly forbidden for us children to walk on the frozen lake, and of course, not everyone complied. But while walking over the frozen lake, it was possible to cut the path short. At the end of the lake, near the shore, the older pupils had prepared a slide. They were laughing and screaming as they slid back and forth. My somewhat chubby friend joyfully stamped onto the slide with his school bag, and I followed. Then everything happened very quickly. He broke in, and I slid into the ice-cold water behind him. It was only up to my chest, but I had trouble getting out again quickly with my satchel in tow. The other children helped, and soon we were standing on the safe shore, soaking wet, freezing and completely scared. What now? Our biggest worry was the punishment that was certain to follow. To keep our misfortune a secret, we went to the only grocery shop in the village to warm up and dry ourselves on the heating. However, the shop assistant unceremoniously threw us out. So we had no choice but to sneak home. First, we went to my schoolmate’s house and rang the doorbell, shivering and trembling with cold and fear. His father opened, wordlessly dragged his drenched son into the hallway and grabbed the leather whip on the Wall while slamming the door in my face. As I stood there, bewildered, I heard the crack of the whip and ran home in a wild panic, expecting something similar. However, my father, who was the only one at home, reacted differently. He didn’t say a word. First, he put me in freezing water in the tub, then slowly poured on warm water and gave me lots of camomile tea. Slowly my whole body began to tingle. Finally, he put me to bed with compresses on my legs and piled several blankets on top of me. It was an ordeal, but I was still happy because I had not received any beatings. Instead, I had received my father’s full attention and care—an almost unique experience. Comfort and protection – unfortunately, a foreign word My parents appear neither before nor after such dramatic experiences in my earliest memories. They were not present, not available, not responsible and not accountable. I cannot remember my parents hugging me or showing me any other affection. The only person in my life who triggers such memories in me is my maternal grandmother, although she was also quite curt. But she lived in another town, and I was only allowed to visit her during the school holidays. My paternal grandmother, by contrast, was very strict. She moved in with us for a few years after my grandfather died. She had her own strict and frugal style of upbringing. For example, as soon as my mother left the house in the morning, we had to take off our nice new clothes and put on old ones. Presumably, the new clothes were to be spared. Only after a teacher asked our mother about our ragged appearance, the matter came to light. Throughout my childhood, my parents always left the house at 7 a.m. and were not home before 6 p.m. During this time, the weekly nursery, kindergarten, school and after-school care were my places of residence. However, my sister was practically the “guardian”, the chaperone appointed by the parents. Since she was hardly older than us little ones, she was wholly overwhelmed, and her treatment of us had little to do with sibling love and cohesion. She often bullied us, and that’s why I didn’t feel safe in our kindergarten. It was not a place of comfort for me. And even in the after-school care centre, where I had to go after starting school in 1960, it was not stress-free for me. Russian war films were shown on black-and-white television every day after the 2 p.m. siesta. We didn’t have a TV at home, so my sister was quite fascinated. The howling of the bombs and the clatter of the tanks scared me, and I covered my eyes and ears. But I had to do this discreetly and was not allowed to cry out because if I had, I would have been sent out, and my sister would have been ordered to go and supervise me. You can imagine what that would have meant. Lots of trouble with my big sister! I certainly didn’t lead a sheltered life as a child. Then there were the many changes of location that forced us to start over again and again. An unsteady life – constantly new beginnings In my first decade of life, we moved five times. From Ronneburg, the uranium mining town of the Wismut mining company, we moved to Holzdorf, from there to Grünheide, then to Alt-Buchhorst and finally to East Berlin. Each time my father moved up the career ladder, we got to know a new place, a new school, and a new daycare centre. So we children frequently moved into unfamiliar structures. Today I think of these childhood changes and have the feeling that I suffered from them and developed both fears of loss and survival strategies. When other changes became necessary later – system changes when the GDR dissolved and career changes – I was able to deal with them more calmly. This is because I had already developed my own strategy. I often realised what was necessary. You had to analyse the new situation, research available opportunities and make decisions. Then it was a matter of rolling up one’s sleeves and taking action. Every significant change that forces a change of location, job, status, etc., means leaving familiar things behind. But it also opens up new possibilities and broadens the horizon of life. Unconsciously well-worn tracks can be left behind, and new paths and goals can be found. Therein also lie opportunities. There would be other stories from my life to tell, but I would like to mention at this point that one can also draw a lot of positive things from negative life experiences, which also include education in the spirit of the collective. The collective – a formative experience Due to the many moves, the changing dialects and circumstances, I had no close kindergarten and school friendships. I was not aware of this lack for a long time. Only much later did I realise that the weekly crèche and other children’s institutions, which were supposed to educate about socialist consciousness and collective behaviour, had a strong influence on my perception and attitude in life. In collective structures, you learn as a child that you have to behave as inconspicuously and disciplined as possible if you wanted to be at least without problems or maybe even successful. There was no protective parental home in my early childhood, no security and tenderness, but instead fear of sanctions, humiliation, rejection, and intense pressure to conform. You had to submit to the group and go along with collective decisions if you wanted to receive recognition. Group and collective opinions were absolute; individual creative ideas were undesirable, fought against and sanctioned. Such a collective was more than just a group. Behind the convictions of the collective was the indisputably remarkable socialist ideology of the state. So anyone who stepped out of line was suspected of being harmful to the collective. The potential for exclusion is more profound and extensive than with simple groups. As a very imaginative child who developed irrational fears and unconventional ideas and perspectives, I did not fit one hundred per cent into this society. Moreover, I often lacked the self-esteem to contribute and assert myself. And so, I gave myself a framework for my own world through self-chosen isolation. Alone with myself, I was safe and liberated. Fantasies and creativity were allowed. On the other hand, to this day, under stress, I am sometimes unable to express feelings towards fellow human beings and groups, assert my ideas and concepts and claim my rights without feeling guilty. In my professional life, when colleagues or departments acted as a collective and peer pressure was high, I was regularly tormented by fears of being blamed and overwhelmed. This phenomenon also occurred later. For example, when it came to expressing one’s opinion on specific topics in subject teacher council meetings or school management meetings or even in everyday teams, I came under intense pressure. If I had a feeling of certainty, I was also eloquent and confident. Conversely, if I lacked confidence, I unconsciously reacted aggressively, dismissively, or not. Perhaps this is also a behavioural pattern developed from experiences in collectives? How collectives work I was always ambitious when it came to solving tasks successfully. I invested a lot of time and energy in my work. But often, the strongest motivation for my commitment back in the GDR days was to avoid making mistakes. Here I mean work and actions whose successful completion was in the interest of the respective group, not in my personal interest. Failure meant the threat of punishment such as belittlement, verbal judgement, rebuke in the collective, and denunciation by the group leaders. The spiral of mistakes made and the frantic efforts to avoid mistakes sometimes got out of control, more often in the past than today. When the stress built up, I felt helpless and overwhelmed and broke off contacts, whether friendships, relationships or work. In isolation, I was able to feel inner security at first and later regain calm and composure. Successes in the collective were very desirable. They brought recognition from all sides. But successes required faultless action by everyone in the collective. A big surprice how teams of individuals work When, after the fall of communism, I belonged to teaching teams in which teamwork was understood as cooperation based on compromise, taking individual preferences into account, I was at first startled, then amazed and finally very liberated. I remember a team meeting of the maths teachers in one year group. I was new to the school and ready to adapt. The team leader and most of the colleagues favoured a uniform school assignment, which also involved narrowing down the subject matter. The meeting lasted about an hour, and a decision was made. When everyone got up to leave, one colleague said that he would not participate because he was not yet ready with teaching the material in his class. He would have his own school assignment later. I froze inside, expecting a huge drama, fundamental discussions about solidarity, community, etc. None of this happened. The team leader and the team members only said: Yes, if you want to do it that way, go ahead. Such experiences reduced the pressure I felt to conform and participate. How liberating! In the meantime, I also had a family of my own and developed other strategies for dealing with people who might demand my successful functioning with my loved ones and friends. Only sometimes do the old patterns still break out. But now, I am no longer helpless in the face of them. Beneficial effect of socialisation in the collective However, I also have to say that this formation through collective structures did not only produce negative behaviour. As much as my individuality and deviation from consensus constricted and unsettled me during my life in GDR structures, orientation on the success of the collective was of great benefit. It brought the enjoyment of successful problem solutions, which were attributed to the work of a team. I don’t need profiling, competition or rivalry. A successful project is the success of many. And I am happy about the success and the recognition of my personal performance. However, I attach great importance to the fact that the performance of others is also appreciated accordingly. This, I have seen, is not a matter of course in the strongly individualised society of people socialised in the West. Competitive battles and efforts to raise one’s profile often impair successful teamwork. Inexperienced in establishing closeness With the onset of puberty, my desire for friendship and closeness grew. I wanted to have a trusted person, a best friend, by my side. Since I was good at school and studied easily, I offered my homework to the other girls to copy. Because I had never experienced how friendship develops, I assumed that being useful would be the best way to start. And I was right. In fact, I acquired a real best friend whom I devotedly defended when she was attacked, no matter by whom and whom I always agreed with. It was not a question for me whether she was right or wrong, whether what she said was true or false. I stood by her side. Loyal or in solidarity, whatever you want to call it. In any case, I supported her devotedly to the point of self-sacrifice. I had no experience whatsoever of how friendship works. I did not think it was enough to feel affection for each other, share fun and secrets, open up, and be who you really were. According to my socialisation, I tried hard, made an effort and sometimes overshot the mark. To impress my friends, I was pretty rebellious and cheeky with the teachers at school. That got me into trouble, but I could afford it because of my exemplary achievements. Nevertheless, I was usually ridiculed as a rebellious little girl in retrospect. The effect of my rebellions was more like a storm in a teacup. I had girlfriends now, but the relationship was not relaxed. The only loving relationship I had in my childhood was with my younger brother. He was the only person I could meet in my childhood without reservations. We played together, visited museums together or read books together. By my standards, we were very close. However, even together, we were not strong enough to resist the pressure of our father. My brother is three years younger. So I often saw myself as the one caring for him. When we were home alone after school, I would prepare us small meals, make tea or go to the playground with him. This included dangerous areas in bomb shelters in the forest or old ruins. I also took him to the disco when he was 14 years old for the first time. But he was not my “best friend”, and we did not necessarily have confidential conversations. The age difference was probably too big for that. When my brother fled to West Berlin in 1977, aged 20, contact almost broke off. We didn’t have a telephone, so conversations were hardly possible. After the fall of the Wall, we had to and were able to rebuild our relationship completely. In the later years, I no longer had to earn friendships and closeness diligently on a daily basis. It’s probably because I have three children whom I could love unconditionally. This has perhaps pushed my head back regarding interpersonal relationships and given me more room to feel instead. But this tendency towards loyalty to colleagues, for example, is still powerful, though now without the desire for close friendship. My pupils could also count on me at any time. I am still small in stature, but no one made fun of me anymore later when I became renitent for a good reason. That is what remained. My socialisation shaped me in the collective, the described distortions and consequences, and negative and positive role models in the family and my personal environment. My father – a communist and absolute ruler in the family My father was a convinced communist in his role model as a citizen of the GDR, but in his role model as a husband and father, he was utterly stuck in traditional conventions. He was the authority, the determiner, the tyrant, the punisher of children. He expected us to laugh at his jokes, even if we didn’t understand them, and not to be offended by his sarcasm. A negative reaction could well end in violence. I often found his words and behaviour humiliating. For example, when my brother had once again brought home bad grades, my father would drag him around the flat by his ears and mock him as “Count Coke of the gas station” (meaning: someone who pretends to be more than he is). I also remember my father entering our children’s room one day and stroking the surface of the tiled stove with his fingers, then the curtain rod and finally behind the cupboard. All the while, he would say, “Dirt! Dirt! Dirt! Finally, he rubbed his dirty finger down my face and under my nose, looking at me contemptuously. I felt humiliated but didn’t dare talk back. My sister, 14 at the time, would have confronted him, even if it would have become nasty for her. But I, just 12 years old, was just too scared. My mother did not behave like that but did not restrain him in his actions either. She also suffered from his constant infidelity. As a workers’ writer, co-founder and designer of the “Bitterfeld Weg” project, he wrote books and dramas for workers’ theatres in the socialist sense and had many contacts in the cultural scene. He also got to know many female artists and often cheated on my mother until their final divorce in 1970. My father remarried and lived in Berlin with his new wife and two children. As I was to learn later, he became a completely different, more loving and interested father in this family. My parents’ divorce initially also meant complete separation from my father. I only saw him twice briefly until he died in 1993. The second meeting was at my sister’s birthday party in 1992. At that time, he was already severely marked by cancer. He chatted with me for a few minutes and wished me luck in life. It was the second time in my life that my father was only concerned with me. How sad! It was only much later that I could forgive him for his distance and lack of love and interest in me. Forgiving was a long process. I thought about him and his background, his losses during the Second World War, and the circumstances that led to his first marriage. I also needed this forgiveness for a personal closure in my own story. My mother – was not a rock On the other hand, my mother was a broken woman after the divorce. She was wholly absorbed in her work. We children could not give her any support. For months she was in tears and saw no way out of her situation. I felt helpless and angry because I could not help her in this grief. At the same time, I was indescribably angry at my father as the cause of this grief. Much later, I realised that our mother had manipulated us with her tears and anger, with her worldview. Through her suffering, reproach, and anger, she ensured that we rejected our father and had prejudices against his new wife. But it also became apparent that our mother loved our father but could not love us children enough. There is no other way I can explain the constant emotional detachment with which she treated us children. But I don’t blame her so much because she was weak, an adopted child herself and uprooted early. My parents and the Zeitgeist in the GDR My parents are not the people in my memory who positively shaped my life and my decisions with their behaviour, empathy or help. I deliberately did not orient myself on them. Others have taken that place. My grandmother, for example, impressed me with her strength, assertiveness, and ability to express feelings. So I took her as an example. My favourite teacher was a very motherly woman. She not only recognised my strengths, but she also encouraged them and helped me successfully overcome the hurdles of puberty. She became a role model for me both emotionally and in my career choice. I became a teacher. In the end, I often wonder what my parents’ fault is. They were war children, emotionally uprooted themselves, wanted to be fighters of a new age, believed in the GDR as a better form of society, and absorbed it. They sacrificed their relationship with their children, accepted alienation and lost the chance to develop love and responsibility towards their children. They were not the only ones who acted in this way. The weekly crèches were offered to many parents in the GDR for a long time. Accordingly, many children experienced something similar. Often, weekly crèches were the only form of care offered. Did the parents then know what they were doing when they gave us children away every week and were absorbed in realising their idealistic ideas or even just their careers? Were relaxed evenings off worth so much to them? As I wrote initially, my parents used their free evenings for social and sociable pursuits. Were they aware that they were cheating themselves out of the experience of seeing their children growing up? Could they have resisted this tempting offer at all? Was it possible to express doubts in this social atmosphere and convictions? Or was being together on Sunday enough for them? In any case, one thing is clear. Giving the child into the weekly crèche was not a compulsion. Some certain constraints and necessities may have arisen from the world of work, but there was no compulsory weekly crèche. Parents definitely had room for manoeuvre. My parents chose between work, career and leisure time. That is bitter, even though I keep trying to make excuses for them. They were young and war children, a generation of speechlessness and alienation. Perhaps it was, therefore, easier for them to give up their children. Besides, the working hours were from Monday to Saturday, and they were both working. But I sincerely hope that this kind of alienation in families will never happen again. My chance as a mother and citizen of the GDR I have three children myself and worked most of the time. Unlike my parents, I raised and looked after my children myself. In the 1980s, times had changed a lot compared to my childhood. I was able to take up the generous offer of the GDR and take a break for a year at a time with parental allowance. There was a so-called household day for mothers on which they could take time off. There were even hourly reductions at work depending on the number of children. If you had to look after sick children at home, you could do so with full pay. And I took advantage of these offers so I could be there for my children. I was always close to my children and loved them dearly. So hugging them and caring for them lovingly has been natural for me from the start. I didn’t have to think about it. The feelings were simply there. This has been very good for my children and me. We still have a very close, trusting relationship even though they live far away with their families. I managed not to let the coldness and loneliness of my childhood experiences dominate me but find my own way as a mother. With my eldest son Matthias’s birth and the feelings that came with it, a door opened to entirely new experiences. I was allowed to give and experience unconditional love for the first time. I experienced feelings of responsibility and closeness to a degree I had never encountered before. The first year of life with him was constant wonder and discovery. The gratitude of being able to accompany such a tiny child and giving him trust and love created a feeling of strength and responsibility in me. During this time, I also realised how fortunate it was that the GDR, which 30 years earlier had only offered weekly crèches, now actively supported the relationship between mother or parents and child. (KK)

(DE) If you travelled from Germany to Italy in the mid-1960s, there was no broadly built motorway. No. One drove more or less comfortably on normal roads, through picturesque villages of the Po Valley and between fields and meadows. From time to time a railway barrier prevented passengers from continuing their journey. And Italian experienced motorists know that Italian signalmen have a high need for safety and security because they had already lowered the barriers when the train was still at least half an hour away. First, we Germans let the engine run, then like the locals, we turned it off, but continued to sweat in the car. Eventually, we followed the relaxed example from the Italians, left the car and mingled with the people and got into conversation, well, more into Gibberish. People exchanged smiles, gestures and sometimes treats. So we often were offered some of the snacks, which Italian motorists probably bring exactly for such stops at the level crossing, which could take forever. When hours later the train finally roared through, we also strolled casually (that’s the old word for cool) to our car, sat down in it and off we went on our way to Rimini. Of course, the railway barrier keeper waited for the train to pass through and then waited a few more minutes until he opened the barrier. Possibly trains in Italy after having passed may return in high spirits and parade past the cars again. Quite conceivable. However, it happened again and again that even the railway barrier keeper lost his patience and, whilst waiting started his ringing game, cranked up the barrier, and waved the waiting people with a somewhat mischievous grin to cross the railway track. Then there was no more casual behaviour but all nationalities quickly rushed to their cars and made away. On such an occasion I, about 10 years old, became temporarily invisible. We had jumped into the car and motored on. After several kilometres, my mother, who sat in the passenger seat, emitted a bloodcurdling scream. “Turn around! Now! We’ve forgotten Tanja!” My father stamped on the brakes and stopped by the side of the road. Horror spread out in the car. I too was stunned, although I was sitting well-behaved in my place on the back seat. “Yes, where can something like that happen! Parents forget their child somewhere in a foreign country! But I’m an only child and adults should be able to keep track of things!” It took me a while to get over this shock and finally could contribute to clearing up this situation. “But I’m right here.” Surprised, my parents turned around and asked in all seriousness where I came from. I could not and would not really answer this question. This was my first conscious encounter with the phenomenon of my temporary invisibility but remained not the only one. Countless times in my life, waiters and waitresses have forgotten my order. Often, groups, I had an appointment with overlooked the fact that I was missing and went off without me. I am always on time. I never get angry, never complain loud, but roar inside and think what have I done wrong. How much am I allowed to be? Sometimes I was visible too, but as a completely different person than the one, I thought I was. A quite absurd example of this occurred during the carnival period sometime in the mid-1980s. At that time, I was a relatively well-known editor of a local weekly newspaper in a small Bavarian town and region. For a few weeks, I had prepared an event, which for the first time in the region should institutionalise the Women’s Carnival on carnival Thursday. The idea was to work together with the local sports association to start a new tradition. In fact, the Townhall was completely sold out, the programme was ready, the dignitaries came in droves and in general the mood was exuberant and the Women’s carnival on everyone’s lips. I am actually a carnival grump, but since I played a major role in the success of this event through my publication work, I disfigured myself in carnival-style and went with my son, who was almost like a mascot within the publishing team, to the editorial office. When we arrived, the offices were empty. The birds had already flown out to settle down in the town hall not far away. Well, we had agreed that they would wait for us so that we could go out together and sit around a table as a group of co-organisers and as my circle of friends, with whom I often did go out to do something together. Disappointed but naive, my cowboy son and I stomped with the rest of the crowd to the entrance. There they checked and lo and behold, I was refused entry. Even when I introduced myself as editor of the newspaper that was involved in organising the event, the representatives of the sports association were not impressed. I had my boss in the hall informed about the problem, which neither disturbed my boss or the inspectors in any way. Finally, I was offered the opportunity, in God’s name, to enter but my 7-year-old son could not be accepted. After all, they had decided not to admit children. At the same moment, the children’s gymnastics group passed me storming into the ballroom. By then I realised that I was not the well-known local celebrity I thought I was, but simply an insubordinate nobody, who claimed the right to special treatment which she clearly did not have. Also, I had probably deceived myself in what significance I had for my boss and my friendly colleagues. Nobody lifted a finger to get me and my son into the ballroom as agreed. So, my son and I trotted home still dressed in our disguise but empty-handed. I was furious about this disillusionment and also ashamed of my overconfidence. Of course, the next day I was asked where I had been and why I had not appeared. After all, I was to be awarded the carnival medal, which has now, instead, been received by a colleague from the Secretariat. When I told my story the reaction was mostly that of a shrug of the shoulders according to the motto: Well, if you are so stupid! And it worked. I was no longer angry at the others, but at myself. I was nobody special, not even in this small environment. Embarrassing, because I had secretly considered myself as important and special. How could I! Decades later I was invited to the farewell party of this boss, and some editors, whom I had never seen before, greeted me curiously saying: You are a legend with us. Everyone is measured on your achievements. This experience is not a big event, a catastrophe or something similar, but it shows clearly that my self-perception sometimes fails, is jammed. Put my light under the bushel It also shows that I feel that I have no right to express human disappointments, to stand by my own status and to demand the appropriate respect. Humility and modesty are valuable, a self-confident manner is suspected of being of selfish origin. This is ingrained in me, but perhaps I misunderstood that in the course f my upbringing. Therefore, I get gasping and palpitations, when once again my self-confidently communicated ideas, concepts, working documents and contacts are attributed to other colleagues. I choke on that sentence, “I wrote that, I said that, it was my idea, my work,” as if it were a matter of denunciation. And if I then bring it about me and claim my authorship, then it is said often enough: Oh yes? It doesn’t matter now. Then I have nothing to counter that. This attitude also makes me a bad boss, because I can’t give employees instructions nor can I remind them if a work is not done yet. I ask employees to do it, but when it is not done, or not done well, then, I do it myself. Even as a daughter from a first marriage and as heiress I should not play a role. I have never asked for anything. I have never put myself in the right position as the only birth child. In small as well as in big things it is difficult for me to stand up for myself and my needs. For me, such behaviour always has the smell of selfishness and unjustified claims about it. Unfortunately, that always has been, und still is, frowned upon in my worldview. Christian education? Zeitgeist? Image of women? Self-praise stinks! Another memorable day, when my special ability to be invisible, or not to be noticed, came into play again in February, a good 40 years after my disappearance on the railway crossing in Italy. Once again, I was about to change my job and place of residence. And because I had done so every few years I was very experienced in organising my move. I told the moving company exactly all information regarding the size of the cargo to be moved to make it easier for them to choose the means of transport. When the relocation contractor suggested a small van, I expressed reasonable doubts as to his assessment. Of course, the professional’s response was only a tired smile not even at me but towards my father who was also present. My father immediately took sides with the professional and said, I should only let them do it, they surely knew what to do and how. My father and the removal agent no longer involved the know-it-all teacher, me. By the way, my profession on such occasions was often used to my disadvantage. The two men continued to communicate with each other. It came as it had to come. When the moving van was full on the day of the move, more than a third of my things were still left on the pavement in front of the house. The gentlemen cursed like famous, notorious truckers. My father wanted safe the situation with unsolicited advice, but was no longer the buddy from the unspoken agreement among real men. In the meantime, I stood invisible and in silence. Actually, I would have liked to say that I had been right after all, that I had lots of experience with the transport of my belongings, that I would certainly not want to pay for the delay because of their incompetence etc. But this would have required a different education. Nobody likes a know-it-all! Nobody likes those who are gloating! Nobody likes those who are righteous, more so if they have been right! And anyway, self-praise stinks! It is even worse when women know better, are righteous, and insist that they were right and praise themselves in front of men! I could only remain invisible and indulge in my inner satisfaction – and pay. This principle sits deep and often had a rather unsettling effect on my professional life. I think I have often appeared to others as if unsure of my competence. Yet, I had only inhibitions about presenting myself as great. Praising my work and my competence was something others should do. That was much more pleasant. Don’t you help me! One week before the scheduled move from Regensburg to Munich, I had to start my job at the school in Munich. For this, I needed a certain amount of supplies of clothes and books for a week. As I did not have a car I wanted to make this mini move by train. So I packed two wheeled suitcases, which were of course quite heavy because of the textbooks were of course quite heavy. My dear father and his wife still visited me to say goodbye. My father kindly asked if I still needed help. Well, the suitcases were quite heavy and my train is leaving in an hour and if he could take me to the station…, I carefully suggested, hoping he would take me to the station. “All right then. If you don’t need any more, we are going home now. Goodbye. See you next week!”, said it and was gone. I could not understand whether it was a conscious or unconscious misunderstanding. Somehow I would have felt impertinent. And what if he just didn’t want to?! So I rolled my luggage through the old town of Regensburg to the train station and thanks to my fitness at that time right to the doorstep of the train to Munich. Train drivers know that on some trains there are boarding facilities that do credit to a climbing garden. I stood with my two rolling suitcases in front of such a train. Behind me, a group of three or four men at the age of at least 50 years gathered. I struggled like a bodybuilder on the weight machine to heave my suitcases up the cursed steps. With a swing, without a swing and step by step. Sometimes I got stuck halfway, sometimes the thing fell on my feet. Then I heard the men behind me say: “Let’s go to the other door, here it takes too long…”. I did it on my own and was proud of me. But why is this happening to me? How do the others actually see me? Or am I simply at times not visible for other people’s consciousness? I have to emit something that prevents people from helping me or I simply do not emit anything that is recognised. Help yourself and nobody will help you! Another experience, a few years later, brings to the point what I mean. My girlfriend of the same age and I were travelling by train through Sicily. Each of us had, as is customary for women in their mid-fifties, a rather large suitcase with her, which we rolled quite well, but could only lift with difficulty. So we stood with our heavyweight monsters side by side at the foot of the stairs leading to the train door and looked up somewhat at a loss. My friend circled her suitcase several times, looked here and there, clasped the handle of the suitcase and let go again and gave a completely distraught impression. I, on the other hand, stood stoically looking next to my suitcase and thought about ways how with a combination of lifting and rolling we could transport the monsters upwards. Then a strong young man stormed out of the train door, turned charmingly and helpful to my friend, grabbed her suitcase and swung it up into the train. My friend thanked him. The young man refused the thanks, as it should be. This was a matter of course and so on. Then he disappeared back into the train compartment. I still stood next to my suitcase on the platform. Had he wanted to show me how to do it if you could? I think not. He just didn’t understand my neediness. While my girlfriend was sending out non-verbal signals that helpful spirits would be welcome, I thought about how to solve the problem. I do not expect any support. I’m surprised when someone comes and offers to help me. My mind is set on being able to solve everything on my own and I often had to do so. And the things I cannot do on my own are the things I simply must do without. Seriously? (TA)

(DE) When I think twice, then I am a Percival, yes, yes, quite right, Percival, but female. Perceval, the young fool, who after an encounter with knights in shining armour only knows one goal: to be a magnificent powerful knight as well, but on the journey behaves ridiculous, ruthless and self-important. He considers himself a knight early on, after putting on the with force conquered armour, and wanders around in a belligerent manner. The fools’ robe under the armour, however, determines his perception of the world and also his actions. Yes, this is how you could describe the start of my adult life. I dreamed of these novel and film characters of the 50s and 60s. A beautiful, strong-willed and sexy woman who knows what she wants and finds the meaning of life and the love of her life. Role models My grandmother’s cheap romance novels about doctors and nobility, as well as the films about the perfect life in homeland and nature or Doris Day films of that time, fired my imagination of the happiness to be found. My holy grail. Being a beautiful young woman was easy and I was desired, but I was certainly not independent, and apart from my soppy image of happiness, I had no idea what I actually wanted of life and what the meaning of life could be. What my parents practised was the joy of consumption. Modern interior design, amazing clothes, good food, a fancy car, trips to Italy and everything else that gradually came onto the market. But, it was clear to me they had not found happiness. Neither did they love their jobs or found fulfilment in them, nor did they love each other or our family. At most the image that we gave to the outside world filled their lives with something that you could call meaningful. So only the ideas of writers and film directors were relevant to my search. And these created high demands and gigantic expectations or repulsive scenarios of a botched life that had to be avoided. A Black and White picture. Similar to Percival, my instruction in life matters was sometimes quite misleading and far from reality. I wanted to appear cool, but I had a lot of questions. So, I wandered around, always in search of fulfilment in job and love, and that on a high level. From my escape from a deadly boring apprenticeship into an academic education, I have told elsewhere. But was I on my way now? Did I now know what I wanted or had I only known what I did not want? Pounding steps into life My circle of friends, including each of the young men I thought were the love of my life, studied, so I studied too. I didn’t think much about what to study. Therefore the one of my friends who was particularly enthusiastic about his studies served me as a role model. I was used to pictures; they had guided me. So, I studied German, history and social studies with the purpose to become a teacher at a grammar school. The fact that because of my school education I did not even have the prerequisites (Latinum) for this course of study, did not deter me. I failed miserably in my attempt to fix this shortcoming. However, fate was good to me in that I was able to go with another young man, again a love of my life, to Berlin, where there was no need for Latin for German studies and social studies. Uprooting Yet uprooting did not lead to independence and a search for meaning free from constraints and conventions. The fear of being alone was greater than ever. By now, I was looking for the meaning of life less at work, but much more in a relationship and the family. It was not planned, but not quite unintentionally either that I became pregnant and had a son before sitting the final exams. Mother and child are already a family. And you do not have to search for the meaning of life because it lies in the cot and screams. Although I was still able to complete my studies successfully, my professional development was not a priority for the time being. Nevertheless, I wanted to vehemently distance myself from the idea of an intact world in a nuclear family. The spirit of the times, bundled in literature and film, required the overcoming of conventions. But what should the alternative? How did you become happy now? We formed a flat-sharing community with friends, who also had a child of the same age. Marriage and life in a nuclear family were out of the question. Well, my contribution to revolutionising the conventional Doris Day ideals. And I was looking for a job beyond raising children. At the adult education centre, I was able to teach German as a foreign language two to four times a week. So even an ideologically questionable but financially rational marriage was somehow justified. I also had to accept the failure of the flat-sharing community as a concept of life and, to be honest, I wasn’t very sad about it. We now lived in close friendship but separated in small families. Back to the beginning? I became ill. At the beginning of our anti-nuclear-family crusade, I had to have one ovary removed. After returning to a more conventional life, the second ovary was also severed. Confused and disorientated, I had to start to mull over my life concept again. Were we a happy family? No! Was he the love of my life? No! Was I independent? No! Did I know what I wanted? Yes! To find the Holy Grail of life. And where I was, the Holy Grail of Life was clearly not! At that point, I had not even the faintest idea what it was supposed to look like! At that time I did not see the contradiction in my ideas and expectations. On the one hand, I wanted autonomy, freedom, independence, achieve great things, with my child in my arms, secure in a group of like-minded people; in other words the ideal of the 68ers and later. On the other hand, I was looking for love, security, family, the little happiness in a relationship; the ideal of my childhood, which had only been shown to me in films, never in real life. Restart – next attempt So it was time to set off and continue searching! Separation, new relationship, a move, a new task. I started writing articles and finally took over the editorial office of an advertising journal and made it into an editorially recognised weekly regional newspaper. In my reports and articles I was able to draw attention to problems, report on political processes, comment on art and culture, attend press conferences and ask questions, interview local and other politicians or celebrities. That does make sense! Alternative without the promise of the Grail Goal reached? After the initial euphoria, which lasted a few years, it was clear that by doing this work I could not really make a difference or create something. This regional advertising paper was too small and insignificant. Essentially everything remained the same. I searched in the politics, art and esotericism for solutions to the pressing question of the meaning of my life. I did not find exactly what I wanted, but there were some attempts. The relationship also did not live up to the hopes I had placed in it. Luck of life, nothing! Again there was nothing to feel of the togetherness that I had read about and seen in films. Even Beauvoir and Sartre seemed more harmonious than me and my husband. The love of my life had even become the nightmare of my life. And then something happened that threw me off track. I became ill. Illness – another attempt After a major operation in which it as by no means clear whether I would survive, I was able to do something about my bad attitude towards life. After some half-hearted attempts not to break all bridges behind me, I found myself in teacher training in a different town. I lived with my son and a colleague in a shared flat and had separated myself from everything that had been depressing. However, it soon became clear that this search and the associated changes of location and career had a price. I also lost friends and opportunities that I had liked. But even this adventure, which I experienced at the age of 40, did not bring me closer to my goal. The holy grail of happiness in life was as nebulous in its form as it had been at the beginning of my journey. I achieved my goal of becoming a qualified teacher, but because of my age and the fact that my first state examination was from a University in Berlin – and not recognised in Bavaria, I was not able to find a job in Bavaria. From now on, the stops on my journey where I had to get off and change trains, were not necessarily chosen freely. But the hope of finding the Grail always accompanied me. Constraints – several attempts For two years I sold newspapers at the International Press News Agents at the town’s Central Station. After that, I ran courses for a non-profit organisation targeted at marginalised young people enabling them to obtain a school leaving certificate. Then I worked as a freelance writer and online editor for a management consultancy. When the economy collapsed and companies started to make cuts, I had to register as unemployed. Finally, I was able to get a job as a part-time teacher at a municipal grammar school on a fixed-term contract. I earned as much as I received in unemployment benefit but at least I had something useful to do. The students may have had a different opinion, but all right. After leaving my temporary contract I went back to my hometown where I found a position at a private school. However, after one and a half years of exploitation, I could bear it no longer. There were so many lessons, substitution and supervision hours to be done each week that I had difficulty finding time for preparation and marking. In the long run, I could not live up to my expectations as working more superficially so as not to collapse is not given to me. So I tried again to get a job at a municipal school in a larger city. The Grail – within reach At a municipal comprehensive school, I came closest to the Holy Grail. I was allowed to design my lessons quite freely, work in teams with open and creative colleagues and make friends. The family background of the pupils was often problematic. Performance and willingness to learn were often low and the parents not accessible. But we fought for every student. We were successful. It was fun, it made sense! However, a change in leadership brought my engagement to a premature end. I simply could not get used to and adapt to these new exclusively absurd teaching methods and a climate of compulsion and fear. Consequently, like so many other members of the College, I asked for a transfer, which was granted to almost everyone. But by now I had landed in the world of a normal grammar school, in which some teachers have been working all their lives, where change was not welcomed, teamwork was not an option and the support of a new colleague was very limited. Parents were more present but often demanding and suspicious of teachers. Only a project, initiated by the director to integrate foreign children and young people into the regular school system, even into the Gymnasium, was to my taste again. This work made sense. My new task was to guide, design and lead the team. Yes, that came close to the holy grail. It was a great pleasure for me to develop this pilot project, but also a lot of work. Now, at the age of 63, after all these years of constant beginnings, I was just about able to do the job. But my strength faded. I felt that I would no longer hold this holy grail in my hands. I had given up the dream of the love of my life decades before and now also the dream of the meaning of my work, of great lasting achievement. My time was over. It broke my heart, or rather, I suffered a heart attack during the first few days of my holidays in the year 2016. At the end of the search I survived, but I never returned. When I look back on my life, I see a woman who has successfully pursued several professions, but which never led to the goal she dreamed of. Love relationships were not even remotely successful in her life. After all, for most of her life, she could not even stay in one place. Since when I was 16 years old I moved about 20 times and I don’t have the feeling that I will ever arrive at the Grail Castle. Here ends the proximity to Percival’s search. He finds to the true knighthood, founds and lives in a happy family, proves himself worthy of the Grail… I, on the other hand, have not discovered the meaning of my life or the love of my life. That means I have not found my Holy Grail. I have always sought and never really given up. And, let me make it clear at this point, I do not believe that the way can be the goal. Appreciation of the search But do I have reason to complain? To whomever. Yes, I have no solid ground under my feet. Yes, I never found the happiness of life in many ways, above all in terms of my somewhat naive ideas. Yes, I did not become the one I had imagined. Yes, I let go of all the dreams of my youth. But I am someone who is still willing to learn. I have spent my life with hopes for the future and now at the age of 67, I am learning to live in the present. All my life I tried to realise my ideas of life and love. Today I try not to develop any more ideas, just to see what else there is for me. I have a wide range of experience, insights and knowledge in my rucksack and while that is also a burden, it is mainly a treasure. I want to look at it, to appreciate its beauty, use the useful and dispose of the useless. Maybe my holy grail is underneath and I just didn’t discover it in the heat of the battle of my life. (TA)

A stabbing pain shot up my throat from the chest and took my breath away. Panting I straightened up and stood up, carefully breathing in front of my bed, which I was about to mop under. This was the last part of my flat to clean before finally enjoying the holidays and looking forward to the arrival of my son, Carol, with his wife from Thailand. Final spurt and anticipation Günther, Carol’s father, my ex, had the week before renovated and painted the big room, the kitchen and the corridor, in preparation so that the children should find a cuddly nest. I had already been rearranging the flat for months and during these last hot days of July and August had taken care of all sorts of things that still needed to be done: writing final reports to conclude the extremely strenuous, but also successful school year with our pilot project, writing project reports of the last school days, getting clarification from the local administration and renovating the flat. I also had a stabbing pain in the left shoulder blade, tensions I suspected as the cause, and now, after Günther’s departure, I had to clean up and still look for protection from the burning sun on the kitchen windows. The kitchen had for months been the quietest room in the flat because of the noise from the construction site on the other side of the road, that the living room and bedroom windows faced. Self-diagnosis And now this! Obviously, it must be this bad heartburn again, which I had very badly two years ago. For weeks I ate only steamed vegetables, little meat and no sweets. I had to sit in bed to sleep and recovered only slowly. The doctor had also prescribed stomach medicine for me. I soon felt better. Now it was probably that time again. Stress, heat and the same posture, bending over like when pumping the bicycle tyres as well as cleaning under the bed, have probably caused the stomach acid to rise once again. The enormous pain was slowly diminishing and I no longer dared to bend down. Leaden tiredness set in and my legs hurt when I walked. I dragged myself through the day, trying to get medicine for my stomach. I called my friend Alexandra, who always has tips or maybe even knows what I could do. Susanne, another friend, called. She wanted to meet, but I could not expect help from her, only more uncertainty. There was a fog in my head and I no longer realised when which pain came and went; whether I was awake or asleep; when I tried to see my doctor, who unfortunately was on holiday; and when I tried to contact his stand-in to make an appointment. I tried again to call Alexandra, who had not called back yet. Nobody seemed to be in Munich anymore more, everyone seemed to be on holiday already. I was all alone. Highlight When I went to bed on the evening of 03 August 2016, my shoulder was red hot. I was sitting in bed, searching for a position to ease the pain. I tried sitting on the edge of the bed, with my head hanging low and I was panting. This made the pain more bearable. The sweat ran in streams down my body. I had the feeling I smelled awfully. At 5 am I dragged myself into the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for my visit to the doctor. A spider was hanging from the ceiling in the bathroom. I tried to remove it. Oh, this pain. Nothing helped! I just wanted painkillers against these terrible stomach tensions that stemmed from this gastric acid. This was my self-diagnosis as this had happened before. With painkillers I could get rest, relax, sleep and wake without pain. Only then could I finally enjoy my well-deserved holidays and then everything would be fine. The doctor I was late for the doctor. Everything took so long and I dragged myself, heavily panting, to the surgery to see the stand-in doctor. The doctor’s assistant felt sorry for me and led me into a quiet area away from the busy waiting room. I was not aware of how long I had been waiting but when I finally saw the doctor, I told him my symptoms and also told him what I thought was the diagnosis. Tensions! Therapy: painkillers! The doctor was sceptical. He thought more along the lines of rheumatic disease and depression. Well, I did feel a bit depressed, but wanted something for the pain first! That would be helpful because I was exhausted after that night. My wish came true. I was prescribed strong painkillers, but he also took a blood sample. I didn’t mind; the main thing was to get rid of this horrible pain! Back home I took the prescribed medicine, lay down with my blanket in my comfortable armchair and felt the pain slowly ease. I fell asleep. Good. Doctors at work The telephone rang and woke me up from a deep sleep. The pain had almost disappeared, I felt much better. That’s what I told the doctor who had phoned because he was worried about the high inflammation levels in my blood. He said that I had to go to the hospital or further checks. He asked if I could come and pick up the referral form and take it to the hospital. He also said he would inform the hospital of my arrival. I packed my rucksack for the hospital stay. Günther called and I cried, saying that I was so alone. He comforted me and was wonderful in calming me down. My neighbour was at the door. I told him I had to go to the hospital and hoped I would be back home tomorrow. He offered to drive me, but I said no as it was only a short walk to the doc’s to pick up the referral form and then to the hospital. In the hospital I had to wait for my admission, then wait for the interpretation of the ECG test. The young female duty doctor nervously measured around the curves of the ECG with a ruler and disappeared. Other doctors and nurses came and took the printout with them, commenting with different views. I lay in the room on my bed for hours. When I asked if I could go home and come back another day the doctor snapped at me, saying that I should let her do her job, But now I was really scared. She seemed unsure and I was worried and felt helpless. The idea of asking for a second opinion did not come to my mind. I was too exhausted. Uncertainty on both sides The young lady doctor, who rather reminded me of my Q 12 students, might have been relieved if I had insisted that she should call for her boss for advice. I overheard a conversation when she quietly asked a colleague at what point it was okay to ask the boss for help. He replies diplomatically, any time if she felt overwhelmed. She was unsure of what to do. Other doctors and nurses came and offered opinions. There was an experienced doctor among them and suddenly someone shouted “heart attack”. All-round redemption Now everything happened quickly. I was taken to the cardiac catheter laboratory. While I was being pushed in my bed into the laboratory, I overheard the young colleague, who advised his young female colleague to call the boss if she was overwhelmed, whisper to another junior doctor how it could have happened as she had always been so competent. This proved to me that young doctors assume that heart attack patients most probably automatically suffer from loss of hearing and some young doctors are probably infighting in competition with each other. Strangely enough, I was rather relieved and not worried about the diagnosis and treatment. People now appeared to know what they were doing and talked to me in a calming manner. I could see my heart beating on the screen and the older doctor seemed relaxed. Excitedly he pointed out that the constriction probably had been building up over time and happily expressed his satisfaction with the stents he had put in. He asked me if I felt pressure in my chest. When I said yes, he stopped for the day, removed the catheter from my groin and ordered my transfer to the intensive care unit. Someone was laying beside me as I could hear beeps and hums. I was lying on my back connected to measuring devices. It was not completely dark here and it was certainly not quiet. But I was tired, probably from the sedatives, that I had been given. I did not quite understand what was going on and I was not sure whether I was asleep or just dozing. Will a heart attack have consequences? Perhaps I won’t have to work so hard anymore? The thought of being in mortal danger never occurred to me. Never mind, I was calm and felt safe and I was not alone. I can’t remember when I asked for my mobile to call Günther. I left a message on his answering machine, that I’d had a heart attack, but was fine and that under no circumstances should he contact our son in Thailand. I was no longer alone and was cared for and protected. Strangely enough, this seemed to have been the most important thing. I didn’t have to make decisions, answer a thousand questions and worry about others. For the moment, I was no longer responsible for anything. I did not think about dying, death or life’s danger. I was fearless. I knew that everything was good and would be good. Perhaps this calm knowledge that everything was going to be okay was the reason why I was in such a good shape after the operation and why my blood values were getting better, what nursing staff and the doctor were amazed to discover days later. Consequences and far-reaching changes The story of my heart attack ends here and the post-infarction period begins. I had six stents placed in three days. My heart is damaged, but I don't really feel it. My regular tablet consumption has increased from 0 to 7 a day. But I have got used to that too. The stay in a rehabilitation clinic was supposed to stabilise me and make me more confident in dealing with my illness. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite was the case. I developed panic attacks and a deep severe depression that lasted for a long time despite therapy. The health insurance company found this development extremely alarming and took action. But that's another story. In any case, my life changed fundamentally. I finally retired and very slowly began to build a new life. (TA)

(DE) It was exactly on the 1st August 1969 when my best friend, Luise, and I celebrated the first day of our future professional life. After graduating from the commercial secondary school (O-level), run by catholic nuns, then called middle school, we were to complete a one-and-a-half year’s apprenticeship as office assistants at the Local Electricity Board, starting today. Clearly, an indication of the, once again, beginning seriousness of life. This seriousness had already happened in 1959 when we started school. Entry into working life The staff responsible for apprentices like us welcomed us friendly but experienced, presented us with our training contract in a kind of ceremony and dispersed us into the various areas of responsibility of different departments. For us, these differences were, of course, not apparent. Desks, filing cabinets, telephones and electric typewriters formed the main components of our workplace. We had expected nothing else. We had been drilled in shorthand, typing, book-keeping and filing. We could do that, no question. At lunchtime, our older colleagues took us to a pub nearby where the staff ate their lunch using their luncheon vouchers. We sat there, watched closely the real office workers, heard what made them tick, and returned to the workplace, where we were assigned our first tasks. So far so good. But where did the pulling in the stomach come from? Where was the optimistic spirit of new beginnings? What should we be curious about and looking forward to? Disturbing! After a few days, we had been assigned our permanent areas of responsibility. My friend spent the whole day typing columns of numbers, and I inserted every day endlessly long rows of transfer forms into the typewriter and filled them in. A very important work, because it was the money transfers for the farmers, who maintained electricity poles on their fields and had to be compensated for them. In the evenings we both trotted desperately next to each other home. This was now to be our life?! The youth of the world cried freedom. Away with conventions! Stop the consumer mania! The Beatles and Stones suggested love and lust for life. We sat at our desks, typing what was given to us and had no feeling for freedom and lust for life. The seriousness of life clearly contained too much seriousness and too little life. Desolation Luise and I now stopped going to the restaurant at lunchtime with the others. Instead, we ate a sandwich in the nearby park and, aghast, talked to each other about the desolation of our working life that just had started. My friend was the first who drew the consequences. But that is another life story. I, on the other hand, was still paralysed and did not know what to do with my bad feelings. What was I supposed to do and want? I could not tell my parents, because getting this apprenticeship was a matter for the wider family circle. Relationships got me this apprenticeship When I was looking for an apprenticeship, I had found that I was not easy to be placed. My grades were good, that was not the problem. But my personality, my appearance and my self-presentation could not convince anyone. I was a 16-year-old girl, who had no idea who she was or where to go. Obviously, nobody else in my environment knew that either. My parents didn’t have any advice, but they had relationships. That’s why I got the apprenticeship at OBAG, even though in the interview for this post I had not excelled myself with glory. My great uncle, a respected employee of this company, stood up for me. That is an obligation, of course. Thoughts of escape However, in my distress in August 1969, I struck this obligation from my memory and turned to the career advice service at the employment agency. I can still see the well-meaning career advisor sitting in front of me today. She didn’t think it was necessary to throw the slogan “Apprenticeship years are not manly years” around. She did indeed join me in exploring my obviously very hidden needs. Nobody had done that before. And lo and behold, at the last proposal, which we put on the table with a deep sigh, my life spirits jumped up. School! Who would have thought that! Not even me would have come up with the idea in a hundred cold winters. Rays of hope and opportunity There was a grammar school for mathematics and science, where career changers, like me, were prepared to qualify in a transitional course for studying at the advanced level. Intensive French, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, English and German! A total of 3 or 4 girls studied at this grammar school. I wanted to prove myself there. Yet, school started the day after next. The school secretary took my name over the phone, but without any guarantee whether I could get a place. She told me, only when my name was called out in class the next day, then I was accepted and could finally register. After all, a chance! But what should I do with my job? I could hardly go and quit in the hope of getting in, but being at school and in the office at the same time was also not possible. So, I called in sick the next morning and trotted to school with my notice in my pocket. I somehow got through the frightening minutes from 07:45 to 08:15 and then it happened, I was called! My life had begun again! Reactions Now I would also manage to do the next two steps. First, I went to my boss in the office and gave him my notice of termination. I explained my plans to him and he was delighted. He said that I had done right. He supported my decision and let me go with best wishes for the future. I met with less understanding from my parents. My father raved; my mother cried. Finally, my father granted me a slightly higher allowance, from which I was to pay for everything except eating, drinking and living. Then he made it a condition that if I did not finish this school year successfully, I would have to go to a factory to work and was not even allowed to do another apprenticeship. Throughout this year he hardly spoke to me. I am glad that he and nobody else realised that as a minor I could not make such decisions without the consent of my parents or guardians. Consequences I barely made it through this course, but then moved on to a newly established economics grammar school, where I took my A-levels. Finally, I studied German Language and Literature and Social Studies and, after some professional detours, became a secondary school teacher. My father did never come to terms with my professional development. After all, I would have been able to get a building society contract, to become a head secretary, to enter into a contract with my boss man and would have been able to build a house. Instead, I led an unstable life, but that is another story. All my life I was happy about my decision. As a mother and teacher in similar situations I have always remembered how helplessly I searched my way as a 16-year-old and what ultimately helped me to do it: Showing possibilities without pressure to make decisions, as the careers adviser did; as well as acceptance and positive encouragement, as my boss showed. (TA)

Jens Mühling: "Black Earth. A Journey through Ukraine". The Armchair Traveller; Translation edition (19 Aug. 2019) "But for all the stories of life, love and suffering that I have placed at the centre of my book, I hope that they can still make Ukraine as a country comprehensible even when the headlines have long since changed," writes Jens Mühling in March 2018 in the foreword to the paperback edition of his travel report on his experiences and observations during a journey criss-crossing Ukraine in 2015. And the headlines are different in 2023 when I am writing this book recommendation, and they are not. The war, which at the time of his trip was limited to the separatist areas in the Donbas, has evolved into Russia's war against Ukraine, now also supported by Nato. Crimea, just annexed by Russia in 2015, is now also a theatre of war. All these events move world politics today, while the events of 2015 when he travelled to the country, and in the following years, when the book was published, only concerned world public opinion for a short time. What has changed greatly since Jens Mühling travelled through Ukraine from the Polish border, through the Carpathian region, the southern Black Sea coast and Crimea, the central Ukrainian steppe areas, the embattled Donbas region behind the front to the eastern Russian border, is the image that Europeans have of the country and its people. While in 2015, most Western Europeans could hardly distinguish Russia from Ukraine, today; many have almost patriotic feelings for Ukraine and its people. Heroic, suffering freedom fighters rally unanimously in the eyes of Western Europeans behind their president Volodymyr Selensky, who is omnipresent on the international stage, or so the image goes. Often one does not need to know more. But if you do, this book is ideal for getting to know Ukrainians of different regions, origins, backgrounds, religions, political convictions, social status and education, professions and with different life stories. Jens Mühling has an extraordinary talent for turning his encounters with people into encounters of the reader with these people. One smiles, laughs uproariously, is startled or shocked, amazed at other perspectives and slowly understands the diversity that is probably an important characteristic of Ukraine. What is particularly interesting in 2023, the year of the war, are the hostile political positions within the population in 2015. The author gets to talk to hardcore communists who mourn the Soviet Union and believe every word, adhering to every conspiracy theory spread by Russian media. In contrast to the somewhat crotchety old communists, the supporters of the OUN (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) and admirers of the former UPA (Bandera Army in the Second World War, which had allied itself with the German fascists) are determined and not at all squeamish fighters for an independent Ukraine. And the supporters of the nationalists also spout abstruse conspiracy theories in the talks. Finding one's own national identity is a major preoccupation for many of the interlocutors and leads to great historical roundabouts about "Muscovites", "Peter the Great", "Kievan Rus", and identity theft by Russia on a grand scale. And when the author only wants to comment vaguely, the Ukrainian who sketched this historical picture says: "This is not a theory, this is the truth! I am a tractor mechanic, and if even I know that, it must be true!" and No one can counter such an argument, can they?! But Jens Mühling is not concerned with proselytising and persuasion, although his attitude is quite recognisable. He wants to introduce the characters, the unconventionality of the Ukrainians, their attitudes to life in different life situations. Many stories are told that leave deep impressions. But it is not only these human encounters that make this book so exciting. Jörg Mühling sometimes goes far back in history to old myths and legends that live on in regional traditions. His descriptions not only convey views of landscapes and towns but also make the atmosphere of these places and regions tangible. I read this book breathlessly, not only because I have my own little experiences of Ukraine, not only because I learned so many new things, but also because this book is excellently written. Jens Mühling can certainly be called a connoisseur of Russia and Ukraine because he worked for the "Moscow German Newspaper" for two years and has repeatedly travelled to both countries as a journalist and "story collector". After this encounter with Ukraine and its people, I have a great desire also to get to know Russia and its people with the help of Jens Mühling. Therefore, I will be reading Jens Mühling's “A Journey into Russia”, The Armchair Traveller at the BookHaus; Reprint edition (1 Sept. 2015) soon. (TA)

(UK) I have enjoyed living in England, or more precisely in London, as a German for more than 25 years. I studied public health here, carried out evaluations in the health system, trained health professionals at university, married an Englishman, did engage in the local community; we closely followed the social and political developments and made our opinions known. In recent years, we have had to watch helplessly as this country has changed. The United Kingdom, always known for eccentrics like the royal family, the businessman with bowler hat and umbrella, but also wealthy, conservative and influential people, is, unlike Germany, a country with pronounced arrogance of class, a social snobbery, and a deep gap between rich and poor, between educated and uneducated. During the past few years, representatives of this wealthy, influential elite have exerted more and more influence on politicians and, thus, on the country’s politics. And this is not necessarily to the benefit of society as a whole. Brexit is just one example of how large parts of the population were indoctrinated with brazen lies and slogans for flimsy profiling reasons to switch off their sense of reality and vote for Brexit. Right now (autumn 2021), we are experiencing the results: empty supermarket shelves, petrol stations without petrol, the mass emergency slaughter of pigs, milk being thrown away in huge quantities, and so on! Why? There is a shortage of skilled workers such as lorry drivers and the manufacturing food industry, and service sector workers from the EU who worked in the UK for years and then had to leave the UK because of Brexit. There would be much more to say about Brexit, but that is a topic for another article series. So instead, my focus in this post is on the Covid 19 crisis and how the political elite deals with it. The Government of Multimillionaires have no idea how much a litre of milk over a loaf of bread costs Our current Conservative Government is not called for nothing, the Government of multimillionaires who have no idea how much a litre of milk or a loaf of bread costs. A closer look reveals that most cabinet members enjoyed an education at highly prestigious and costly public schools, many at Eton. Most went on to study at the prestigious universities of Oxford and Cambridge. So people have known each other for decades and have friendly, economical and sometimes family ties. In addition, the current cabinet members were chosen for their loyalty to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Brexit ambitions. Specific skills, knowledge, experience and the ability to innovate, all needed in government work, were probably not a selection criterion. At least what the track record shows. In the Corona years of 2020/21, reinforced by Brexit, it became clear as never before that elites are definitely not the appropriate people’s or government’s representatives in a crisis. Their instilled fundamental attitude is profoundly undemocratic; the principle of equality features only to a limited extent in their socialisation. A Latin saying sums up the elitist self-image. “Quod licet jovi non licet bovi.” Translated, this means, “What Jupiter is allowed to do, the ox is not allowed to do." This elitist attitude of aloofness and superiority of a specific class has always annoyed me. Still, in the Covid crisis, it has cost lives and livelihoods because of the incompetence and detachment of reality that goes with it. To avoid losing sight of the political elite’s failure in the UK, I have spent months researching publicly available sources. Rather than giving in to my anger, frustration, and helplessness emotionally in the form of ranting and screaming, I decided to write down the factual, fact-based background. I am trying to document the ruling elite’s failure in dealing with Covid by giving examples and making the stereotype of elitist behaviour visible. We must not forget the irresponsibility and incompetence of the ruling elites in this crisis. That is what I am trying to achieve here. My analysis is divided into several areas and includes: The priorities of the elite The common-sense mantra Sleaze, Cronyism, Mismanagement in the Covid Crisis Advising the Government: Struggle to be heard and Independence Boris’ Partygate – an Attack on Democracy An example of the physical embodiment of arrogance, a sense of entitlement, disrespect and contempt for Parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons, is seen relaxed across three seats sprawled during an emergency debate in Parliament on Brexit ahead of a crucial vote. See below. that elite #Covid #Failure #Mismanagement #chumocracy #politicalelite #cronyism #sleaze #politicalfailure

(IRN/UK) When sitting in the cinema and watching a film shot in extreme locations, hardly anyone has an idea of what goes on behind the scenes and the stresses and strains this can mean for the crew, especially for the technicians of the film production. Working for an American-Iranian film production in Iran gave me first-hand experience of what a hard job this is for the crew. The film production team was based a few hours' drive down the road towards the Pakistan border. Our desert film locations were well away from the road where we couldn't take the Cinemobile, which my friend and I were responsible for, and its equipment to the filming area because of the sand and rough terrain. So instead, we'd load large reflector boards, and the heavy folding tripods needed to support them onto smaller trucks, drive as close as we could, and then carry them across the sand dunes beneath the blazing sun to the film location. This was hard, dusty work, and you could imagine what we looked like after a day of filming in the desert. One compensation of these big reflector boards was they made effective sunshades for us, the technical team, as there were no trees or shade anywhere. You'd be surprised how many people could fit underneath one of these two square meter-wide boards during the hottest part of the day. Before coming to Iran, I thought all deserts were made of golden sand. The idea of the desert was probably influenced somewhat by watching the film on Lawrence of Arabia. This desert certainly wasn't. Instead, the sand was dark and sprinkled with ankle-breaking, fist-sized lumps of black lava. At the end of a day's filming, we'd return to our accommodation, a desolate, small adobe building. Next to this building was a water bowser and two simple shower cubicles, and there was always a race to be first back. This was for a practical reason. Each of us wanted to have a warm shower, or at least a shower at all, to wash off the dust and sweat of the day. The sun heated the water in the bowser, and the last ones back sometimes got the dregs, or worse, no water. Once the bowser was empty, it took days before it was refilled. The electricity also flowed sparsely. There was a small generator with just enough juice to power a few lights, not enough to power a ventilator or an air-conditioning unit. So we lay in our beds, simple metal cots on thin foam mattresses beneath mosquito nets and the sweat poured out of us in our hot and airless room. However, there were compensations. There was no light pollution in the desert, and looking up at the canopy of stars was breathtaking, especially when there was a full moon; because you felt so close, you only had to reach out to touch the stars or the moon. We were working with the Baluchi tribesmen. They were working as extras in the film as they were great horsemen. They camped nearby beneath the stars, together with their horses and well away from our resident Iranian secret policeman. They were fearsome men and were known for their smuggling skills. I recall a story I was once told about them; how true the story is, I couldn't say. The military sometimes sent soldiers to try to contain the Baluchi tribesmen. On this occasion, they captured the soldiers' commanding officer, crucified him to a door, cut off his manhood and pushed it down his throat. It was a long time before they sent another unit of soldiers. I got on well with Baluchis; they often would invite me to their camp in the evening. They smoked opium around the campfire, and when I was suffering from dysentery, they'd offer me a pipe to ease my cramps, and I must say that it worked. My dysentery and lack of pure water were draining me literally and physically, and I was constantly thirsty. Unfortunately, the provision of drinking water for the crew, particularly for me in my condition, was not guaranteed. Large chunks of ice would be transported to our location on the back of a truck for the location caterers. This ice was not covered and was full of dust and sand. I needed fluid, and the tea provided by the caterers didn't quench my thirst. I had only one option: chip down into the block to find clean ice and put it into a mug to melt and so quench my thirst. This was, of course, contra-productive for my dysentery. I found out much later, when I'd returned to England that one of the production managers had been tasked with supplying soft drinks, such as Coke Cola, for the crew. I was so dehydrated I had to drink the iced water, which exacerbated my problem. This production manager pocketed the money, and I would dearly like to meet this guy one day. The lack of pure water certainly did not help the healing process after my operation. The wound would fill with pus, and I frequently had to drain the wound by squeezing it. I was also starting to collapse on location, and then my colleagues had to carry me into the shade of a reflector board. The production company had another cash flow problem and couldn't pay the crew, so we drove back to Tehran. I decided to leave the film and return to the UK as soon as we reached Tehran, as I feared for my health. I returned to the UK and went straight to my doctor for tests. The results of the tests showed that I had amoebic dysentery and that I needed to rest to recover fully. Unfortunately, the Iranian co-production didn't last much longer and folded without completing the film. I'm still owed approximately £2000. OK, poor in monetary terms, but rich in experiences and stories like this one – and I survived. (DL)

In the 70s, I had been working in London for a film equipment rental company called Lee Electric and was in-between jobs when a friend of mine phoned me with a job offer. He worked for an American film equipment rental company called Cinemobile, which was based in Pinewood Film Studios on the outskirts of London. Cinemobile had several purpose-built vehicles. One of these was built around a German Neoplan coach chassis, and inside it was a generator and several compartments to house cameras, sound and lighting equipment. Cinemobile had been hired by an Iranian/American co-production to supply the equipment to make a film in Iran. This friend asked me to join him on this job. I accepted, and shortly after, we flew out to Tehran to meet the co-production team and to organize a film crew of electricians to make this film. The vehicle was put onto a low-loader and then driven overland to Tehran by a specialized company. We met with the production company in Tehran and discussed our tasks in the film production. We were responsible for the Cinemobile, and that all its equipment was functioning and ready at the film locations. The majority of the film locations would be in the desert down in the southeast corner of Iran. Bam is in Kerman Province, situated in the southeast of Iran, and is the last town of any size before the Pakistan border town of Zahedan. The distance by road from Bam to our diverse film locations was just around 500 miles/800 km and could take many hours. The film unit itself decided on Bam as a base since there were shops and other facilities. It also gave the film crew a break from the harsh reality of the isolated desert locations we would be working in, which were a few hours’ drive along the road towards Zahedan. We also needed an interpreter because the local electrical technicians who worked for the Tehran film production company and many of the students from the local university who assisted us with general tasks could not speak English. In Iran, in the mid-70s, nothing was possible without the authorisation of the Iranian Secret Service, known as the SAVAK. This includes the secret police, domestic security and the intelligence services. Therefore, as part of the co-production deal, we had to have a member of the Savak on the payroll to keep an eye on us. He was pleasant enough, even though he was a member of the secret police. Yes, everyone was careful of what they said when he was nearby. He was useful, too, as he became the go-between between the American camera crew and sound people and the local drug dealers. The drug policy in Iran during that time was complicated. On the one hand, the strict drug laws were not able to curb the widespread traditional use of opium by the population. On the other hand, the Iranian state also wanted to profit from the monopoly of opium cultivation. The transport of the equipment from Tehran to Bam and to the various film locations in the desert and back was important for the success of the film production. My friend and I shared the driving of the Cinemobile when we set off from Tehran towards Bam. We were followed by the film crew technicians, together with our interpreter and the secret policeman in their cars. We were on the road for several days, stopping overnight at various roadside hotels/guesthouses because the distance between Tehran and Bam was around 750 miles/1200 km. The road conditions took a lot of getting used to, and driving was sometimes challenging. You have to drive the roads to get a true perspective as to why it takes so long to drive south, toward the Pakistan border, in Iran. Detours have to be made at regular intervals to overcome the rough desert terrain. Convoys of international trucks constantly making their way to and from Pakistan have worn the dusty desert road surface into tracks that, in turn, have been pounded into deep ruts during the rains. After the rains, these ruts are baked into the consistency of concrete by the sun and summer heat. There were other hazards too. Localized flash flooding can wash away the roads. During these times, the convoys of trucks would pummel the road until it turned to gravel. I passed one particular spot several times whilst driving from Bam to our desert location and watched a small rut in the road grow over time into a crater ten meters wide and over a meter deep. It was fascinating to watch these international trucks slow to a crawl before dipping and swaying, like some huge prehistoric monster, down into these craters and then slowly edging their way back up onto the road on the other side. Sometimes the road was so bad the trucks had to find a way through the desert sand beside the road for quite a distance to regain the road. This German Neoplan coach chassis of our Cinemobile was heavy and had air suspension and low ground clearance. We had to drive with great care from Tehran to our desert location and take time-consuming detours around these washed-out stretches of road. Only once were we caught out, and that was during our first drive from Tehran down to Bam. A door of the Cinemobile burst open, and several pieces of expensive camera gear fell out because we couldn’t stop in time and drove into one of these craters, and it took hours of digging to get the Cinemobile out again. After this experience, we roped the doors closed as an extra precaution and paid extra attention to the road ahead, especially during the middle of the day when the summer heat made you drowsy. We travelled this road between Tehran and Bam frequently because the American side of the co-production sometimes had a cashflow problem, sometimes for weeks at a time. Under these circumstances, it was cheaper for the production company to have us drive back to Tehran, stand the local crew down and put the rest of us in a local hotel until more money arrived. Then we returned to Bam again. I remember very well one particular drive down from Tehran to Bam when winter was gradually turning into spring. We got totally stuck in the desert sand, manoeuvring around an area where the flash floods had washed away the road. We got out of the vehicle, lay down on our bellies and started to scrape away the sand from the wheels with our bare hands. The Iranian electricians were following us in their cars, and we gesticulated to them to come and help us. They just stood there, jumping frantically up and down and wouldn’t come to help. We were shouting and cursing them, and they, in turn, were shouting back at us. So we continued scraping the sand away on our bellies until we could continue our drive. We were very angry. The interpreter had already gone ahead to our next hotel/guesthouse stop for the night, and we’d decided to have a group meeting with the electricians to tell them we all worked as a team, and that included digging out the Cinemobile when it got bogged down in the sand. The meeting started off frostily, and we told them, through the interpreter, what we expected of them, and they, in turn, explained why they didn’t come to help. The reason why they were frantically jumping up and down, and shouting was to stop us digging. The Iranians wanted to warn us. Why? Because the place we’d got stuck was known as an area where the snakes burrowed into the desert sand to hibernate during the winter months. The beer was on us that night! (DL)

(DE) An apparently insignificant incidence from my childhood is still in my memory today, more than 60 years later, probably because it reflects the position of a child at that time in all its facets. “I know better than you what’s going on in the sandbox. If I show up there with the carnival ballerina skirt, which now, all of a sudden is supposed to be a summer skirty, then everyone will laugh at me!”, I protested when my mother forced me to go to play in the sandbox in our courtyard in the carnival costume of the last season. It was the beginning of the summer but no one had had time to take me shopping for a summer dress, so my wardrobe did not yet contain any suitable clothes for a hot summer day. I would have preferred to sweat in warm clothes or not play at all, rather than trudge into the sandpit in the middle of summer dressed in a fancy dress. I was maybe five years old and had quite a bit of sandbox and backyard experience. “Nobody will laugh at you! Don’t be so grumpy! You will wear this now! Done! Don’t argue!” My mother’s resolute speech left me no room for escape from the embarrassment that I expected. Assertion, accusation, command – of course, I had nothing to counter. I shuffled slowly to the sandbox, watched by my mother from the second-floor window. Her intention was not to protect me from possible attacks but to check whether I did follow her instructions and whether I might have slipped away into a corner of the yard playing alone with my little bucket and shovel. She would not have tolerated that, because on a beautiful summer day I was supposed to be playing and having fun with other children in the sandbox. She was convinced that as a mother you know better what a child likes and what is good for her. When I, dressed in my tutu, hesitantly approached the sandbox full of playing children, I was greeted with the expected jeering laughter and the teasing question: “Is it carnival now?” I didn’t have a good standing in the sandbox that day, and I didn’t have much fun either. I had been right, but absolutely no one was interested in that before or after. What children liked, wanted and were able to do in the 50s and 60s was only of secondary importance. Their liking, wanting and ability were determined and controlled by their parents. And if children didn’t like, want or know how to do something, they had to learn it, if necessary the hard way. In the eyes of adults, children were little unfinished beings, not yet real people. Therefore, they had to be forcibly moulded and shaped into a certain image. That‘s if parents took their duty seriously. The idea of how the child had to be and how it should become was, of course, as always, shaped by the family background, the social status and the spirit of the times. What was it like for me? My family background is quite typical for the reconstruction phase of the 1950s and 1960s. Both sides of my very young parents’ families of origin were incomplete. My father’s father was badly injured in the war, and my mother’s father was absent. Both families were from the working class. However, while my grandparents’ war pension was enough to get by, my maternal grandmother only had a meagre pension and had to rely on social benefits and the support of her children. This is why my grandmother, who raised me, was completely unaffected by the zeitgeist of the economic miracle, status symbols, travel, sports and leisure activities. My parents, on the other hand, seem to be true children of their time in this respect. They put all their heart and soul into getting bicycles, then a scooter, finally a car, elegant clothes, etc., the blessings of the economic miracle. Material things became the basis of happiness for the whole family. Later, my father would always say: “You had everything, even though I’m just a worker. I worked a lot of overtime so we could afford all these luxuries.” Two more factors seem to be worth mentioning if one wants to understand my family’s educational efforts. Today, my family would be described as being uneducated. Higher school, academics, literature beyond the trivial literature of romances novels and detective stories, theatre, opera, concerts, music beyond the world of pop songs, etc. played no role. They belonged to a different world that was poorly understood. My grandmother with her love of operettas and “Wunschkonzert” was a cultural slip. The other factor to consider is that my parents, both born in 1933, had grown up during the Nazi era. Although social democracy had already been the political orientation of choice for my great-grandmother, my parents had nevertheless internalised certain attitudes to life and beliefs. Internalised beliefs There are ideals in every era, they are self-evident things that one absorbs with one’s mother’s milk, so to speak, and which are automatically adopted from the previous generation. In the 1950s, it was still evident that physical training – “tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel, fast as greyhounds” (Nazi propaganda) – had been a high value in the first half of the 20th century and continued to be important. Whereas the nationalist idea of the Volksgemeinschaft was increasingly replaced by the individualism of the capitalist market economy. Only in my mother’s case was a certain reluctance to be too self-interested. While she was very careful that the nice clothes she wore were not also worn by her neighbours and friends, she hated it when someone freely said: “I want. “It’s always me, me, me!” she would grumble angrily to herself. A remnant not only of the Nazi upbringing was the existence of an inner weakness or temptation (in German called der Innere Schweinehund) in every human being that had to be overcome. This inner Schweinehund sums up laziness, inertia and laziness. Only what is hard-won through self-conquest, similar to the original understanding of jihad, has value. The harder the more glorious! Sayings like “You make it easy for yourself!” or “You take the path of least resistance!” still have negative connotations today. Overcoming the inner weakling With regard to physical exercise, I saw no reason why I should overcome this inner weakness. I always liked listening to or reading stories, sleeping in late and eating treats more than anything. I had no burning desire for the latest scooter, bike, skis and other sports equipment. I much preferred playing with children, which included skating and rollerblading for fun, or sitting with one of my grandmothers and listening to stories of the past, or practising painting alongside my postcard-painting grandfather. Nevertheless, I got all the new stuff from the world of sports because that was important to my father and he assumed that it must also make me happy. But I just wanted to have fun and dream. Basta! Sweating like hell and making a horrendous physical effort was not for me. Nevertheless, I learned to swim at an early age, actually on a Sunday afternoon in the small river Regen. Standing in shallow water, my father lovingly showed me how to make the movements that keep you afloat, and then he threw me in. I went under with my eyes wide open, but was thankfully pulled out, put back in the water and by the end of the day I could swim. The inner weakness that I had to overcome at the beginning of the training for the sake of my father was no longer a problem for me. Enjoying myself splashing around in the water, diving and playing suited me. When it came to swimming competitively, however, I was no longer interested. Training and swimming lanes bored me. Out! I lacked ambition, I had no bite. It drove my father crazy because in his eyes I could have done it if only I had wanted to. At times, my father’s enthusiasm for sports was a dreaded phenomenon for me and my inner weakling. For example, my father had the obsession for a while that hiking in the forest and observing forest animals was a good thing and contributed to general education as well as physical exercise. So hiking boots, rucksacks and rain jackets were bought, as well as two pairs of binoculars, a small one for me and a large one for him and my mother. This ranger-like undertaking meant that we had to get up on Sunday mornings before dawn, which meant 4 a.m. in the summer because the forest animals have such an insane biorhythm. We crept through the woods, lay in wait or sat in the high seats and stared at the clearings. Wherever I stood, sat or lay there was a danger of me falling asleep all Sunday. What a pain! My mother, who wanted to imitate the ideal image of a sporty woman, concentrated more on the image than on perfecting the sport. She wore her fancy sports clothes with great self-confidence and looked handsome in them. That was at least something. To this day, I have a deep aversion to sporting challenges that are not primarily associated with enjoyment. I love cycling leisurely in a beautiful landscape with the goal of a beer garden; skiing in good weather on an almost empty slope and only from the late morning when it’s warmer; going swimming where it’s nice and a picnic with friends is on the agenda; mountain climbing of no more than an hour with a mountain hut as the goal; golfing without competition; all kinds of ball games where there’s a lot of laughter and no one develops excessive ambition, etc. All these things work. Torment and overcoming one’s inner weakling do not work at all. Or we had to get up at 5 a.m. in winter to be the first at the ski lift in Sankt Englmar because our family had discovered skiing. What had worked for swimming could unfortunately not be repeated for skiing. I had reached my athletic limits. And so I more or less successfully ploughed down the idiot hill. I hated getting up early, was tired all day and then had to prove my non-existing sportiness. “Don’t be like that! Pull yourself together!” were the prompts to motivate me and besides, the whole day was about that damn inner weakling that had to be overcome. Why is that? And yet another common belief troubled me as a child. You can learn anything if you want to! Of course, this attitude meant that it was always your own fault if you couldn’t do something because you didn’t want to learn it. In my family, this desire to learn was not so much related to academic achievement. My parents only expected average results in school. Their educational goals focused more on the development of practical life skills. In my case, it was not only my (lack of) sportiness but my whole personality that should have been changed. As a child in need of harmony, I did not assert myself but always gave in, liked to share my possessions with others, even to my detriment, and was helpless in the face of bullying. My father often and at length told me that I had to learn to assert myself and fight back. He wanted to teach me behavioural strategies that would make me a fierce Amazon in the backyard. It would have been worth five marks to him if I had punched the bad guys in the face. In vain! I remained sweet and helpless and a disappointment to my father. An unathletic, good-natured, dreamy, somewhat chubby child! Did I have any abilities at all that could be developed in the eyes of my parents? Unfortunately, the things I might have been able to do and would have liked to do were not seen as skills in their world of imagination. I still remember, for example, that my teacher in the 5th or 6th grade drew my parents’ attention to my essays that seemed particularly literary or exceptionally imaginative to him. Writing and reading and making up stories, i.e. dreaming, were favourite pastimes for me. I used my pocket-money to buy new notebooks in which I wrote poems and texts, which I then discarded. Since there was no promotion or appreciation, my efforts came to nothing. In painting, too, I naturally remained at a dilettant level, because there was no course or anything similar to ensure that I could have learned the craft. In matters of sport, I would have been promoted immediately. And how! I liked to be an actress. As an adult, I enjoyed being an assistant director and stage photographer. I didn’t have to overcome any inner resistance when it came to theatre either. Rehearsals, constant repetitions, stage fright, being on stage, I enjoyed it all. I’m clearly someone who likes to be in the spotlight. As a teenager, I even ruined my tailbone from devotion to my role. To express my surprise on stage, I plopped down on my buttocks from the stand. And I did that several times, at every rehearsal with a cushion, at every performance without a cushion. I loved going to the cinema, with the grandma of course, and maybe once or twice there was a children’s performance at the theatre. Impressive! Inspiring! A fantastic world! For weeks I continued to retell the stories, changed them, put myself in the place of certain characters. A child with too much imagination! But my parents couldn’t relate to any of these talents and interests of mine. It would never have occurred to them that there could be potential here worth promoting. Uneducated family? Zeitgeist? When I think about the opportunities that existed in the 1980s and 1990s for my son, who was also musically gifted and interested, and the low-threshold offers that children and young people could access today, and how few of them there were in my childhood, then the different priorities in education become clear. In the 1950s and 1960s, musical activities were not available to the masses in the Federal Republic of Germany; they were a privilege for the upper classes. In the GDR it was different. But others can tell you about that. The adults in my environment and in general in the 50s and 60s in my home country were not bothered to put themselves in the shoes of children, because there was nothing significant and unchangeable to discover. The requirement for a good upbringing was that the child is taught, indoctrinated, instructed in the right feelings, thoughts and behaviour…just pressed into this unfinished being. Some children fitted into the ideas of their families and their time, and for them this upbringing was beneficial. But woe betide if they didn’t! Those who had other dreams were ridiculed, disillusioned, made to feel uncertain and remained very lonely. It doesn’t have to be physical violence that later blocks you in your search for your own abilities and your own goals. If one constantly disappoints others’ expectations or if one’s achievements, abilities and talents are not appreciated or even promoted, then that is not very helpful either. You lose faith in yourself. What became of me? In fact, I fought against my family’s will to get a higher education and studied German language and literature, politics and history. These are not exactly subjects that seemed particularly impressive to my parents. However, I not only taught literature in schools as a teacher, but also wrote texts throughout my life, either just for myself or in form of articles for newspapers, sometimes as PR texts and always as narratives for my pupils. I earned my living with all this for years. And when I got the opportunity, I learned to be an assistant director with a director who worked with amateurs. Unpaid, of course, but I was completely dedicated and fascinated by this creative task. I developed analytical skills that constantly lead to new ideas. And I love visual expression, I surround myself with exciting photographs and discover inspiring ideas in picture exhibitions. Even my decades-long involvement with astrology can be traced back to my fondness for images, characters and analysis. In fact, I have made something out of my talents, although they were not nurtured in my childhood. But I never had the self-confidence and self-assurance necessary to develop ambition and bite. For a long time, actually, until today, I have been searching for my path, my destiny. I have the feeling that my view of myself is very blurred by a veil. Personally, I developed a rather fragile self-confidence in my abilities late in life. The insecurity is always greater than the success. And of course, I still feel guilty when I can’t do something because it means that I actually just don’t want to do it. Naturally, I then also have inhibitions about seeking and accepting help. But what touched me very much was that my father discovered his artistic and creative side as an old man and we even created small works of art together. He was even very fond of classical music and sometimes we read the same books. This side had not had a chance to develop in his youth either. I felt a little rehabilitated by this experience. Comparison to today The view of the child in the 1950s was dominated by the need to educate. You almost get the impression that adults believed that there was a little devil in every child that had to be exorcised. And even if you had a little angel in front of you, you had to harden this being to make it fit for life. The danger of a child taking the wrong path was omnipresent. You had to take preventative measures. No question about it! Kids were considered as basically lazy and too playful. At best, they had too much imagination and at worst, they lied about everything. Some tricked and others were too dreamy, unintentionally funny and clumsy to the point of being completely awkward or talentless. These imperfections had to be smoothed out through education if one wished to create valuable members of society. The character and future personality had to be instilled by quite different means. The aim was to mould the conformist and uncritical citizen. People were not aware of the contradictions for a long time until in the late 1960s young people began to stand up and protest until reform educationalists experimented with other approaches and methods, and for my generation “Summerhill” became the ultimate model for all learning and relationships. Today, in the 2000s, the goal of education is mostly understood in a very different way. Parents and teachers should strive to discover the potential in the child, make it visible and promote it. So much for the theory. Whether the principle of the “Nuremberg funnel”, i.e. filling pupils with vast amounts of knowledge, has actually been overcome, I rather doubt it, but at least the scope for promotion is more extensive than in the 1950s and 1960s. In schools, efforts are certainly being made to promote abilities and to identify limits and deal with them in a constructive way. However, in my experience, not much has changed for children from educationally disadvantaged families and from the socially marginalised. In most cases, the family’s attitude and the idea of what the child should and can become are decisive. While some are able to grow up with the silver spoon in the mouth, others, less fortunate, move in the limited world of a milieu characterised by resignation. Only some reach for the stars. The others have the scissors in their heads. Your experiences? Your view? These are my experiences with the beliefs of my childhood, of my social background in my home country. Of course, it would be very interesting to hear and read about other experiences. Later generations, too, have been exposed to certain taken-for-granted beliefs as children, which probably differ from what I experienced. Or perhaps not much has changed at all! (TA)

LL: UK/DE: Whenever I am in a non-European country for a few weeks or months, whether on holiday or for work, I have this impending feeling of dread that someone in my family might get sick and I wouldn't be able to get home in time. Thanks to the internet, this fear is a little less, because now you can be in touch and up to date across continents. Also, since I moved to London 25 years ago, I feel like I live more or less almost around the corner and can cross the 17-mile-wide English Channel quickly and easily if needed. Unfortunately, I was to be painfully proved wrong in the Spring of 2021. The news of my big sister’s terminal illness, the new travel conditions due to Brexit and the restrictions and regulations of the Covid 19 pandemic revived my almost-forgotten nightmare of being late. First paralysed and helpless, then desperate and finally determined, I took up the fight for the possibility of one last meeting with my sister. Saying goodbye in times of Covid and Brexit is the story I would like to tell here. Pandemic control in the UK When my husband and I returned to London from three months of volunteering in India in February 2020, we were still sceptical about the general Covid hysteria. In India, the pandemic had not yet become an issue, but other existential problems were occupying people’s minds. However, the explosive nature of the pandemic soon became clear to us in my adopted country, the UK, in Europe and throughout the world. Lockdown and isolation were the order of the day to stop the spread of the Covid pandemic. In all countries, regulations were introduced, measures taken and enforced under threat of punishment. Borders were closed. Quarantine, curfew and contact restrictions meant that friends and families could not visit each other or could only do so on a strictly limited basis. Travel abroad was banned. The UK, that's where I live, had been hit particularly hard due to the government’s hesitant, delayed and inadequate action. We have the highest infection and death rates (currently close to 127,000 - April 2021) in Europe, and there are a variety of mutations that make the virus unpredictable. No wonder the whole of Europe has closed its borders to us to keep out the British virus. In vain, as we know today at the time of writing, April 2021. Travel is strictly forbidden. Covid has changed our lives to an extent we could never have imagined. The bad news And just at this point in time, my sister has been diagnosed with an inoperable stage 4 glioblastoma brain tumour, the most aggressive of all brain tumours. All I want to do is visit her and comfort her. What a nightmare! It tears my heart apart that I can’t go. As a public health professional, I know only too well how important all these measures are to contain the pandemic. I am always upset when people don’t wear a mask when shopping or on the bus, don’t keep their distance when jogging and, worse, continue to meet up with friends or go on holiday, regardless of the possible fatal consequences. And now I am faced with this dilemma. I struggle with myself. I’m torn between accepting and rebelling. Finally, before I completely lose it, I start to study the Covid regulations to find a way to get from England to Germany that is within the guidelines, i.e. legal and safe for all. I had no idea at the beginning how big this task would be, how much uncertainty one would have to learn to live with and how much one would have to rely on the goodwill and support of people in authorities and of friends. Luckily, my husband David was on my side throughout this whole process and supported me. Otherwise, I might have given up. Each country we have to enter on our journey has its own regulations. England, France, Belgium and Germany are constantly changing their rules due to the dynamics of the pandemic. Bureaucratic language is user-hostile and vague and can easily be misinterpreted. Add to this, thanks to Brexit, as of 1 January 2021 (only a few weeks ago), the UK is no longer part of the EU but has a third-country status. Whilst travel within the EU is still largely permitted, entry from third countries is very difficult. Need for clarification, clarification and more clarification…. The first question to be answered is whether I am allowed to travel and whether my British husband, David, is allowed to accompany me. The message of every country is: travel is undesirable, not allowed, not possible. But, of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Diplomats, business people and nurses and commercial travellers are allowed to travel. I vaguely remember Prince Charles visiting Greece with his wife Camilla during this period. Well, we do not belong to this group of people, and therefore the search continues. It is also permitted to travel for humanitarian reasons, such as for one’s own medical treatment or because of serious illness or the death of a first-degree relative. However, my initial euphoria quickly evaporates. Siblings, I soon realise, are, according to the German concept of family relationships, 2nd-degree relatives; 1st-degree relatives are parents and children. My disappointment is great, and in all the chaos of regulations, I almost overlooked the obvious. As in every country, the entry regulations of the Federal Republic of Germany stipulate that German citizens may enter Germany at any time, as may their married partners, even if they come from a third country. Bingo! But I have been living and working in England for 25 years and have not been resident in Germany since and I am also no longer a German taxpayer. To be on the safe side, I enquire with the German Embassy and the Federal Police and ask friends who are familiar with public health regulations and the corresponding bureaucratic jargon for their interpretation of the regulations. The Federal Police immediately inform me that I am allowed to enter as a German, and so is my husband, as long as he travels with me. Okay. My friends also confirm that I am right. Good. Now I’ll have double- and triple-checked everything before I start preparing and implementing. After all, we are in the middle of a pandemic; this is all new territory as the UK is now outside the EU, and this is beyond anybody’s experience! As always, the devil is in the detail! How should we travel? The fastest and cheapest way would, of course, be by plane (1 ½ hrs London – Stuttgart), but direct flights are currently few and far between. From London to Frankfurt would be possible, but we’d have to change to a train and then S-Bahn to get to the town where my sister lives, and the risk of contracting Covid is far higher. The risk is lower if you can drive from door to door and only stop for petrol or a pee break. Okay, so the car it is! However, it is February, and it’s still winter in Germany. Winter tyres or all-season tyres are required by law. Winter tyres are not known in England. It only snows once every few years here in London and then only a few centimetres which melts immediately. We order all-season tyres with the snowflake symbol, so we can travel legally. £460, a sensible investment also for future travels to the European mainland! Okay, that’s taken care of too. Since Brexit, we need an International Driving Permit, as well as our UK driving licences to drive in most countries in the EU. I had to exchange my German driving licence for a British one 20 years ago to be able to drive legally here, in the UK. To obtain an International Driving Permit, you go to any major post office. However, this is all new territory, and nobody knows exactly how to do it yet, so it takes a while. The person dealing with us at the counter has to consult his colleagues first, and we finally leave the post office with our freshly stamped IDs. We have all learned something new about the consequences of Brexit. More challenges come with the UK leaving the EU. Since Brexit, we also need a green insurance card for our car to be fully insured in the EU. When I request one from the insurance company, I am told it can only be done online and it would take at least two weeks. However, we plan to leave in five days, as I don’t know how long my sister will last. My nephew’s phone updates are frightening, and even when I see her via Skype, I can clearly see how the disease progresses. Finally, David finds a phone number of a very helpful insurance employee with whom we could talk and present our concerns. Of course, there isn’t a problem! She promises to issue the green insurance card immediately and send it by email. All we have to do is print it out, preferably on green paper. Really, within 5 minutes, the email arrives. I even find green paper hidden somewhere in a drawer. In a couple of days, the green card insurance certificate also arrives by post – printed on white paper. The Brexit hurdles seem to have been overcome; now we get down to the Covid hurdles! Both my husband and I had our first Covid injection only a week ago. However, at this early stage of vaccination, this fact did not alleviate our travel restrictions. Nobody was interested in vaccines then, in February 2021. To get from England to Germany by car, you can either take the ferry or the Euro Tunnel. On the ferry, you have to leave the car, putting yourself at potential risk of contracting Covid from other passengers. When travelling via the tunnel, you have to stay in the car. So this question is also settled quickly. We choose the Euro Tunnel. It’s more expensive but the safest option. The drive to Germany takes us through France and Belgium. A perusal of the extensive entry regulations reveals that France has a strict curfew after 6 pm. That could be problematic! Also, one has to fill out four affidavits stating the reason for travelling and one’s state of health, namely that one has no symptoms of Covid, that one knows the corona rules and that one must undergo quarantine immediately after entry. Again, the Brexit problem of third-country nationals not being allowed to enter comes up. But also for France applies: David is my legal husband and will be treated as an EU citizen together with me. But maybe it's better if we carry our marriage certificate with us just in case we have to prove it. Since we only have to drive about 70 km through France from Calais to the border with Belgium, I assume that the quarantine regulations do not apply to us, but this is apparently not clear when I look through the documents. In one of the forms' I finally find a box to tick for ‘transit’. That applies to us, so the quarantine is off the table! Hopefully, we haven’t overlooked any other regulations, and I assume that the curfew does not apply to transit travellers. The Belgians are a bit laxer with their rules. At least I haven’t found any restrictions (yet), and I hope that transit is possible without any problems. Who knows! But I’m doing my best. To keep up-to-date with each country’s Covid rules, I download the online updates onto my phone. Now I constantly receive updates, some of which contradict each other in terms of content, dependent on the source and the country. Instead of gaining more certainty, the flood of information unsettles me so much that my doubts about the feasibility of visiting my sick sister are growing. There is also the worry about where we will get our provisions for our quarantine in Germany. Since Brexit, food of animal origins, such as meat and dairy products, are not allowed into the EU from the UK. The media are full of reports of lorry drivers complaining bitterly that their ham and cheese sandwiches have been taken away at the border. Well, this is going to be fun! Since we need provisions for our 10-day quarantine, we are thinking of practical solutions. You can’t hide that much food from border controls, nor can we go out shopping in the supermarket at the place of our quarantine. So we have to choose between legal and illegal food. Time management – a fine art The Covid travel ban also includes a transport ban, and transport operators, be it air, train or ship companies, must not transport anyone who does not have a permit to travel. This means we have to fill in online declarations, give our dates of travel, the reason for travel, contact address upon arrival and where we intend to spend our quarantine so that an exemption be approved. I understand that this is necessary, but I don’t get far with a trial run because a negative Covid test result must be submitted before the form can be filled out. So at this point, it is unclear to me what exactly is being asked for with this form and whether something might be hidden within that could nullify the trip. Testing – a balancing act between requirement and reality A negative Covid test is an essential requirement before the trip begins. The specifications for this are precise. It must be the more reliable PCR test, which does not look for antibodies but determines whether a virus is present and whose negative result must be confirmed by a fit-to-travel certificate from a recognised laboratory. From the point of testing, you have a maximum of 48 hours to enter Germany. This poses a problem because most test results are turned around within 24 to 72 hours. Besides, we must factor in a 16-hour car journey within the 48 hours time frame, including possible waiting times at borders, traffic jams or car breakdowns. Testing seems to have become a licence to print money, and there are plenty of providers. Prices for PCR testing vary from £160 to £300 per person per test. Some labs offer rapid tests, with a result within 3 to 6 hours, but these are even more expensive. There are now also fake test certificates available for purchase. At the beginning of February, it was reported in the media that criminals are increasingly taking advantage of the stricter EU entry regulations and offering fake test certificates and documents for sale. These are priced at around £100. As tempting as this may seem as you can save yourself all the stress, but for us, this is out of the question, as we really want and need to be proven negative in order not to infect my sister, her husband and their environment, including the care home with Covid. Nor do we want to bring the English Covid mutation to Germany. So we start to look for a feasible way to get tested. A solution is found when we talk to our pharmacist. His pharmacy conducts tests and sends them to a laboratory he frequently uses. They email the results and the issued ‘Fit for Travel’ certificates within 12 to 20 hours. He even gives us a discounted rate of £150 per person. That sounds good. It’s a deal. Now we can plan! Our trip is planned for Thursday. We will leave home in London at 5 am. The Eurotunnel Le Shuttle from Folkestone to Calais is booked for 08.20. This should give us enough time to complete the border formalities. If we are tested at 09.30 on Wednesday morning, we can hopefully receive the results from 19.00 onwards. If the results are late, we decide to leave at 5 am anyway and wait at the Eurotunnel terminal until they come through, ready to take the next train. If the test is positive (you never know!), we would have to go back home and start all over again 5 days later. From Wednesday evening at the latest, the doubts set in. We have been extremely cautious over the last 10 months and are both healthy. We have no pre-existing conditions but are in the vulnerable age group. Most mornings, we go for a walk in our nearby park before 7 am, early enough to avoid the crowds that flock to the park a little later who, like us, are looking for fresh air and exercise. We usually go shopping twice a week, are home by 9 or 09:30 and remain indoors for the rest of the day. We haven’t had anyone over for months and meet up with friends only outdoors, making sure we keep our distance. Therefore, we should be Covid-free, but a few days ago, a woman without a mask kept coughing behind Dave on the bus. So, you never know! Quarantine and accommodation ban in Germany I also need to clarify the legal situation in Germany. In many German federal states, Covid regulations stipulate not only restrictions on visiting family or friends and staying with them but also a ban on staying in hotels. For us, this means that we have nowhere to stay in Germany, neither during our quarantine nor when we visit my sister. We are a couple, and in Germany, at that time, the rule is that only one person from another household may be accommodated. But even that problem can be solved in the end, thanks to friends and a little bit of help. In my home town in the state of Bavaria, a friend makes his flat available to us for the time of our quarantine. In the meantime, he moves into his girlfriend’s house. He also offers to fill the fridge, as we cannot bring food with us due to the Brexit restrictions, nor can we shop during our quarantine. This is a great relief to us. Another stroke of luck is that in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where my sister lives, the ban on accommodation has been partially lifted, and my nephew has found us an Airbnb close to my sister’s care home. It is available and also affordable. We book immediately and are overjoyed because we also have a kitchen there and can cater for ourselves. Restaurants, too, are closed and ordering a delivery service every day would make things even more miserable. So that is also taken care of. We won’t have to go hungry and can distract ourselves a little bit by cooking. So we will spend our 10 days of quarantine in the Bavarian state. Here, too, the Covid rules are strict, and I have already phoned the local health authority to find out the exact procedure. Upon arrival, we have to email the health authority immediately our negative PCR tests and give them our address during quarantine. For travellers from a high-risk or virus-mutant area like England, a 10-day quarantine is mandatory despite a negative test. However, you can be released from quarantine after 5 days if you take another PCR test and it’s negative. This test can be booked online. It is a drive-in test centre, i.e. you drive to the test centre car park and are given a gargle test through the car window. You are given a plastic cup of liquid to gargle for one minute and then spit it into a little container, then hand this container over to an assistant. Within 24 hours, they will email the results, which we must immediately forward to the health authority. If the test is negative, we are released from quarantine. In case of a positive result, we would have to wait another 5 days and then test again. Okay, that’s fair. After five days in quarantine, completely isolated from anyone, we should have a negative PCR test in our pockets. Therefore, we start to plan our visits to the nursing home. The nursing home in question, like all others, has strict visitor regulations in order to prevent the spread of Covid infection. The number of daily visitors and the visiting hours are limited, and no visitor can enter without a daily test anyway. Visitors are also only allowed into the home wearing protective clothing and masks. To make sure we can really visit my sister, I call, introduce myself, announce my visit and find out the conditions. I book our visiting hours online for me and my husband. So that's also taken care of, and I’m already much closer to my sister, at least in terms of organisation. Off we go! And now everything really goes quickly: Wednesday morning at 09.30, we are tested. Then we pack. At 18.00, we get an e-mail from the lab: We are both negative!!! Now I can fill out the digital entry form with our quarantine address in Germany. Fortunately, no further questions appear on the form that could be an obstacle to our journey. We leave the next morning at 5 am, armed with a binder full of forms, tests, affidavits and evidence of our reason for travelling, marriage certificate etc. We also have all this saved on our mobile phones and laptops. You never know! We have never seen London’s streets so empty. Even the A2 and M2 heading out towards Folkestone are empty, with no traffic jams either, despite some road works. We make good time; instead of the usual 2 ½ hours for the 72 miles, we need less than 1 ½ hours. At the Eurotunnel terminal, we are waved through, with no waiting time. We don’t even have time to hide our cheese and ham sandwiches and the rest of our travel provisions. We are already through British border control, which only wants to see our negative test results, our booking and our passports. Our car still has to go through the usual security check. Then we are waved through to the French border control, which continues to be located on the UK side, just as it was before Brexit, to enable a quick processing and onward journey after arrival in France. So now comes the moment of truth as to how Brexit and the Covid pandemic will play out in reality. The border officials, also equipped with masks like the British ones, ask for the negative test results, our passports and our destination. Germany – all right, transit! As we both have different names, we are asked if we belong together. We affirm that we are married, and before I can prove it by showing our marriage certificate, David’s passport is stamped to record his date of entry. Third-country nationals are now only allowed to stay in the EU for 90 days at a time. We get both passports back, and the friendly border officials wish us a safe journey. I still have my open file folder handy on my lap and ask frustratedly if they don’t want to see some of the many forms I have filled out. They just laugh, saying that’s not necessary and wish us a good time in Germany. We’re off! That was surprisingly quick, and we are early enough to catch an earlier train. Great! That will shorten our journey time. We drive onto the train into our car compartment. Two more cars arrive after us, and that’s it. The train is almost empty. Unfortunately, the toilets are closed because of the pandemic nor are we allowed to leave the car. We can put up with that. We just have time to eat our sandwiches for breakfast before we arrive in Calais. No more controls here either. After a visit to the toilet, we go straight onto the motorway heading north towards Belgium. Here, too, there is relatively little traffic, and we make good time. No further checks at the Belgian and German borders. Arrived – exhausted but happy In record time, including a fuel stop and a stop to pick up the flat keys from friends, we arrive at our quarantine quarters in my hometown before the curfew kicks in, after 12 hours of door-to-door travel. There we find a well-stocked fridge full of all sorts of goodies, enough to sustain us for 30 days of quarantine. We thank our host warmly by phone because we can’t do it in person. Exhausted, we put our feet up, drink a cold beer from the fridge and settle in. If the occasion wasn’t so sad, we could almost find something to like about our adventurous trip. In any case, we are glad to have overcome the many hoops and hurdles of bureaucracy. But it’s not over yet. The next day, I report to the local health authority and send them via email our quarantine location and our negative test results. I call the nursing home to see how my sister is doing. My heart sinks when I hear that the home has a suspected case of Covid, and as a result, since yesterday, all visits have been cancelled until it is clear whether it’s confirmed. Oh no?! Did we undertake this trip with such effort and expense for nothing? The friendly nurse advises me to be more optimistic; in a few days, it could all look different. We spend part of our quarantine doing gymnastics (2x 20 minutes a day) so that our old bones and muscles don’t lock up due to lack of exercise, and eating and talking on the phone with family and friends. It feels strange not being able to visit anyone in my hometown, where I know so many people. Fortunately, WhatsApp, Skype and phone allow us to stay in touch whilst we are isolating. On day six of our quarantine, we drive to the Covid testing station in town to test and see if we can come out of quarantine sooner. They tell us that we would receive the results by e-mail between 24 to 48 hours later. That could be tight for our first visit to my sister. The wait is nerve-wracking. But then everything goes quickly. We get the email that our tests are negative. I immediately inform the health authority accordingly. The Covid case at the nursing home was not confirmed, and their visiting hours are reinstated. We just have time to pick up some letters for my sister at my brother’s house. Bureaucracy flourishes even in these times! The next day we leave early. It is a 3 ½ hours drive to the town where my sister lives. On the way, it snows, and we are glad to have bought our new all-season tyres. But then I get an e-mail from the health authority in my home town. In addition to the negative test confirmation, they also need the lab report. I kindly write back that we have not received a lab report, and besides, I am already on the road and in another federal state, Baden-Württemberg. In another friendly e-mail, I am informed how and where I can ask for the lab report. German bureaucracy pure! The two authorities reside in the same building and could actually apply the principle of speaking to each other. Annoyed, I am just about to consider ignoring this e-mail when I receive a text message on my English mobile phone from the German government informing me of the underlying criteria for the regulations and measures against Covid with references to the quarantine requirement when entering from a virus mutant area. Panic! Have I perhaps missed an update? I am just about to download the latest guidelines to my mobile phone and study them when another text message from the federal government arrives. At first glance, it seems the same. Now I’m overcome with paranoia. Why did the federal government take notice of me? Why at this particular time? Have I now been put on the wanted list because I released myself from quarantine (following the guidelines – or at least as I understood them) with a negative test? Yet I wanted to do everything right. I force myself to remain calm. When we arrive at our Airbnb, I instantly contact the PCR testing centre, who immediately email me the lab report, which I send straight away to the health authority. Phew! Finally, that’s done, too, and the horror scenarios in my head can dissolve. We are legal once again, and we can enter the nursing home with peace of mind. Finally, finally at my sister’s bedside! There I learn about the procedure that is necessary to be allowed to enter the home. First, an antibody test has to be made. To do this, a thin long stick is pushed up the nose by a nurse almost to the brain, which brings tears to the eyes. (This way, we know that it has been done properly, says the friendly nurse). During the 10-minute wait for the results, forms must be filled in. Then I have to wear a mask and protective clothing, and finally, I am allowed to go to the ward where my sister is. There I am met by a friendly nurse who tells me about the Covid rules (1-hour visiting time for only one person or household at a time) and explains my sister’s medical condition. Finally, I almost didn't believe it anymore; I can go and see her. We are both very moved. I am at a loss for words when I see my big and strong sister lying in bed so seriously ill. But there is no need to speak. I am happy just to hold her hand. And she holds mine very tightly and doesn't want to let go. Just to get to this moment, this colossal effort was worth it. The day before, my sister had suffered severe epileptic seizures and, as a result, is tired. She can no longer speak, but again and again, she reads through my brothers' letters and runs her finger along the handwritten lines as if she wants to feel the words. The hour of visiting time is over far too quickly, and I say goodbye until the next day. Over the next few days, she sleeps a lot, and I spend my visiting time watching her sleep. The doctor had said it was best if she could sleep so that her body could recover. So, on the one hand, I am happy when she sleeps, but on the other hand, I feel like I am running out of time. I wanted to be active and help in some way. Not sit around helplessly. Initially, we had planned a week at my sister's bedside. But I soon realise that one week is too short, with only one hour of visiting time per day, during which my sister is mostly asleep. It's depressing, and I can't judge whether I might leave her too soon when I'm probably saying my last goodbye after a week. So we decide to extend our stay by 8 days. I talk to the oncologist and palliative care doctor who is treating my sister to get his opinion on her illness. Although he is at present on holiday, he agrees to talk to me. What a commitment! I am impressed. Fear of “What if…?” We spend the next few days going between the nursing home, our rented flat and my brother-in-law's flat. In between, we also go for walks into town and for shopping. We are in constant fear of catching Covid, shying away from any person who comes too close in the supermarket, especially those without a mask. Not only would this mean that we would no longer be able to visit my sister and perhaps bring Covid into the care home, but it would also prevent our return journey back to England, for which we need a negative PCR test. If we were positive, we would have to stay in a hotel in Germany until we were proven negative. And where would we stay if we got Covid? In times of Covid, visits to private homes are not allowed, and no one would want to put us up anyway if we were positive. I have never felt so insecure in my home country. On top of that, people in Germany are panicking about the British virus mutation at this time. We feel like outcasts, an imposition on the population and not welcome, even though we are negative and have undergone more tests than most people. Nevertheless, we avoid speaking English with each other in public so as not to be recognised as foreigners, and we also hope that our car with its British registration plate will not provoke anyone to take out their frustration and fear on our vehicle. But our neighbours know and ask about my sister's condition, then leave us alone. The full frightening extent The days fly by. I regularly report back to my brothers about my sister and look after my brother-in-law as far as possible. I also phone my sister's friends, who are also worried about her. It is often a big problem in times of Covid for family members and friends to assist the ill. Those who work and perhaps even come into contact with many people at work see the risk of infection and refrain from visiting the ill with a heavy heart. Others have pre-existing conditions that require them to be extremely careful not to become infected. They do well to avoid travelling, crowds and hospitals. However, for whatever reason, the people who are ill are hit hardest by isolation and loneliness during the pandemic. I still manage to have a few golden hours with my sister. Some days she is lucid and alert; other days, the opposite and I fear that her end is near. But every now and then, she manages to overcome a bad phase and is more stabilised. During her more lucid moments, I phone my brothers or nephews on Whatsapp so they can see her and speak to her. My sister has always been a strong personality and a fighter. This is also evident in her illness. However, to make matters worse, my brother-in-law, her husband of 50 years, has been suffering from word-finding difficulties and dementia, and for the last few years, she has looked after him. I suspect it is the concern for her husband that is keeping my sister alive despite her serious illness. A hard goodbye, perhaps forever I am frightened to say goodbye to my sister. I feel guilty leaving her behind and returning to the UK to continue my life. Doctors say it could be days, weeks or even months before she dies. Theoretically, I know that I can't sit by my sister's bedside for weeks and hold her hand until she dies. We couldn't afford that financially either, though I wince at the thought of cost being a factor. And yet, it is. If it were easier to come back, I would feel better. But that's not the case in these Covid times and the problems caused by Brexit. Besides, I have a life with numerous commitments in London, even though I am a pensioner. These are all reasonable arguments, but they don't really take away my feelings of guilt. Then the dreaded moment comes, and I have to say goodbye to my sister as we leave early the next morning. On this day it's one of her bad days, and she doesn't recognise David, me or even her husband. Maybe it's just as well because it would be very painful for both of us to say goodbye to each other, perhaps forever. I can't help thinking that she has instinctively disengaged to avoid the pain of parting. The next day, when her son arrives for his weekly weekend visit, she feels better. She recognises him and smiles as he tells her some funny stories from his working world. Things will probably go up and down for quite a while yet. Conditions for the return The return journey, like the arrival, is nerve-wracking. Two days before our return journey, we have another PCR test to go through, which we take at a drive-in test centre 25 km away. And the waiting and worrying start all over again. This time we have 72 hours from the actual time of the test until we enter England. The e-mail arrives on the evening before departure at around 9 pm. Then we have to fill in the online entry form for Great Britain and provide proof that we are legally allowed to enter England. (Since Brexit, I have been given an unlimited right to stay in Britain, a document which I had not needed before). We also have to give precise details of where we intend to spend our 10-day quarantine and proof that we have ordered online (and paid for) the obligatory test package for all travellers into the UK. Part of the package means that we have to test ourselves on the 2nd and 8th day of our quarantine. The price for the self-tests is expensive and costs £205 per person. This compulsory extra test seems a bit excessive even to me, considering that we have been tested at least 14 times during our time in Germany. We will be travelling from door to door from Germany to England with our negative test result and will not come into contact with anyone during our journey except when refuelling or going to the toilet. But we have to be glad that Germany, although Covid infections are increasing enormously, is not yet in the category of countries on the red list. Travellers from these countries are forced to spend their 10-day quarantine in a hotel at the outrageous price of £ 1,750 per person, including food and security. It has only recently come to light that the hotels only receive £750 for accommodation and food. The rest is apparently for security services. Anyway, many people or organisations in the UK seem to be profiting from the Covid pandemic. The cost of testing is much lower in Germany. The daily tests we had to do in the care home were free. The PCR test in Bavaria for release testing from quarantine was also free of charge. The PCR test in Baden-Württemberg to return to England cost about £64. By comparison, PCR tests in the UK cost between £160 and £300, and the compulsory Travel Test Package of 2 tests during the 10-day quarantine costs £205 per person. I wonder who is making money from this? The return The return journey to England goes smoothly. Only after the border of Belgium with France is the motorway temporarily closed, and we have to show our negative Covid PCR test before we are allowed to continue. There are hardly any problems at the Eurotunnel. The French are relaxed. They are only interested in our negative Covid tests, and again they're not interested in the many forms I have ready in my big folder. They stamp David's passport because he is now a so-called third-country national. We apologize jokingly for the extra work and affirm that we did not vote for Brexit. They laugh and wave us through. There is a slightly longer wait on the British side, as checking all the entry forms, the negative test results, confirming our quarantine location and the ID of our travel test package etc., takes time. We had no access to a printer, so we had to show everything on our mobile phones. This may take longer if the confirmations have to be searched on the mobile phone. There are four passengers in the car in front of us. Our hopes of getting an earlier train fade as we grudgingly have to wait for the last document to be found and checked for each person on the mobile phone. With us, on the other hand, everything goes quickly. We are even praised by the inspector for being so well prepared! Well, that comes with the experience we had to learn on our trip to make a visit to my ill sister during these taxing times of Brexit and Covid. Back home, quarantine and Day 2 and Day 8 Covid tests The 10-day quarantine at home goes without any major problems. We had stocked up on food at the supermarket before we left my sister's town and both neighbours and friends in London provided us with essential food such as milk, which does not stay fresh for as long, and they also put homemade cakes and flowers outside our flat door to welcome us home. The Day 2 test arrives via couriers on the evening of the 3rd day. We learn to test ourselves and hope that we are not too squeamish but have literally scraped together enough specimens in our throat and nose to send off to be tested. We take our precious tests to the mailbox the day after. The purpose of going into quarantine is to isolate ourselves at home, but we still have to leave the house to post our samples. Well, one logistical gap of many. Day 8's test arrives on time, and we can get it to the mailbox the same day. The wait is no longer so nerve-wracking, as we are relatively sure that we have not picked up a virus anywhere in our home over the last few days. Still, we want to get out of quarantine and resume our lives after five weeks away. Unfortunately, we don't receive our negative test result until the 13th day of our quarantine, as it took the Royal Mail a whopping 3 days to transport our test specimens marked as priority mail to the lab!!! At this price, I would have expected better service; since the courier delivered the test kits, you would think they could also pick them up. It wasn’t easy, but it was the right decision! Was all the effort worth it? It certainly was! I would have gone crazy not to be able to see my sister under such circumstances. Being there and holding her hand was the most important thing for me. I will never forget that, as it gave me a certain peace of mind. But watching this terrible disease slowly take over and not being able to help to alleviate my sister's suffering was difficult and will remain in my memory, as will her struggle for every precious minute left with her loved ones. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the helpful people, known and unknown, who helped us during the preparation and on the journey under the Covid rules and thus made it possible for us to visit my sister. Without their strong support and encouragement, I might not have had the strength to continue and might have given up prematurely. I have experienced deep humanity in this process from both friends and complete strangers that I thought no longer existed. I was wrong. Let that be a lesson to me and to all of us. Looking back, I also realise how privileged my husband and I are because, as pensioners, we can be flexible with our time. How might it be for the many people who are in a similar situation but are tied up in the work process and therefore have very limited time? The time for quarantine alone may take up one's annual holiday allowance! And what employer will or can be so generous or flexible as to agree to a leave request that depends on test results and cannot be planned precisely? Not to mention the cost. Life before Brexit, but especially before the pandemic, seems so uncomplicated in light of my recent travel experiences. Hopefully, I'll remember that when at least the Corona crisis is a thing of the past. Four weeks after our visit, my sister passed away.

Inspired by the analyses of conditions in the UK under the title “The failure of the political elite in dealing with Covid”, a German author reports on developments that affected her during the pandemic and still affect her. (DE) Pandemic fatigue is something we all have, I guess. Even if in Germany the government members do not have the same elitist attitude as in the United Kingdom, other reasons serious mistakes were made here, too, during the fourth wave approaching in autumn 2021. Election year in the pandemic – counterproductive for fighting the disease During the summer, the government was in election campaign mode and did not want to lose votes by bringing up stricter measures in the face of the rising incidence. As a result, many issues were postponed, such as booster vaccinations, contact restrictions, etc., which would have helped contain the delta variant. The interim period after the election, when the old government was in office only on a caretaker basis, resulted in no decisions being taken that should have been taken. And now, with the FDP (The Liberal Democratic Party) as a coalition partner, which has distinguished itself in recent years by defending liberties against restrictions, it will be challenging to steer a clear course. So far, in early January 2022, Omikron has not hit us as hard as other states, but the variant is definitely here and spreading. We can expect infrastructure failures due to high sick leave and quarantine. Experts predict a heavy strain on the health system, which has already been at its limit for a long time. The approach of the old and new government was, is and will probably not be as effective and efficient as the situation would require. However, after two years of the pandemic, one may reasonably expect that there is some experience available that will produce better strategies and concepts. Lateral thinkers – a movement without a goal Obviously, this cannot be said for parts of the population. That’s why I don’t think that the government is the worst at the moment. But unfortunately, the “lateral thinkers” in the population are becoming increasingly engrossed in conspiracy theories in their social media bubbles and are no longer accessible to rational arguments. They use spontaneous strategies such as arranging “strolls ” instead of registering demonstrations and thus play a cat-and-mouse game with the police. And they make common cause with right-wing radicals who deliberately spread disinformation and exploit the situation to gain supporters and destroy democracy. Concerned people who allow themselves to be drawn into the ideological cart of the right as well as the esoterics and anthroposophists who reject vaccination for crazy reasons contribute to the fact that we are constantly exposed to new waves of covid. Whether compulsory vaccination in the spring is the solution, I dare to doubt, because it will provoke reactance, more falsified vaccination cards and other after-effects. Above all, I don’t see how compulsory vaccination can be effectively enforced. Fines will be paid and probably seen as a kind of absolution. It is frightening that 30 per cent of the population apparently think they know better than virologists for some inexplicable reason. Most vaccinations are boosters under the current vaccination campaign, and hardly any first vaccinations. So this means that hardly any more people could be convinced of the benefit of vaccination. Even in my wider circle, some people do not get vaccinated and are not open to arguments. This divides groups and drives a wedge into long-standing friendships. Downsides of the home office I look back on 2021 as an extremely busy year first and foremost. I spent the whole year working in the home office and have been teaching online for almost two years. I notice the absence of informal social contacts and the erosion of collegiality. Work has become highly condensed, and the line between private life and work is becoming overly blurred. I’ve spent a lot of time in video conferences, which has advantages. But it makes you even more likely to attend workshops and conferences because you don’t have to go far. And at home, I find it much harder to find an end in the evening, to stop when it’s time, even though there’s still a lot to do. Working at home also means cooking lunch for my husband and son. I like doing that, but of course, it tears up my working day. In between loading and unloading the dishwasher, doing the laundry, tidying up, and doing housework that is immediately invisible again, all that is distracting. I can focus much better in the office. I also miss the exercise, the daily 30-minute bike ride to work, the unconscious mental processing on the way back, and the marked boundary between work and private life. I don’t even have an office at home, but I always move my laptop from the kitchen table to wherever I can find some free space. Change in teaching at the university? I’m the only one at my institute who has been teaching face-to-face in the winter semester. It was a big concern for me because I believe that studying is an important phase of life in terms of personality development and sociality. My colleagues obviously don’t see it that way. Quite a few have settled very well into online life and see significant advantages for their quality of life. Some live in the countryside in large houses with gardens; other colleagues live in other cities. Commuting is actually part of the universally accepted fate of academics. But not anymore. Sharing information, arguments and opinions, and conversations in team meetings to compensate for the lack of informal communication also hardly occur. The isolation apparently has more positive than negative sides for some. Overall, many teachers do not want to return from the home office to the classroom at the university. It seems more convenient for them to work online and avoid some tasks. I received requests for reviews or references from students who told me that I was the only professor who held seminars synchronously, and with whom they had direct contact in discussions and pre-and post-discussions of papers. They only experienced other lecturers in pre-recorded videos. (The videos can be used several times. How time-saving!) Some science ministers are already saying that current expensive buildings could be scaled down. So, for example, not everyone needs a workstation or an office at the university. Instead, the workspace could be arranged flexibly, with slots that could be booked online for short days of attendance when people want to meet or work on-site. I believe that even if the pandemic is really over or at least has entered an endemic phase, there will be no return to the previous state. At least not at the universities. Many have settled into their own homes. Especially those who have long journeys find it more pleasant to save time and effort of travel. Others, especially weaker students and doctoral candidates, become depressed. They have no structure and don’t dare to approach others when they need clarification. But that is only one problem amongst many. For example, in my seminar, this semester, the most important topic was time management and dealing with distractions, especially through mobile phones, apps, and social media. For that, new apps are available that allow you to turn off certain functions for a while or plant a tree if you’ve gone a long time without playing video games and the like. I think that we are not even remotely aware of the problems that develop through isolation. Lesson from the crisis – probably none! Given the experience of the Covid crisis, I am not at all confident about how to deal with even more significant challenges such as combating the climate crisis or the growing social inequality and digital transformation. At the beginning of the pandemic, I felt solidarity, cohesion, and a sense of community very strongly. In the meantime, egoism clearly prevails. I also don’t see that people of my generation will limit themselves in terms of travel, car mobility and other individual carbon footprints. I also think it is not very likely that younger people will do it. And if they do, then certainly only a tiny proportion. Our daughter has been a vegetarian for a long time and is now vegan. In many ways, she is mindful but not supported by a political theory. I don’t see much of a critique of capitalism and degrowth (criticism of the constant economic growth impulse) among young people. I can also understand that youth and young adults are hungry for world experience. Nevertheless, self-restraint, which certainly hurts, would be necessary. I also think that the Greens in our new government lack a sustainable, consistent concept. So I don’t see that a fundamental transformation towards moving away from oil, coal, extractive economics, and consumerism is being pursued. Also, with all the many new despots and political tensions, I sometimes get anxious about the state of the world. JG #University #Homeoffice #Covid #covidcrisis #Universityteaching