On Ravensbrück, the Rave March and Divided Selves

On Ravensbrück, the Rave March and Divided Selves 

On Thursday, Caroline looked out our balcony at the city into the distance,  dreaming of a city that felt like home, a space that was just opening up. We have have five weeks remaining here. I see the US and its right wing tilt on the courts and worry. 

Friday, the college kid went to same heads for dancing. 

We took a trip to a gallery. And then made our way out to the country, getting lost in the woods, watching the teenager, reading Annie Earnaux, descending into dreams, poems, an owl cooing in the night, light, reflections shimmering in the water... "This need... So close to a desire for death, an annihilation of self, how long can it go on..."

I dream about old houses, trash under the bed, stuck under the mattresses, wondering, lingering moments over holidays past, years ago as real as yesterday, never quite gone.

The next day, we spent the afternoon exploring the Ravensbrück memorial, just outside of Berlin, walking through the factories and barracks where 132,000 women, 20,000 men, a few thousand adolescent girls, prostitutes, homosexuals, gypsies, Jews endured forced marches and medical experiments, prison labor and terror, starvation, forced abortions, humiliating morning line ups, inspections, intimidation, on and on. Jehovas Witnesses and homeless women, those who had abortions, anti-socials who “defiled the racial order,” were sent into slave labor, brothels.  Somehow many stuck together, even as "anti social elements" were rounded up.  They maintained religious services.  Still on Sundays, prisoners sang, danced and recited poems. Friendship was important on the camp; it helped prisoners form alliances across nationality, or ethnic, or social borders, becoming sisters.  Camp families shared food, protecting each other, nursing the sick, celebrating birthdays, and sharing gifts for the holidays. They saw the horrors, a bombing as the children celebrated Christmas. Many such friendships lasted a lifetime.  Love and sex was part of the life there.  So was conflict. 

Women from the Warsaw Uprising were sent here. Over time the population swelled.  New prisoners spent the freezing winter in tents. The population only increased in 1944, many from Eastern Europe, each year more. The SS began murderring the prison population by 1945, as it transformed into a camp for dying, for starvation; 6,000 prisoners perish in the gas chambers. April of 1945, remaining prisoners were sent on a death march, before the Red Army liberated the remaining survivors. Many became refugees with no homes or cities to return to. The queers here continued to be persecuted, their struggle for recognition continuing, in the the name of racial purity. 

In Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women, Sarah Helm writes:

“From the start the proportion of asocials in the camp was about one-third of the total population, and throughout the first years prostitutes, homeless and ‘work-shy’ women continued to pour in through the gates. Overcrowding in the asocial blocks increased fast, order collapsed, and then followed squalor and disease.  Although we learn a lot about what the political prisoners thought of the asocials, we learn nothing of what the asocials thought of them. Unlike the political women, they left no memoirs. Speaking out after the war would mean revealing the reason for imprisonment in the first place, and incurring more shame. Had compensation been available they might have seen a reason to come forward, but none was offered. The German associations set up after the war to help camp survivors were dominated by political prisoners. And whether they were based in the communist East or in the West, these bodies saw no reason to help ‘asocial’ survivors. Such prisoners had not been arrested as ‘fighters’ against the fascists, so whatever their suffering none of them qualified for financial or any other kind of help. Nor were the Western Allies interested in their fate. Although thousands of asocials died at Ravensbrück, not a single black- or green-triangle survivor was called upon to give evidence for the Hamburg War Crimes trials, or at any later trials. As a result these women simply disappeared: the red-light districts they came from had been flattened by Allied bombs, so nobody knew where they went. For many decades, Holocaust researchers also considered the asocials’ stories irrelevant; they barely rate mention in camp histories. Finding survivors amongst this group was doubly hard because they formed no associations, nor veterans’ groups. Today, door-knocking down the Düsseldorf Bahndamm, one of the few pre-war red-light districts not destroyed, brings only angry shouts of ‘Get off my patch'.”

On I walk through the grounds, looking inside the factory, a burned out tree stump in the distance  One wing holds an art show inspired by a show about the Homosexuals in the Ravensbrück  concentration camp system. Thousands of queer poeple were rounded up an sent to the camps as homosexuals. It just wasn't that long ago.  One never feels good about humans watching this. I think about Gov DeSantis’ crusade to save the children from deviants in the US. 

In the Preface to The Divided Self, Lang acknowledges the fundamental divide we see here. 

“Freud insisted that our civilization is a repressive one. There is

a conflict between the demands of conformity and the demands of

our instinctive energies, explicitly sexual. Freud could see no easy

resolution of this antagonism, and he came to believe that in our

time the possibility of simple natural love between human beings

had already been abolished.”

All weekend we felt that conflict. 

Back in town, Raoul told me about the riots of May 1987 on Sunday, when the anarchists took the city, and the police evacuated Kreutzberg.  The felt the power of the people.  All afternoon Andreas and Raoul played boule in the small park (Gipsstraße corner Auguststraße) with friends here - drinking some wine, children playing.

Finishing, I met Caroline at Holtzmarket 25, for a beer on the water. And we talked about the love-hate tenions we see here, the kindness and the exclusion, the door staff at Berghain turning people away, and the fun of the Kit Kat, where we dance all night, in contrast with the black outfits in line at Berghain, the line stretching around the block. 

People comment on Resident Advisor about the line. 

“Puke! they were so rude to this adorable japanese couple in front of me ... looking much better dressed than the usual uniform,” I note.

“Never in my life I will do a line like that, crazy,” said another man. “Real techno clubs let everyone in. We love our differences. This new era all black and nothing else ... not for me.”

I am KitKat till dawn, shaking and moving, watching and dancing as the beats fill me till the Sun rises.  

Shiva is taking over vishnu meditating, says my yoga teacher the next morning during class. 

Five weeks to go, we try to do as much as we can, sometimes better at it than others, looking at this fascinating city. We try to do it all. 

Monday, we find ourself out seeing Pidarl, a Latvian hardcore band at Kopi. Graffiti everywhere. “You only gave us rights cause we gave u riots....” says one mural. 

The singer asks for chants, putting a mic in my face.

“Give peace a chance,” I add. 

He sings along. 

Wednesday after class, I make my way to visit Fat Marie, the oldest tree in Berlin.  Two hours from Zellendorf to make my way, on  three trains, one bus and a two k walk to Dicke Marie. Some say she's 800, others 900 years old. Goethe loved her.  I am just glad to visit her. She stretches through time, with memories of her time on the Große Malche in Tegel since 1192, close to gardens where Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt played as children. Looking at her, I thinking about kids growing, time passing...trees remaining.  More about trees in the next installment.

That night, we all find ourselves at an art opening:

“In weiter Ferne, so Nah! /

Far Away, So Close

An exhibition of contemporary art by Mexican artists working in Berlin. They integrate the ancestral cultures of Mexico into their artistic discourses, creating through their work a conceptual bridge that unites tradition with contemporary language, and creates a dialogue between the native cultures of Mexico and contemporary artistic production in Berlin. All of the selected artists work in a transdisciplinary way, focusing on installation… a series of timeless and complex relationships. They dialogue with each other through conceptual themes such as the critique of modernity and progress, decolonialism, the Anthropocene and ancestral cosmogonies…”

Berlin is ever blending and mixing and shifting, through cross currents and cultures. 

We go to Loophole that night, watching live music, shaking into the crowded night.

Thursday, I prepare for my talk on Friday on, 

“Far Right Wing Protest Mobilization In Europe…”

“What explains far-right mobilisation in the protest arena?” ask Gattinara et al, the authors.  “After decades of growing electoral support and policy influence, the far right is experiencing an increase in grassroots mobilisation. Scholars of social movements and political parties have devoted little attention to the determinants of far-right protest mobilisation in Europe. In this article, we bridge previous research on the far right and social movements to advance hypotheses on the drivers of far-right protest mobilisation based on grievances, opportunities and resource mobilisation models. We use an original dataset combining novel data on 4,845 far-right protest events in 11 East and West European countries (2008–2018), with existing measures accounting for the (political, economic and cultural) context of mobilisation. We find that classical approaches to collective action can be fruitfully applied to the study of the far right. Cultural grievances, notably concerns about immigration, as well as the availability of institutional access points in contexts characterised by divided government increase far-right protest mobilisation. But far-right protest mobilisation also rests on the organisational resources available to nativist collective actors, that is, the network in which they are embedded, their visibility in the media and elected officials. These findings have important implications to understand far-right success in advanced democracies. They show that far-right mobilisation in the protest arena not only rests on favourable circumstances, but also on whether far-right actors can profit from them. More broadly, the study links party politics and social movement research to grasp the far right's modes of political contestation, locating research on this phenomenon at the intersection of political sociology and comparative politics.”

I present on Friday, unpacking questions about methods, the content of the protests and their message. This is the kind of question that can be answered by many data sources, including personal observation, participant observation, ethnography, long interviews, questionnaires, discourse analysis, and quantitative analysis of patterns of participation. What is the goodness of fit between question and data source?

I find myself thinking of grad school and Howard Becker, who recalled:

"You have been told to go grubbing in the library, thereby accumulating a mass of notes and liberal coating of grime. You have been told to choose problems wherever you can find musty stacks of routine records based on trivial schedules prepared by tired bureaucrats and filled out by reluctant applicants for fussy do-gooders or indifferent clerks. This is called 'getting your hands dirty in real research.' Those who counsel you are wise and honorable; the reasons they offer are of great value. But one more thing is needful: first hand observation. Go and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of flophouses; sit on the Gold Coast settees and the slum shakedowns; sit in Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter burlesk [sic]. In short, gentlemen, go get the seat of your pants dirty in real research."

We debate the method and the substance of the story. 

Gattinara et al conclude:

“Recent political developments, such as the storming of the US Capitol or the spread of anti-masks demonstrations during the COVID-19 pandemic, confirm that we can no longer ignore the growing interpenetration between the protest and electoral arenas, and that comprehending the causes and consequences of far-right protest mobilisation is a crucial matter for democratic quality worldwide.”

Yet, what are the links?  What is the relationship between anti-vax, anti-Ukraine intervention, and anti-immigrant grievances? What are the grievances? How are they best addressed? Why the increased mobilization of the far right? How far can it go? What should be done about it?”

Should we be worried, I ask Andreas later that night at Muller's. Andreas, talking about friendships and aging, reading dad's copy of Faust Part Two, then to Loge, an old punk bar, somewhere between Neukölln and Friedrichshain, to see Dodi and Caroline and Max and Falko, chatting about grandparents and movies.  And then we got lost on the way to Dachkammer, finding Dodi and her buddies, Evelyn and Emma, then to Renate, where the door guard grilled me, but still let me in.  And we all danced through floor after floor of tunes. All night, I thought about the poems Andreas read me earlier… by Hermann Hesse:

“The heart must submit itself courageously

to life’s call without a hint of grief,

A magic dwells in each beginning,

protecting us, telling us how to live.”

The dancing back and forth continues throughout the weekend.

Saturday is Rave the Planet, a giant parade of electronic music, the descendent of the Love Parade, that brought in millions of participants in the 1990’s.  It starts at Brandenborg Tor.

It is admittedly weird to start the rave parade within a stone's throw of the Holocaust Memorial, but Berlin is an odd and these days, a lovely place... Literally tens of thousands out here dancing, diverse crowds, with many rainbow flags... brava Berlin. 

Techno connects people, says one marcher.  The messages are many, so are the beats.Wow. 

“The 𝗥𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗲𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 is a political demonstration. We take to the streets of Berlin for peace and the 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 & 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 & 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. 

The motto of the parade 2023 is:

𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗖 𝗜𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗪𝗘𝗥  

So what was the question again?

Let's boil it down…

Rave The Planet is our name and our mission statement. Electronic music always had and still has the power to make the world a better place. It brings us together peacefully without making a difference. techno parades are open and free for all people, no matter what nation, religion, skin color, gender classification, social background and so on. Music is our common language and our means of understanding. The beat enables many hearts to beat together as one and thus makes it possible to overcome what divides and strengthen what unites. This is the basis for peace. Therefore: Don't talk - dance! Music is the answer.”

Black people, brown people, people in wheelchairs, elders, all afternoon long, we shake it. 

And soon enough, off for a party on a roof in Fraenkelufer 26, looking at the city. 

And then back to meet Federico for the afterparties for  rave the planet:

❯❯❯ @beast_berlin @ Säälchen

(Queer Afterparty 🏳‍🌈)

@saalchen_holzmarkt

📍 Holzmarktstraße 25

Federico and I catch up outside before dancing into the night, chatting about it all, about discos in San Francisco, and chance encounters, students here and there, Berlin summer, trips, art and our lives in between. We have On Ravensbrück, the Rave March and divided selves lead us, pushing and pulling.

 A month to go. 

What a city.