// creative //
Spring 2014
Oranianburgerstrasse by Ezra Wyschogrod
I was about six. It was the year 1999, when Y2K and a presidentially stained dress were America’s chief concerns, and it was clear who was going to win the World Series. My parents, sister and I had moved a few miles west to the sleepy Boston suburb of Newton, a city still coasting on its culinary masterpiece—the Fig Newton— and the success of its native son, Matt LeBlanc. It was at this time, and in this place, that my grandfather sat me down and told me about where and when he grew up — 1930s Berlin.
I imagine many generation Z Jewish kids share a similar experience. Sometime during your childhood a grandparent imparted the knowledge that in his or her childhood, when he or she was about your age, Germany and its collaborators royally screwed your entire people while most of the free world sat there indifferently. It’s eerie listening to your grandfather tell you about the Nazis. About Hitler. About Berlin. About Germany.
It wasn’t a life-altering pang of emotions when my grandfather first told me. It was just bizarre. Probably because I had no idea what he was talking about. Germany? Never heard of it. Could one group of people really do that to another? And thinking back, I definitely didn’t have any conception of what death was at the time anyway. He really picked an odd time to tell me— right after my first Red Sox game. Even someone ten times my age couldn’t have gone from Garciaparra to Goebbels in one afternoon.
I humored him though, and listened. But amidst all the tales of broken glass, yellow stars, vanishing friends, and a last minute escape to the United States, my mind ran amuck. I cut him off--
“But wait, Grampy, what was your old neighborhood like?”
He didn’t seem at all put off by the question.
“Well what would you like to know, Ezra?”
I paused for a moment, unsure what to ask. What could be familiar to me in a place like that? What could I ask to distract him from the onslaught of historical horrors he had to face?
“D-did they have parks?”
Yes, they did have parks, he explained.
I was comforted. Imagine, I thought, all these scary things my grandfather must have seen, but at least he had a park to run around in. Encouraged, I asked:
“What did your house look like grampy?”
He grinned.
“Ah! 33 Oranianburgerstrasse! Our building was made of stone. And the street was long and wide. And there was a beautiful synagogue across the street. Every morning we would walk out the front door and smell fresh bread. And sometimes as a treat we got to eat pineapple...”
My grandfather could see the smile breaking across my face. For the next half hour he told me of the building he lived in, on that pleasant street, and that is the only thing I chose to remember.
Time passed: middle school, high school, the beginning of college. And over the years I learned all about the cataclysmic events behind what my grandfather told me that spring afternoon. I read the narratives and knew about the camps, but I never forgot Oranianburgerstrasse, that one street in the great German metropolis my grandfather had once called home.
* * *
This past winter break, twelve Columbians (myself included) traveled to Israel and Berlin as part of the Peoplehood Project, a student group funded partially by the Columbia University Hillel that focuses on contemporary Jewish identity in Germany, Israel, and the United States. During the first leg of our trip, we travelled around Israel with a group of German Jews in their young twenties. I made friends with the German Jews, and I had many questions to ask them. But first, I had to ask if they knew about my grandfather’s street.
The first night of the trip we ate dinner at a restaurant somewhere an hour’s bus ride from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. I sat across from two German Jews; one a nanotechnology student from Nürnberg and the other was a Berliner working on her masters in Chemistry. Both were children of Jewish Soviet immigrants to Germany. I asked them,
“Have you guys heard of Oranianburgerstrasse?”
They looked at each other. She giggled. He let out a big smile and started chuckling.
“Why do you know about this?” he asked.
“Well, my grandfather came from Berlin before the war, that’s where he grew up, 33 Oranienburgerstrasse.”
They looked at each other again. A little embarrassed, they exchanged some words in Russian.
“Yes, yes you should definitely see this 33 Oranianburgerstrasse” he said with a wink and a smile.
I let the exchange go. It was quite possible they had some inside joke about the area. After all, they said they had been in the area before.
While suffering from a case of tonsillitis in Tel Aviv, I poured over a Berlin street map. I knew Oranianburgerstrasse had fallen into Soviet hands and was part of East Berlin. I glanced at the right side of the map. My grandfather had frequently mentioned Alexanderplatz, so I wasn’t far off. There. Not far from where our hostel was going to be, Oranianburgerstrasse. When 2013 turned into 2014, our Columbia group said goodbye to our new German friends and the twelve of us flew to Berlin.
The moment we landed I flipped through our itinerary desperate to find some free time. We were completely booked for the first two days. I couldn’t wait that long. After touring World War II memorials until 10 PM, I threw on a coat, turneda right out of the hostel on Rosenstraße and headed towards my grandfather’s childhood.
I walked briskly past the designer clothing stores, the Biergärten, and the convenience stores that turn into nightclubs after eleven. Right under the elevated subway, a long arching left. I saw it. That first street sign. I started counting the street numbers. I kept my eye on the left side of the street; the numbers started at 1 and crept ever upwards. 15, 23, 28–the synagogue. I turned my head and I saw it. Finally 33 Oranianburger Straße. My grandfather’s old building.
It was exactly how I imagined it— a strong stone building that must have survived Allied bombings. It was wonderful. They did a great job renovating it, though it still looked a little shabby on the sides. I stood there in front of it, mesmerized. I was standing on the ground where my grandfather learned to walk.
I smelled cheap, horrible perfume. I turned, cringing, to see a woman just shy of six feet, with long bare legs, and fluorescent pink lipstick smattered across her face. Her hot pink rhinestone-clad outfit rendered some kind of Teutonic Lil Kim. She had just walked out of my grandfather’s building. It took me about twelve solid seconds before I realized this was a prostitute.
Raising an eyebrow she muttered vacantly in German,
“Twenty minutes?”
I reluctantly declined this lovely offer— to have sex in what was probably my grandfather’s boyhood kitchen.
I hurried back to the hostel. And after some brief Googling it was confirmed: my grandfather’s building had turned into a brothel.
* * *
Now that I’m back in Butler Library’s warm, intimidating cocoon, I ask myself, am I supposed to learn something here? Is there a moral to this story? That maybe my grandfather’s stolen childhood can never be retrieved? That Germany should have been more thorough in returning stolen property to Jews? Maybe I should just simply conclude here that memories don’t reflect current reality.
Or maybe I should just get back to my Genetics reading, and try to forget that across an ocean there’s a hooker in my grandfather’s apartment.
// EZRA WYSCHOGROD is a sophomore at Columbia College. He can be reached at eaw2178@columbia.edu. Photo by Flickr user chayahayes.
I imagine many generation Z Jewish kids share a similar experience. Sometime during your childhood a grandparent imparted the knowledge that in his or her childhood, when he or she was about your age, Germany and its collaborators royally screwed your entire people while most of the free world sat there indifferently. It’s eerie listening to your grandfather tell you about the Nazis. About Hitler. About Berlin. About Germany.
It wasn’t a life-altering pang of emotions when my grandfather first told me. It was just bizarre. Probably because I had no idea what he was talking about. Germany? Never heard of it. Could one group of people really do that to another? And thinking back, I definitely didn’t have any conception of what death was at the time anyway. He really picked an odd time to tell me— right after my first Red Sox game. Even someone ten times my age couldn’t have gone from Garciaparra to Goebbels in one afternoon.
I humored him though, and listened. But amidst all the tales of broken glass, yellow stars, vanishing friends, and a last minute escape to the United States, my mind ran amuck. I cut him off--
“But wait, Grampy, what was your old neighborhood like?”
He didn’t seem at all put off by the question.
“Well what would you like to know, Ezra?”
I paused for a moment, unsure what to ask. What could be familiar to me in a place like that? What could I ask to distract him from the onslaught of historical horrors he had to face?
“D-did they have parks?”
Yes, they did have parks, he explained.
I was comforted. Imagine, I thought, all these scary things my grandfather must have seen, but at least he had a park to run around in. Encouraged, I asked:
“What did your house look like grampy?”
He grinned.
“Ah! 33 Oranianburgerstrasse! Our building was made of stone. And the street was long and wide. And there was a beautiful synagogue across the street. Every morning we would walk out the front door and smell fresh bread. And sometimes as a treat we got to eat pineapple...”
My grandfather could see the smile breaking across my face. For the next half hour he told me of the building he lived in, on that pleasant street, and that is the only thing I chose to remember.
Time passed: middle school, high school, the beginning of college. And over the years I learned all about the cataclysmic events behind what my grandfather told me that spring afternoon. I read the narratives and knew about the camps, but I never forgot Oranianburgerstrasse, that one street in the great German metropolis my grandfather had once called home.
* * *
This past winter break, twelve Columbians (myself included) traveled to Israel and Berlin as part of the Peoplehood Project, a student group funded partially by the Columbia University Hillel that focuses on contemporary Jewish identity in Germany, Israel, and the United States. During the first leg of our trip, we travelled around Israel with a group of German Jews in their young twenties. I made friends with the German Jews, and I had many questions to ask them. But first, I had to ask if they knew about my grandfather’s street.
The first night of the trip we ate dinner at a restaurant somewhere an hour’s bus ride from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. I sat across from two German Jews; one a nanotechnology student from Nürnberg and the other was a Berliner working on her masters in Chemistry. Both were children of Jewish Soviet immigrants to Germany. I asked them,
“Have you guys heard of Oranianburgerstrasse?”
They looked at each other. She giggled. He let out a big smile and started chuckling.
“Why do you know about this?” he asked.
“Well, my grandfather came from Berlin before the war, that’s where he grew up, 33 Oranienburgerstrasse.”
They looked at each other again. A little embarrassed, they exchanged some words in Russian.
“Yes, yes you should definitely see this 33 Oranianburgerstrasse” he said with a wink and a smile.
I let the exchange go. It was quite possible they had some inside joke about the area. After all, they said they had been in the area before.
While suffering from a case of tonsillitis in Tel Aviv, I poured over a Berlin street map. I knew Oranianburgerstrasse had fallen into Soviet hands and was part of East Berlin. I glanced at the right side of the map. My grandfather had frequently mentioned Alexanderplatz, so I wasn’t far off. There. Not far from where our hostel was going to be, Oranianburgerstrasse. When 2013 turned into 2014, our Columbia group said goodbye to our new German friends and the twelve of us flew to Berlin.
The moment we landed I flipped through our itinerary desperate to find some free time. We were completely booked for the first two days. I couldn’t wait that long. After touring World War II memorials until 10 PM, I threw on a coat, turneda right out of the hostel on Rosenstraße and headed towards my grandfather’s childhood.
I walked briskly past the designer clothing stores, the Biergärten, and the convenience stores that turn into nightclubs after eleven. Right under the elevated subway, a long arching left. I saw it. That first street sign. I started counting the street numbers. I kept my eye on the left side of the street; the numbers started at 1 and crept ever upwards. 15, 23, 28–the synagogue. I turned my head and I saw it. Finally 33 Oranianburger Straße. My grandfather’s old building.
It was exactly how I imagined it— a strong stone building that must have survived Allied bombings. It was wonderful. They did a great job renovating it, though it still looked a little shabby on the sides. I stood there in front of it, mesmerized. I was standing on the ground where my grandfather learned to walk.
I smelled cheap, horrible perfume. I turned, cringing, to see a woman just shy of six feet, with long bare legs, and fluorescent pink lipstick smattered across her face. Her hot pink rhinestone-clad outfit rendered some kind of Teutonic Lil Kim. She had just walked out of my grandfather’s building. It took me about twelve solid seconds before I realized this was a prostitute.
Raising an eyebrow she muttered vacantly in German,
“Twenty minutes?”
I reluctantly declined this lovely offer— to have sex in what was probably my grandfather’s boyhood kitchen.
I hurried back to the hostel. And after some brief Googling it was confirmed: my grandfather’s building had turned into a brothel.
* * *
Now that I’m back in Butler Library’s warm, intimidating cocoon, I ask myself, am I supposed to learn something here? Is there a moral to this story? That maybe my grandfather’s stolen childhood can never be retrieved? That Germany should have been more thorough in returning stolen property to Jews? Maybe I should just simply conclude here that memories don’t reflect current reality.
Or maybe I should just get back to my Genetics reading, and try to forget that across an ocean there’s a hooker in my grandfather’s apartment.
// EZRA WYSCHOGROD is a sophomore at Columbia College. He can be reached at eaw2178@columbia.edu. Photo by Flickr user chayahayes.