Same Shit, Different Pile
The Nazi bit is overkill. Around the corner from our apartment, Karl Marx Strasse. Berlin, 20/10/10.
“Grenade Jewish hunchback druggies.” Courtesy of Google translate, warts and all. Torino, 21/01/12.
Archived entries for Germany
Leftist Rubbish Bins
The communist version. Torino, January 14th.
The anarchist version. Neukölln, January 5th.
Turkish for Barbecue
Neukölln’s public spaces are full of bilingual signage. This one says several things, including “Grilling is forbidden,” in both Turkish and German. A common sight during the summer, Turkish families can frequently be found grilling meats in Berlin’s municipal parks.
This sign, posted in a small park two blocks from our home, has been high on my to-do list to photograph the past year. Every time I’ve tried to take a picture, however, the light has been awful. Not yesterday. Out early with the dogs, I finally found the right lighting conditions.
Surely, such translations should not be a big deal. In San Francisco, for example, I grew quite accustomed to seeing mixed Mandarin-English signs in my former neighborhood, the inner Richmond. I’m not sure how many remain. I moved to the Mission District in April 2004.
Nonetheless, I always get some kind of vicarious satisfaction out of seeing signs in Turkish, in Germany. Even in Stuttgart, where it’s not uncommon to see graffiti expressing support for leftwing parties, in Turkey. It all might as well be in Hebrew. That’s the significance, I think.
Several weeks ago, a German friend who started a wildly successful guerrilla media company, by accident, asked me for advice on what to say on a television news program he’d been asked to join, as a member of a panel discussing the state of the German news media.
“What would you recommend we discuss?” I recall him asking, looking for a few agenda items to help get himself prepared. “Germany needs a multilingual press,” I remember writing to him. “There need to be more than just English versions of German papers.”
Clearly, if cities like Berlin need bilingual signs like this, one might consider diversifying the language of national news publishing, as well.
Berlin on War
Just before I took this photo, an elderly man exited a building two doors down. He had a bugle in his hand. Slowly, he began to play an old German military song I recognized, from an old record I own, of music from the Third Reich. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Neither could a nearby pedestrian, who put down two big bags full of groceries, and took in the impromptu nostalgia revue. We made eye contact, and nodded our heads in acknowledgement. Two minutes later, the musician concluded his performance, and went back inside.
Everywhere But There
Germany is a challenging place for all minorities. On multiculturalism and its proponents, in today’s Berlin. Yours truly, in Tuesday’s Souciant.
Addendum: Check out Wednesday’s thread about the article on Reddit. The commenter turns out to be an immigrant to Germany, most likely Greek.
Italy in Translation
The late activist, immortalized on a demonstration flyer. Also a subject of my first book, Jerusalem Calling (2001), currently being translated into German. Neukölln, September.
Sweet Home Neukölln
Back in Berlin, I shot this in our neighborhood yesterday, in a predominantly Kurdish area. Jennifer uses it in Monday’s edition of Souciant.