Today marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It’s also Holocaust Memorial Day. Whatever day, whatever time, you can’t fail to notice the Stumbling stones, or Stolperstein, that litter my street in the old Jewish quarter of Berlin. It’s a daily reminder of the horrors that befell so many. And most were Jews.… Continue Reading
Celebrating the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
November 9th is such an historic day in Germany that it even has its own name – Schicksalstag or ‘The Day of Fate’. From the Fall of the Berlin Wall twenty-nine years ago to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II a century ago, just days before the end of the First World War, November 9th is… Continue Reading
It was my mother who first encouraged me to read Thomas Harding’s ‘The House by the Lake’. She left it in our flat, a few months after we’d moved to Berlin. Foolishly, it took me a while to pick up this extraordinary book. But when I finally did, it was hard to put down. 100… Continue Reading
On 29th December 2016, my husband and I, along with our two children, moved to Berlin. It wasn’t the best time of year to start a new life in a foreign city, but needs must. We were leaving behind Copenhagen – a city that we had enjoyed living in for three and a half years.… Continue Reading
28 years ago today – on November 9th 1989 – the Berlin Wall came down. I was only a teenager at the time, but I have vivid memories of watching what was happening on the TV news. I also remember adults telling me that this was an historic moment. Of course it was, as the Soviet… Continue Reading
It may be mid October, but Berlin has enjoyed a weekend of wonderful weather and colour. And we have made the most of it. Last night we had front row seats to Berlin’s Festival of Lights. We were on a boat tour along the River Spree with our German friends, whom we met whilst living… Continue Reading
At 11 o’clock on Monday, 14th August, I arrived at a Kindergarten in central Berlin with my 15-month-old daughter. It wasn’t to be a long visit – in fact it lasted just a few minutes. But this was the start of Cecelia’s ‘settling-in’ period at her new nursery or Kita. It’s an incremental approach that… Continue Reading
For the second time in just two months, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate has been illuminated in the colours of the UK’s Union Flag. It follows two terrorist attacks on my home country. The first, in March, was in Westminster, Central London (where I used to work). Six people, including the attacker, were killed. The second took… Continue Reading
I live in Berlin’s former Jewish Quarter and all around me are memorials to the many Jews killed in the Holocaust. Among the cobble stones in the pavement outside my apartment are brass plaques. Each one details the name and age of the former residents of Große Hamburger Straße – and to which concentration camp they were deported. Just… Continue Reading
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