Our first session was with Mr. Michael Annuβ who spoke to us about the difficulties the city of Frankfurt Oder faces with the decrease in population. After the re-unification of the two Germanys many people left Frankfurt Oder for a better life in Berlin or further in the former West Germany. Prior to the end of the Cold War, people in East Germany were guaranteed an education and after graduation, were guaranteed a job for the rest of their life on some state-run industry. After the fall of the GDR, the state no longer ran the industries and they closed, sending thousands of people into unemployment. Currently, in Frankfurt Oder, 15.5% of the people are unemployed and the average age is increasing as the youth leave for places where there are jobs.
Another problem is vacant apartment buildings. The GDR built many apartment buildings for Frankfurt Oder when the population was almost 90,000 people. Now half of those buildings are vacant with the population dropping to nearly 66,000 people. As a result, the cit has to demolish many apartment buildings returning the areas back to green space. This is a costly and often difficult process as people are required to leave their homes and move closer to the centre of the city.
After this discussion, we were given a tour of the city with Mr. Udo Lange, who is responsible for the demolition of apartments, schools, etc. We parked on a plot of land that use to be a primarily Jewish residential area, prior to World War II. Since the Jewish Claims Commission now owns the land and what ever may be left of the buildings, a parking lot has been created in this area.
We walked around the area and went inside a Greek Gothic Cathedral. The building was very impressive.
After an amazing lunch of pork steak, we went to the Märkische Oderzeitung, which is the major daily newspaper in Frankfurt Oder. The chief editor, Mr. Frank Mangelsdorf told us what life was like during the GDR and how it has changed over the last 20 years.
We were then able to walk across the bridge into Poland.
Katrina bought us all ice cream and we truly enjoyed the cold treat on such a warm day. We heard how many German soldiers died just on the German side of the bridge. They would be returning to Germany wounded and would make every effort to be on German soil before they died. As a result, they would basically get off the train, using the last of their available effort, and die. Many of the bomb craters were filled with dead soldiers.
We were able to walk around for a few minutes in Poland and then we stopped for a group picture by the Welcome to Poland sign. An elderly gentleman, somewhat inebriated, took it upon himself to be of assistance for this group photo. None of us in the group understood Polish, and he did not understand any of the languages we spoke. Katrina needed to take our picture from across the street, and this was rather difficult with vehicles constantly getting in the way. Our new friend decided that traffic needed to be stopped, so he walked out into the street and stopped the traffic.
After stopping the first vehicle, he walked up to the vehicle and put his hand on the hood making sure the van would not move in front of the group as Katrina took pictures with the dozen cameras she carried. As a token of appreciation Katrina gave our friend some cash and he now became even friendlier, walking all the way back across the bridge into Germany with us. He and Craig carried on a lively conversation, without understanding a word from each other as we walked across the bridge.
We were not sure if he might try to board the bus as well, but he did stay on the bridge.Our amazing bus driver, Gǔrcan did an amazing job of getting us around Berlin. We will never forget him taking a U-turn with the bus on a busy street, or the way he was always standing outside the bus waiting for us to board.
On the ride home, we passed through quite an intense downpour. After arriving at the hotel, we split into two groups. One group went with Wolfgang to a cabaret while a second group went with Katrina to the Berliner Residenz Konzerte at the Grosse Orangerie Schloss Charlottenburg. The evening and music was absolutely beautiful. This was an amazing and very fitting cultural experience to end our time in Berlin.
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