Berlin - Everything the Nazis hate
- havasalad
- Mar 1
- 9 min read
Updated: Nov 2
Although in certain areas one can explicitly distinguish between East German and West German highways, the journey to Berlin is pleasant. I am amazed that today, thirty years after the fall of the barrier between East and West Germany, there is still such a difference between the East German highways and the West German highways.
It is the end of June 2023, and we are still living in a relatively sane era where our new right-wing government led by the narcissist (Bibi Netanyahu), the little piglet (Mrs. Netanyahu), the prince of darkness (Ya'ir Netanyahu) and the spineless yes men who serve them, is what bothers us the most. Every piece of news coming from the eastern Mediterranean is always related to them and disturbs our personal peace only to a certain extent. At this point, October seems as far away as the sun is from the moon.
I pass Leipzig and learn about some interesting events that occurred here in the past. The first of these is that on October 7, 1989, to mark the fortieth anniversary of the German Republic, Gorbachov, the President of the Soviet Union, visited East Berlin where he urged the East German President, Mr. Honecker, to implement political reforms, saying, "Life punishes those who miss the train." I don’t know... for us, the Jews, life punished everyone who got on the train precisely on time.
The second historical event occurred on October 9, 1989, when seventy thousand brave citizens marched silently past the Stasi secret police headquarters in Leipzig. Due to the inferior number of the fascist regime's police, the protest march proceeded without confrontation from the secret police. A few months later, the totalitarian communist regime of the German Democratic Republic, namely East Germany, crumbled.
I am not particularly moved by this information, and I do not know how I feel about Berlin, which many of my people cannot be indifferent to, and quite a few others choose to live there. Part of that minority who has chosen to live in this city is a tiny family dynasty of mine - a second cousin, her husband, and their one-year-old son. Besides them, I also have a friend who has abandoned the Holy Land and is living a new openly gay life in the progressive West.
In exchange for companionship, a hot shower, and a foreign bed at my second cousin's home, I abandon Nadedet on Wörtherberg Dam Street next to the massive Hoffner furniture store. There is no doubt that it is quite difficult to leave my home on wheels on a random street in a foreign city, but I was told that family is important and that I need to have social interaction, and at the end of the day, I really like my friend and my little second cousin and her family.
And now, a story.
After a thorough cleansing of the body in a torrent of hot water in my second cousin's bathroom, donning black clothes and a faux leather pilot’s jacket, applying a black stripe on my eyelids, dark lipstick to my lips, and gel to flatten my curls, around eight o’clock, looking quite butch, I head out to the famous bar and nightclub area of the city. Here, every kind of gender and inclination has a bar, a cafe or a club of its own. LGBQTPLUSWXYZ, they're all there. I have already found the friendly Winterfeldplatz neighborhood on Google Maps, but now I am following the route marked out on my phone to a specific location. The Berlin memorial plaque at the site of Nelly Sachs' former house in Lessingstraße, Hansaviertel, Berlin. As far as I know, she was not a lesbian but she was a nobel prize laureate and shared the award for literature with Shmuel Yosef Agnon.
From Leonies home I head to a place called "Gedenkort Hilde Radusch," which means "Meet at Hilde Radusch" where women, presumably, introduce themselves to each other. It turns out this is a place that only operates during the day when one actually wants to learn about the life and work of Hilde Radusch who did not hide her sexual orientation and her support for communism even during the Nazi period and was arrested and punished for it, but survived to tell her story. Currently, I am not interested in the brave dead German woman. I am more interested in someone extraordinarily alive.
Up the street, tables and chairs on the sidewalk indicate additional meeting spots. I walk towards them and, without too much scrutinizing of dark figures standing and sitting around, I approach the bar.
"Club soda with ice and lemon, please," I say to a beautiful Maltese bartender with mocha-colored skin and a clean shaven head. "You are not from here, eh?" over the music the Maltese shouts back at me, laughing her dimples away. What a pity I don't drink alcohol. One might assume that under its influence I would jump on her and devour her without salt or pepper. But under the influence of sparkling soda, I just nod and smile a standard smile.
Somehow, almost always, in all these bars, it is the bartenders who attract me the most. Perhaps because they serve everyone with a blend of professionalism mixed with just the right amount of casual friendliness. I watch the long limbed Maltese juggling her bottles and glasses, moving her hips to the rhythm of the music. Someone sits down beside me, but I pay no attention and just stare at the exotic bartender. Minutes pass, I sip my soda, and as usual, from deep down, despair begins to build up. Why would this beautiful Maltese have anything to do with me?
A gentle bump of shoulder to shoulder draws my attention to the woman sitting beside me. "Oh, sorry!" the woman says, and I reply, "It's okay," while sipping the remainder of my soda. "What are you drinking?" the woman asks in English, without a strong German accent. "Soda," I apologize. "Can I get you another one, or do you want something a bit stronger?" she asks. I study my neighbor's face. In the dim bar light, she looks to be in her fifties, her long hair pulled back into a sort of bun on the top of her head, her forehead is high, and her eyes slightly slanted upwards, with a straight nose and a full bottom lip. She is beautiful. The neighbor tilts her head to the side. "Yeah, yeah, soda is great," I say. "You don’t drink alcohol," the neighbor notes. "Right," I nod. The woman signals to the bartender and orders some cocktail for herself and soda for me.
"So you don't drink alcohol because you're Muslim?" my neighbor asks. "I don't drink alcohol because I've had enough," I reply. "Tonight or in general?" "In general." "And you're not Muslim...?" "Correct. I am not Muslim." "So can I ask where you're from?" I hesitate. There’s no telling how the non-Jews will react to my identity. I say, "I'm from the Middle East." "You’re from the Middle East and you’re not Muslim. That means you’re either a Lebanese Christian, a Syrian Druze or an Israeli Jew." The woman's gaze lingers on me, and I nod a singal nod. "I’m not a Lebanese Christian or a Druze." I am impressed with the European's knowledge of the Middle East. "Do you have a problem with that?" I ask. "Not at all," my new friend replies "I am a Lebanese lesbian."
It turns out this woman was born near Marj Ayoun in Lebanon, and like me, she is not Muslim but an Orthodox Christian. "When the Hizballah took over our village I used to look every day towards Metula and pray that God would show me the way to Israel." A feeling of warmth washes over me. Here sits someone from my hood, someone who knows how to scoop up hummus with a torn bit of pita and what river is being referred to when idiots chant "from the river to the sea". After spending weeks among relatively ignorant light-skinned Europeans, I feel I have found a sister.
"How should I call you?" I ask my neighbor. "Sarah," she replies, "and what’s your name?" she asks. "Havatselet," I respond. "What is that?" Sarah doesn’t understand. I explain how to pronounce the name: "It's like 'have a salad.'" The Lebanese German looks at me confused. "What?" she asks again. "Eat a salad," I explain with a kind of a gesture, and Sarah bursts into laughter. It always works. The ice is now officially broken.
At eleven, the music gets louder, and Sarah asks me if I want to dance. "Yes!" I want to. As we get off our bar stools a large gap opens between us. I am exactly one hundred and sixty centimeters tall, while Sarah, by all estimates, is closer to two meters. "Jesus Christ!" I think to myself, looking up. "What did your parents feed you?" I ask. Sarah says very seriously, "Hummus, tahini, and a lot of salad!" She grabs my hand and pulls me to the center of the dance floor.
It's already past midnight, and again we are sitting by the bar. The conversation flows, amusing and intriguing. The disdain for Middle Eastern machismo, the aversion to the "whose the best endowed/ richest/ most powerful man in the room" mentality that characterizes too many Jews and Arabs that both Sara and I hate, and especially our yearning for a peaceful and normal life "like in the villages in Europe where people have lived the same way for hundreds of years,” I say. Sarah nods and declares: “In my opinion, there is a fundamental difference between the Judeo-Christian religions and the Islam. Jews and Christians sanctify life, while Muslims sanctify death.”
“Listen,” I say, “I feel like I’m in a movie, and unlike the salad girl, in this movie, the heroine asks the question.” “Ask!” Sarah dares me. “I’m wandering. I mean, I'm traveling around and I won’t be staying in Berlin for more than two weeks. Would you like to sleep with me tonight?” “Yes,” Sarah says. “The question is just where,” I give her a questioning look. “Unfortunately I have a husband at home…” Sarah says. “Ah,” a little less bold, I nod and after a moment say, “You’re invited to my camper van, just know that the length of the bed is the same as the length of the driver…” Sarah bursts into hearty laughter. “I’m very flexible,” she says, and we leave the bar.
Somewhere near dawn, Sarah goes on her way and I continue to sleep for a few more hours.
Later, I will meet with my second cousin's dynasty again, and tomorrow I will go for a walk with Leopold in Berlin, and he will tell me many very interesting things about the city. In the meantime, I will find a camper van parking area called "Campingplatz Krosinsee," located in a pine forest by a lake in the southeast of the city. The stay there costs about 23 euros per night, and the place provides showers, toilets, a grocery store, a laundry, water to fill the water tank, gray water drainage spots, and endless paths along the river and into the forests surrounding the camping site. Paradise.
Even though we did exchange phone numbers I never met Sarah again probably because Sarah has a husband who is sleeping in their shared bed in one of Berlin's finer neighborhoods and I've already been to that movie and read the book on relationships with married women.
Leopold has a different Hebrew name which I think he never uses here. He got his permanent residency status in the Schengen countries by acquiring his forefathers Czech or Estonian or Latvian citizenship. Many Israelis do that because most of our roots are in Central and Eastern Europe. I think he tried to become a tourist guide for Israeli groups and invested time and money in learning everything there is to know about Berlin but for some reason or another it did not work out. So he lives off a monthly allowance provided by the German government. Even when we move from the Middle East there still are great similarities between the Israeli and Arab immigrants.
The Brandenburg Gate, the most famous gate in Berlin, is the city's only surviving neoclassical city gate and a powerful symbol of the German reunification, having previously represented division during the Cold War. Leopold is finally given the chance to give someone an amazing guided tour of Berlin and that someone is me. We go to all the famous sites that are associated with WWII, Nazism, the Cold War and the more we get into it the darker the day becomes. Pretty quickly a storm is upon us and we seek shelter under the Brandenburg gate.
When the storm moves on we decide to go have a late lunch somewhere in the Gay district not far from "Gedenkort Hilde Radusch" and I tell Leopold about my little adventure. I am happy. Leopold makes me laugh and also shares his private story, which is moving and quite painful, with me. I love being alone but it is wonderful to have a good friend.
Everything in Berlin is big - the streets, the buildings, the history, the wall, everything. For the next week or so I will stay at Krosinsee Camping in my humble camper van and just enjoy being nobody in Berlin.
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