The Longest Concert in the World

On Friday, February 25, I began my second adventure to Sachsen-Anhalt, this time to see the city of Halberstadt and meet with the director of the historic synagogue and museum there, Frau Jutta Dick.  Like many of these smaller cities, getting directly from Berlin to Halberstadt would have been quite a trip, and arriving in time for my scheduled appointment with Frau Dick at 10 would have been... impossible.  Fortunately, some friends in Braunschweig, a medium size city in the state of Niedersachsen (yeah there are three states in Germany with the word Sachsen somewhere in their name) invited me to come visit and spend some of the weekend with them.  Braunschweig and Berlin are only 1.5 hours apart, and Braunschweig and Halberstadt are also about 1.5 hours apart.

The trip from Braunschweig to Halberstadt required that I change trains in Vienenburg.  Unfortunately, strikes in western parts of Germany were causing major delays, and the message over the loudspeaker indicated that it was impossible to predict when/if a train might come...  By this point, standing on the platform, I had already begun to make friends with the other stranded would-be travelers.  Stu, who was also waiting for the train inquired about my work, and on learning of my interest in old buildings, pointed out that the train station in Vienenburg (which is about all there seemed to be in Vienenburg - population 10,000) was actually the oldest standing train station building in Germany - dating to 1840 (wikipedia has confirmed).  Unfortunately (and fortunately), before Stu and I could go exploring (it seems there is a museum inside the train station - and I am pretty sure I have already mentioned several times in this blog how much I love transportation/transportation museums) a bus driver showed up and herded all three of us onto our replacement vehicle.


The trip from Vienenburg to Halberstadt took approximately three times as long by bus as it should have by train, but I´ve got time, and it was kind of beautiful.  We stopped in every village EVERY VILLAGE between the two towns.  In other words, Stu and I basically became best friends over a lovley discussion of debunked myths about life in the USA (being American is not EXACTLY like what you have seen on tv, but yes, CSI Miami is pretty crazy, and Los Angeles has a major traffic problem).


I finally arrived in Halberstadt, and using the very helpful street signs, was able to find my way to the Klaus Synagogue on Rosenwinkel Street quite easily, and with only a one hour delay.  Frau Dick was very kind and understanding.  She took me directly upstairs into what had been the prayer room of the Klaus, and began telling me about the building.


The Klaus Synagogue was built in 1857 on the site of a previous synagogue.  It was not a gemeinde synagogue, in other words, the congregation for the community in Halberstadt did not meet there. In fact the building took the name Klaus in a play on words with the word Kloister.  It was used as a school and yeshiva that was known throughout Jewish Europe.  The 3 rabbis who were at any given time active there (and lived within the building) did not have the stresses or responsibilities of gemeinde/congregational rabbis.  They educated generations of orthodox rabbis in Europe.  However, people in the Halberstadt community would often come to these rabbis precisely BECAUSE they were not the congregational rabbis and were seen as more impartial to community matters.  They and their families lived in the Klaus synagogue.



The Jewish community of Halberstadt at its peak made up 10% of the population of the city (1000 people out of about 10,000 in the early 19th century )  The population grew in number, but not in percentage, in the early 20th century with the immigration of Eastern European Jews, for whom Halberstadt had particular meaning as the orthodox capital of an otherwise quite reformed Jewish Germany.



During the Pogrom night on 1938, the building was spared any major damage because the landlord at the time was not Jewish.  The other synagogues in the city  were destroyed, except for a piece of the wall of the synagogue across the street from the Klaus.


During the war people lived in the building.  In the post war era, in the 1960s, people were aware of the Klaus Synagogue, which was being used as housing and had thus been structurally altered.  Several local men took interest in the building and protecting it, although they didn´t have a particular interest in that it represented Jewish history, just that it represented Halberstadt history (one guy made this clear saying that if it had been an eskimo house he would have researched eskimos, that it was a Jewish house meant he researched Jewish history in Halberstadt).



After the fall of the wall the organization which had been responsible for housing in the DDR continued to exist, and at this time altered the building more than previously, painting over the ceiling decoration  and making a permanent division where the women´s gallery had been to divide the sanctuary into two usable floors.

In the early 1990s, as the restitution claims conference was held, it was brought to light that the Nussbaum family, a Jewish family from Halberstadt, then residing in Los Angeles, had owned a lot of property in the city of Halberstadt before the war.  People in the community became anxious that their homes would be taken away as a result of restitution.  As a peace offering of sorts, Nussbaum purchased the Klaus from the city and helped organize a foundation concerned with Jewish history and tolerance in Halberstadt.  Restoration of the Klaus began in 1998, and the building has been kept quite plain, almost empty, so as not to distract from the events and programs that take place within the building. 


A few years later the buildings across the street from the synagogue (which also belonged to the foundation, by that time associated with the larger Moses Mendelssohn Foundation) were prepared for use as a museum.  The museum is located just behind the ruins of the former synagogue, the site for which is memorialized as a garden which stones showing where various parts of the synagogue stood.  The museum itself narrates the history of the Jewish community of Halberstadt, giving special attention to the community´s role as an orthodox center of education.


Of course I asked Frau Dick about the significance of having an orthodox historic site administered under the guise of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation - the father of the Jewish enlightenment.  It bothers the occasional orthodox tourist from the US or Israel, she explains.  But, she reminds me, Mendelssohn had a lot more to do with the secularization of Judaism than the development of the reform movement that followed.  The Jews of Halberstadt, she insists, though mostly orthodox, were deeply influenced by this 18th century move in the direction of secularization.  In the museum exhibit rooms from the pre-Mendelssohn era face inward and exhibits on the post Mendelssohn era face outward.


Frau Dick then invited me to lunch in the museum´s Jewish-style but definitely not Kosher cafe, and explained how such a restaurant came to be a part of the envisioning of this museum and historic site.  The building, she explains, already belonged to the complex.  When a Russian Jewish immigrant woman expressed her interest in cooking, it was a natural progression.  Even if the restaurant didn´t take off, with no need to pay rent, there wasn´t much to lose.  The restaurant, which specializes in Russian Jewish cuisine and recipes passed down from the descendants of Halberstadt Jews, was pretty tasty, and attracted visitors to the museum and gave a space for programs about Jewish holidays and laws of kashrut.  Locals only started to eat at the restaurant in the last two years.  Before that it was considered strange, foreign, maybe the negative side of exotic.  


After our meeting, I was free to spend the rest of my day exploring Halberstadt, before returning to Braunschweig that evening.  Halberstadt, population 42,000, has a beautiful historic center, with several large churches and a maze of fachwerk style houses (this is the typical style of architecture where you see exposed wooden beams often in exes).

Just as I had no problem finding the Klaus, the whole city is extremely well labeled with signs and maps for any visitors.  So, of course I was intrigued to see signs directing me towards the longest concert in the world. 


Despite the excellent signage, the usefulness of said signs was, debatable at best.  Sometimes signs for the same site seemed to point towards one another as though the longest concert in the world were taking place somewhere inbetween the tip of one arrow and the empty ground before the other.  I began to wonder if it might be possible to get so lost as to miss the longest concert in the world, in which case, it must not be such a long concert afterall.


In any case, I resolved to do my favorite activity in Germany, asking for directions.  I love to ask for directions in Germany, because its almost like having a conversation in German, and it is a socially acceptable way to interact with strangers.  The trouble is, as willing as most Germans I have encountered are to help a stranger find her way, they give quite possibly the least instructive directions imaginable.  Geradeaus, they tell you.  Translated this means straight ahead, but rarely is the destination sought straight ahead.  And, repeating the word geradeaus, geradeaus, geradeaus while flapping one´s arms vaguely in a particular direction will also not assist in the task at hand.  

Example: I ask, "Where do I find the longest concert in the world?"  They respond, "See that house? the one with the window? next to the tree?  Turn left there, spot the small brooke and then geradeaus geradeaus geradeaus and you´re there."


Well, eventually I arrived in a large courtyard, in which several buildings stood.  One building, which resembled an old stone church had a sign on the door which read, "Ring the bell to visit the longest concert in the world".  I rang the bell.  

A face emerged from a second story window.  "I´d like to see the longest concert in the world," I said.


"I´m sorry," replied the man, "you´ll have to ring the other bell... over there." He pointed to a stone cottage across the way.  

I marched over, rang the bell, and a cartoonish woman in her 60s burst over the threshhold.  "I suppose you are here to see the longest concert in the world!" she exclaimed (what was the give away?).  


I explained that I was, and she proceeded to lead the way back over to the church, for which she produced a rather auspicious key, and began to tell the story of the main event.  This she explained, was an experience about time, about the future, about life.  Everyone experienced this concert differently, and I shouldn´t be concerned to take my own time and my own space to really appreciate the concert.  John Cage, the American composer, had written this piece for the organ and instructed that it be played "as slowly as possibe".  The piece had begun on September 5, 2001 with a rest that lasted a year and a half.  The first note emerged from a pipe on February 5, 2003.  The piece will play until September 4, 2640.  Note changes are not often.  Only recently did the piece play its first chord.  When the notes change, large crowds often gather.  Other than that she entertains tourists now and again, more in summer of course.  

As for the building itself, it is an old Nun Kloister.  The building dates back centuries but fell into disuse and indeed misuse, housing livestock.  The nuns, she told me, would like it better this way.



We entered.  


The building was cavernous.

It groaned.  And hummed.  And sang.


She stood back and let me be at one with my own tiny moment of history.

Towards the middle right apse of the building, behind glass, stood several pipes - the source from which the great endless sound resonated.  I wandered around for a few moments.  I tried to feel the presence of the last 600 years and the next 600.  It was hard to keep from laughing.  This was indeed a glorious and ridiculous project.  Realizing that I didn´t really want my moment of history to commune with this ringing in my ears, I returned to my hostess to ask a few more questions.  The plaques around the wall.  There are 639 of them, she explained, one for every year of the concert.  They are available for sponsorship. 

The House of the Absent Neighbors

Day two of my escapades in Sachsen-Anhalt.

After leaving Gröbzig and returning to Halle, I had plans to meet up with a friend.  Actually, this is the same woman I was fortunate enough to befriend on the train from Italy back to Berlin - I may have looked her up online and emailed her (is that creepy?).  In any case, it was great to see her again.  Then it was off to Magdeburg, the second largest city in Sachsen-Anhalt, where I stayed in a hostel for the night before setting off for Haldensleben in the morning.  Sachsen-Anhalt, by the way, feels humongous, since it takes me HOURS to get from one of these little towns to another.

This may be a good moment to interject and explain that almost all of my sites (of which there are 15 at the moment) are in small towns or villages (Centrum Judaicum and Erfurt being the main exceptions).  The reason for this is that many of these buildings survived 1938, because they were no longer synagogues.  The Jewish communities, thanks to the industrial revolution, left a lot of smaller towns and villages in the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries for bigger cities.  This was often the case for Eastern European Jews, like my ancestors as well.  Opportunities for better employment were available in places like Berlin, Warsaw, New York (and even Baltimore) that couldn´t be imagined in a Gröbzig or a Haldensleben.

That being said, Haldensleben is much larger than Gröbzig at a whopping 19,000.  It is the first place I have been in Germany where I have seen blatant antisemitic graffiti and swastikas in plain view.

I was to meet with the director of the Haldensleben city museum who also oversees the synagogue.  Thanks to a tourist map outside the train station, I made my way to the museum, and was greeted by Herr Hauer.  We decided that before we talked too much, he would show me the synagogue a short walk away.  On the walk over I told him a bit more about my project - historic synagogues, former East Germany, open to the public - he stopped me.

Well, ours isn´t exactly open, he explained.  We´d like it to be.   But it just hasn´t worked out yet. 

The Haldensleben synagogue is known today as Das Haus der anderen Nachbarn, "The House of the Other Neighbors".  It was built in 1822 - far enough into the emancipation process of the Jews in Germany to have a spot on a main street rather than in a protected court yard.  And, to be honest, it doesn´t really look like a "typical" synagogue.  It has gothic style windows.  In the middle ages Jewish structures were just about as likely to be gothic style as non Jewish buildings, but the neo gothic architecture of the 19th century was pretty much only popular among Christians.  An extremely visible Jewish structure in the 1820s built in a very non Jewish style, could tell a lot about how integrated the Jews of Haldensleben were with their non Jewish community.

By 1907 there were only 3 Jews left in the town, so the synagogue was sold to the Neoapostolischer Church, which occupied the building until 2002, when they decided to move to a larger building.  That was when Herr Hauer and others became concerned that something would happen to this historic building, and so, in the hopes to preserve the building, the idea of the House of the other Neighbors was hatched.

The idea was that here was a building that had belonged to two religious minorities in Germany and had been freely sold or given over by each group without pressure of unfriendly governments or neighbors.  Here was a building that had not been touched by the horrors of the Second World War.  Here was a building that could teach tolerance... period.

It was a beautiful idea, and the local governments agreed.  The House of the other Neighbors was funded, restored, and reopened in April 2007.  Outside it is pink with those distinctive gothic windows, inside it is painted light yellow.  There are outlines of where various religious furniture (arks and pulpits) were located when the building was a synagogue or church.  There are models of the building during each time period (the synagogue faced east, the church faced west, the synagogue had a women´s balcony, the church did not).  The second floor, for purposes of architectural historical accuracy, once again exists where the women´s gallery once was.  Mostly the room is filled with folding chairs and wooden chests where, Hauer explains, each religion or minority group that lives in Sachsen-Anhalt can fill a chest with information, important objects, etc.  Groups can come and learn about diversity in an historic space.

"Great", I said.  "How is it going?"

"It´s not."  He replied.  For one thing, none of the groups they have called on to help fill the chests seem to get it.  The various churches, when they have filled boxes, have filled them only with paperback bibles and information about how to convert.  Most of the chests are empty.  One group suggested that only Judaism and Christianity be explained, since the building was only ever a synagogue and a church (aka they would be willing to discuss Islam or Buddhism or Shintoism, etc only in the case that the building had at one point been a mosque or a temple, etc).  "They missed the point.  It has only been 4 years, but so far they all have missed the point", Hauer said.

At a very very basic level, Hauer achieved his goal.  The building was saved.  If you aren´t occupied with this type of work, saving a building might be a difficult concept to wrap your head around.  But, saving the building is almost always goal no. 1.  Call them Buildings of Dreams - If you restore them, they will come.  Or at least, that is what we in this business, so to speak,  like to think.  If only the roof didn´t leak and the decorations were historically accurate.  If the walls were sturdy and the electricity were up to code...

Hauer has just that.  The building is beautiful.  Beautiful and empty.  He has taken to enticing school groups with free educational space and tour groups with free bathrooms.  The house of the free bathrooms.

Having seen the swastikas across from the train station, I asked, "Aside from a lack on interest, have you had any negative responses?"

He explains.  Like most places in the GDR, no one really knew there was a synagogue here.  That is was given over to the church already in 1907, no one really remembered there being a Jewish community here.  Just before we reopened the synagogue, I published a piece spreading the word in the community about the historical presence of the Jewish community and the synagogue.  Just after that someone through a bottle through the window. It made a mark in the wall, which as you can see, I left.  Historical evidence of the first and only recorded evidence of antisemitic acts directed at the synagogue in Haldensleben, 100 years after it ceased to be a synagogue.

And what about Jewish tourists?  Do people ever call up asking to see the synagogue?  Are there families of Haldensleben Jews who have sought it out?  Do people ever just pass through and want to know about Jewish life here??

He told me, "You are the first."

Tuesday Shabbat

Ever since I decided to focus my work on accessible historic synagogues in former East Germany (now known as the New States of Germany), I´ve tried to be a bit systematic.  So, I assembled information and read books on the synagogues of Sachsen-Anhalt, a state in the middle of the country.  With the help of my mentor, Dr. Simon, I made contact with the people who maintain each building, and off I went to visit my first two synagogues in Sachsen-Anhalt, Gröbzig and Haldensleben.

February 15th at a ridiculously early hour, I headed to the train station to board a train that left Berlin at 6:39 (whah?) and arrived at Halle, the largest city in Sachsen-Anhalt at 8.  There are no trains to Gröbzig.  I think there might be a bus.  Might be.  But basically, if I wanted to make my way to Gröbzig, population 3,000, I needed a lift.  Fortunately the museum director, Ms. Marion Mendez, who lives in Halle, offered to meet me at the train station, at least, that was what I thought.  Imagine my surprise when an older man approached me and asked, "Are you waiting for anyone?"

It was Bernd, an employee at the Gröbzig Synagogue.  Another man was waiting for us with a car to go pick up Ms. Mendez so we could carpool together through the rolling hills and farmland of the Anhalt-Bitterfeld region before arriving at what is likely the most complete and intact historical Jewish complex in Germany - synagogue, cantor´s house, school house, cemetery and associated buildings, congregation house, etc.

I was lucky enough (ok we planned it this way, but luck makes the blog seem more intriguing) to have arrived on a day when a school group would be touring the synagogue.  Eleven 8 year olds from a local Evangelical (just means Protestant in Germany) school.  For my work watching children this young in a Jewish space is particularly interesting.  They really haven´t learned much about the Holocaust or the Second World War quite yet (one child later mentioned something about having heard that bad things had happened to Jews - it was clearly a fuzzy subject though, and something he had overheard perhaps), and even learning about other religions and cultures at such a young age is probably a relatively new subject.  Kids this young are really open to new ideas, and they will also ask questions and suggest answers that older children and certainly adults might be too shy to ask.  So in the nerdiest way I can possibly say this - it is really exciting to watch children at this age interact in historic spaces.

Ms. Mendez had all of the children sit at 19th century school desks in the old school house.  There was a table set up for Shabbat, and the children were going to act our the Jewish sabbath, volunteers got to be the mother, the father, the daughter and the son.  It was really interesting to see how she explained the various traditions to the children, and how they reacted.  The concept of not working on Shabbat, and what exactly is considered "work" fascinated the children... even video games are work... shocking!  The idea that Jews do not eat pig (I mean, what else is there?).  It was interesting, and I´ll admit, almost uncomfortable, to hear the children say the blessings over the challah and wine and candles (funny how we realize what things we hold for "sacred").  I was surprised at the children´s patience and seriousness with subjects like male circumcision (I was surprised the subject even made it to a tour for third graders).

The synagogue in Gröbzig was sold by its congregation due to a shrinking population in 1934.  It became the town´s Heimat Museum (homeland museum), a common thing in German towns - basically like the attic/treasure chest for local history, and for this reason, it was not destroyed in the Pogrom Night of 1938 (recently learned that the preferred name for the events of Nov. 9, 1938 among German Jews is Pogrom Night and NOT Kristallnacht).

The building continued to be used as a "museum" although with basically no reference or association to its Jewish past through the war and during the GDR era.  At one point during the GDR a memorial to the victims of Fascism (basically the only way East Germany discussed or dealt with the Holocaust was to identify all victims as anti-fascists) was placed in front of the building - truthfully it was so large it basically obstructed view of the building. 

In 1988, in preparation for commemoriation of 50 years since the Pogrom Nacht, Erich Honeker, head of the GDR, decided to restore Gröbzig (as an example of rural Jewish life) and the Centrum Judaicum (as an example of urban Jewish life) in a political move that, the more I hear about, is generally confirmed as some sort of attempt to gain the favor of the West, namely the US.  It is still sort of a mystery to me how exactly that was supposed to work, but in any case, that does seem to be what got the ball rolling in Gröbzig.

Still it wasn´t until a few years later that Gröbzig, as a museum, became more than just an old building.  The breadth of work that Mendez and her very small team are doing is somewhat incredible, considering their middle of nowhere location.  She runs tours, maintains a history exhibit, entertains traveling art and music exhibitions, and even oversees overnight/weekend programs for youth to discuss Judaism, Tolerance, etc.  In the middle of the village stands a large modern building.  The first floor is not connected with the synagogue and functions as the youth center.  The top two floors are a hostel of sorts where student groups can come and stay overnight to work on projects in association with the Jewish museum (there is another building that acts as a workshop, but it is currently being renovated).

But despite the amazing facilities and fascinating historical buildings, the locals in Gröbzig are... uninterested.  Sometimes I am not sure what makes me sadder, when the nearest Jewish community has no interest in these old buildings or when the nearest non Jewish community has no interest in these buildings.  I was talking about this with one of Ms. Mendez´assistants who comes from Gröbzig. 

"I guess I understand how the villagers feel," I told her.  "I mean if I were a Gröbziger, maybe it would be hard, uncomfortable, unsettling to live across the street or one block over from the synagogue - to feel confronted everyday with the town´s past."

"Really?" she said, "Because I don´t understand."





It is amazing what strangers teach you sometimes in just a few words.  I can´t tell you how many times, in social contexts, I have hesitated to explain my work beyond saying, "I study old buildings".  I think a piece of me always wonders if I will somehow make Germans uncomfortable.  On one hand I am here to do my work, but on the other hand I am here to be a totally normal person in Germany.  I take the second part of my experience here as seriously as the first -  it was just days before leaving for Germany, on my 24th birthday, in the middle of the night, in the car, driving down nearly abandoned streets in Baltimore with one of my dearest friends, that I suddenly wondered if the two goals would be by nature in conflict.  Would Germans I met accept me as a neighbor, friend, etc., and not be self conscious or shy or agitated or overly curious that I study their interactions with Jewish space?

My colleague in Gröbzig was an important reminder to me that my own initial feeling that I had to be "overly sensitive" to Germans is just as uninformed, unsophisticated, and in the end unnecessary as Gröbziger´s shying away from or resenting an historic building. 

History is history.  Inevitably what we produce with it, and NOT that we are products of it, should define us.