Author Archives: kcosumano

>Anyone Up For a Walk Through Northumberland?

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>The internet is, for all its faults, an amazing thing.

When I was around 12 years old I read a few books involving English Gypsies, and became fascinated by them and by England at the same time. One book in particular stayed with me, because of a long, descriptive passage of a walk from the Scottish border to Hadrian’s Wall. But that was pretty much all I could remember about this book. Title, author, character names were all lost to me.
Then recently I discovered that certain bookseller websites have forums where you can ask just this sort of thing. I wrote a post with the above information, and the dim memory of one brief bit about a gold coin offered and rejected. Within 24 hours I had a response and within the week I had the name of my book. There was no pressure to buy it anywhere, either, and I ended up ordering it somewhere else, but I am eternally grateful to the volunteer Book Sleuths who helped me out!
The book? It was Winifred Cawley’s “Feast Of The Serpent”, and after re-reading it I saw immediately why I was so fascinated. The protagonist, Adonell, is a teenager, half Gypsy, and when her father is killed her mother takes her (on foot, it’s 1649) from their Northumbrian village to reunite with her Romany family further south. On the way the reader is introduced to reading Gypsy signs, Neolithic cup-and-ring stones, the ruins of the Castle of Seven Shields (or Sewingshields), Hadrian’s Wall (Cawley calls it “the Picts’ Wall”), and the marginalized communities living within its fortification ruins. A bit of internet research convinced me that she was writing about what is now called Housesteads, near Barcombe Hill (from the Roman Vercovicium? which is called only Barcom in the book), and Vindolanda. The lake with the “steep crag beyond it” is surely Crag Lough, one of three lakes in the region which form a sort of triangle of land in between, which, Cawley writes, is sacred land to the Rom.
Of course, now all I want to do is fly to Newcastle and go on my own “Feast Of The Serpent” walkabout! I want to see these things! And again, the internet, with all its images, blogs and helpful websites, is an amazing thing.

Northumberland National Park
Housesteads Museum and Fort
Hadrian’s Wall Blog

>Forgotten Innsbruck: Amraser See

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(Thanks to the writer of the Paschberg Blog for the photo above, which I have brazenly purloined. If you read German, his blog is an excellent source of local history and current affairs. I hope my advert for it makes up for my theft!)

I was walking through the southeast side of town the other week and noticed an unusual street sign — “Amraser See Strasse”. Amras Lake? Where the hell is that? Amras is a neighborhood on the edge of town, once a quiet outpost, now the business district. If you walk around beyond the shopping centers and superstores, you find corners of the old village tucked away in hidden places. But a lake? This was a new one for me.
A little internet research brought me closer — the Amraser See was a shallow lake fed by groundwater, the Aldranser Bach and a canal from the nearby Sill River (which joins the Inn a bit further on.) It was maintained for the royal fisheries when Innsbruck was a royal seat of power.

(Photo from Amraser Bote, June 2008 Issue)

An inn was first built near the lake in 1648, and stayed in business until about 20 years ago. The whole area was redeveloped in the early 90s, and apartment buildings stand there now, near the entrance to the autobahn. The “island” on the middle of the lake now holds a shopping center (DEZ.) Until all this construction, the lake had been slowly drying up over the years, but reemerged after exceptionally heavy rains. I believe the top photo was taken in 1985, when several parts of town had flooded.

>Bergisel

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>This is the old ski jump on Bergisel, functional and boring, which was built for the 1964 Winter Olympics. Oddly, I was unable to find a photo of it online anywhere — this is a screen grab of video, posted on Youtube. I remember when it was demolished one Sunday at exactly noon. From my terrace a few kilometers away, I watched the tower silently implode, and the boom arrived a second or two later.
The other day we revisited the new one. Its design and the cafe at the top make it a popular sight for tourists, but I have also been up there with locals, for an afternoon birthday gathering for example. The views on all sides are spectacular and so it’s worth doing at least once.

Hey, I can see my house from here. (Really.)
The old guidebooks will tell you that when you stand above the ski jump and look down, you see the cemetery directly beyond the landing strip. It’s true, that’s the Wiltener Friedhof down there. One can’t make it out in this photo but they had just turned the lights on — that row of colored tubes along the right side of the inrun. The effect is of slowing changing color through the evening.

>Erik Schinegger

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UPDATE 16 June 2011: for info about the new film.

When I posted about Gretel Bergmann and Dora Ratjen, I came across another name from closer to home — Erika Schinegger, who was a shining star in the women’s downhill ski races in the mid 60s. Last night ORF aired a 2005 documentary film about Schninegger — Erik(A) — and the events of 1967, when the Austrian Olympic hopefuls submitted to medical testing by the IOC and it came out that Schinegger was, chromosomally speaking, male.
While Ratjen withdrew from society and never spoke to any reporters about his experiences, Schinegger is congenial and loquacious, as well as a very attractive man. Looking at old photos now, one clearly sees (in restrospect, of course) a young man’s face and body. But many of those interviewed said that they were surprised by the test results. They had assumed that Erika Schinegger was simply a healthy, somewhat homely country girl, with muscles from all that farm work.
Schninegger underwent corrective surgery and changed his name from Erika to Erik, and actually competed successfully on the men’s downhill team for a short time — until the Austrian Ski Federation made him resign, due, they told him, to “unrest in the media” and among his teammates. Schinegger returned to live in the village in Carinthia where he grew up, opened a ski school for children, and eventually married (and fathered a daughter.) If he had any bitterness in him, it was not apparent in the film.

The filmmaker interviewed a dozen or so people; family members, childhood friends, teammates, as well as extensive interviews with Schinegger himself, and pulls a neat trick by juxtaposing archival footage with that of modern teenagers at athletic training exercises. The effect is that you as the viewer begin to look at the girls with a clinical eye, noting the things that make them “feminine” — or not. You begin to both notice and question the “obvious” differences between the genders.
Update: I keep coming back to Caster Semenya and what the media circus last year has done to her life. Schinegger had two big things going for him – one was the time and place, and home being a place where he could go about having a normal life, once the locals adjusted (which they did), the other was that by his own accounts, while he grew up identifying as a girl from not knowing anything else, he tended toward boyish things — he tells of annual Christmas meltdowns as a child, when getting another doll instead of the long-desired tractor (the dolls all got their heads broken eventually!) and evidently was able to settle into being a guy relatively easily. The way he described it, it seemed like a natural progression for him. The contortions that Caster’s family/publicity agent/whoever is putting her through to enforce the idea that she’s a “real woman” can’t be good for her.

>Hofgarten im Winter

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The Innsbrucker Hofgarten is celebrating 600 years in existence. Established in 1410 by Duke Friedrich IV (“with the empty pockets”), it is an example of the English-style gardens that were copied by monarchs all over the continent (the English Gardens and the park lands behind Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich are further nearby examples.) Its 10 hectares (ca. 25 acres) are right in the center of town, like a miniature Central Park, with a nice café/beer garden, a music pavillion, (a pretty Baroque structure built in 1733 — see photo above) botanical gardens and greenhouses for cactii and palms. It is said that there are specimens within the park walls which were planted by Empress Maria Theresia herself. I don’t know which ones, but I suspect an enormous, rambling old tree with branches that touch the ground and have rooted there.
I have walked these paths many, many times. It’s a lovely, quiet place to breathe in a bit of fresh air and enjoy the leafy views.

>Filmschau: About Gretel Bergmann and Dora Ratjen

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>I just saw a new German film the other day, “Berlin 36”. While the film itself was only so-so as far as how it was made (although acted and shot very well), the true story on which it’s based is actually more interesting that the cinematic version.
Gretel Bergmann was a young promising German track and field athlete when the Nazis came to power. Being Jewish, she was expelled from her athletic club in 1933, but was able to move to the UK and participate in the British Championships, winning in the high jump.
As the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics approached, Germany made some attempts at making themselves appear tolerant, and one such attempt was to blackmail Gretel (with threats made to the family) into coming back to join the German team as their Token Jew. She returned and trained, and even tied the German record at a regional meet right before the games. However, her score was deleted from the books and she failed to qualify for the Olympic team due to “underperformance”.
Now, this is where the story gets (even more) interesting: her replacement on the team, a young woman with whom she’d trained, was Dora Ratjen, who was actually male. Although the story is often portrayed as a Nazi scheme of putting a guy in a dress and sending him out to beat Gretel, the truth is more complicated and, as always, more tragic. Ratjen had been raised a girl but apparently was intersex of some form or another*, and her male characteristics began to show in puberty. She placed fourth at the Berlin Olympics and won the 1938 European Championships. However, in 1938 she was riding in a train when someone reported having seen a man in a dress to the police.
Ratjen came through the ordeal in the clear, but she gave up her athletic career and in 1939 was able to get reclassified as a male, and changed his name to Heinrich. (I cannot imagine this would have been easy to do in Nazi Germany, with their obsession with identity cards and all that. But he managed it.) He returned to Bremen, took over the family bar and never spoke to anyone ever again publicly about his past.
He died in 2008. Gretel Bergmann is 95 and living in New York.

* If you look up “intersexuality” on Wikipedia you can learn of the many different ways the human x and y chromosomes can get out of wack. It’s amazing that so many of us turn out normal.

>Death Of A Tormann

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>Robert Enke, goalie for Hannover 96 and for the German national team, took his life Monday evening by throwing himself in front of a train. He was 32.

Enke, it was revealed, had suffered from depression for years. He had first sought help in 2003, then in 2006 his 2-year-old daughter Lara died from a heart condition. Those who knew him well thought that he was doing OK. But as he sank further into despair and anxiety, he kept his suffering hidden, even from his wife.

Germany’s football players and fans are in shock, and grieving. The national team’s upcoming game with Chile has been cancelled, a memorial gathering in Hannover drew 35,000 fans.

Memorial services will be held in Hannover on Sunday, and in Jena, Enke’s hometown.

>Long Before It Was Tirol, It Was Raetia

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>This unassuming, wooded hill hides the remains of a group of Raetian houses from around 400 B.C.
The Raetians were a people who moved into the lands between Lake Garda and the Karwendel Mountains by the 6th century B.C. They are somehow associated with the Etruscans (their exact relationship is disputed, but there are similarities in their alphabets and a possible genetic link has come to light); Pliny the Elder wrote that they were an Etruscan clan driven out of the Po Valley by other tribes.
A technically and spiritually advanced society, they had a high level of technical, architectural and artisanal skills. Raetian wine from the area around Verona was Caesar Augustus’ preferred drink. They raised crops and farm animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. They kept dogs and horses. They handled in raisins, tree resin, lumber, wax, honey and cheese. They made their own artistically distinct ceramics.
What’s left of their houses are these stone cellars with narrow stair corridors. The entire group was in encircled by a sort of fort wall of sharpened logs, about one meter high (more picket fence than fortress)
Archaeologists have found much metalwork: chisels, axes, blades, iron rings, keys, door and chest handles, hooks. They families that lived here apparently did so in relative comfort, security and prosperity, able to make, trade for, or buy anything they needed.
And, all around, they had quite a view to enjoy —
Also found nearby (but no longer existent) was a temple area with sacrificial altars. In better times the Raetians sacrificed animals and crops to their god(s), and used the fire altars to sanctify bronze jewelry and weapons.
In 15 B.C. the Romans decided to push northward, subjugating the Raetians and burning their villages. The survivors took to sacrificing coins, as everything else was too valuable to burn. And once the Romans forced their culture and language on everybody else, traces of the Raetians dried up.
The cellars are now preserved as a free open-air museum with signs posted giving information about the Raetians and about the archaeological finds, now on permanent exhibit at the Tiroler Landesmuseum in Innsbruck.

>A hike to the Lanser Kopf Flakstellungen

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>A hike around the Paschberg, at the southern end Innsbruck. Looking back towards town, the Igler Bahn streetcar winds it way up through the forest to the villages on the plateau on the other side of the hill.
One of the cutest houses around, the Tantegert stop. It’s a little fairy tale cottage along the tram line, and (I believe) inhabited by someone who works for the railroad. It’s nestled in the woods but not very private, with several hiking trails crossing right behind it.
Not a grave, but a little shrine to someone who died at this spot on the hill. You see crosses and plaques like this, as well as tiny chapels, often in the mountains. What makes this one especially interesting is the painting which depicts the manner of the man’s death — it seems he fell, and his sled filled with firewood fell on top of him. I guess. Here’s a close up:

These concrete circles are at the very top of the Lanser Kopf, a rocky outcropping and the highest point on the hill. Remains from the Second World War, they were spots for anti-aircraft guns, or Flak. Did you know “Flak” stands for Fliegerabwehrkanone? As a child of peacetime, I never realized that talking about “getting flak for something” was of military origin, and German at that.

>Have You Heard Of Herta Müller?

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>Neither had I. She has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature.
More significantly, neither had the beau, who is knows a lot about European literature. Wikipedia, in its entry on Müller, says that prior to the award, Müller was little-known outside Germany and even there was known only among a minority of intellectuals and literary critics.
Her writings look like they would fit right in with the other books on my shelves, many of which deal with people trying to remain alive and human under communism, nazism, or any other repressive regime. I plan to pick up a copy of Atemschaukel (the English title, when it comes out, will be Everything I Possess I Carry With Me) pretty soon.
It’s also a welcome story within a larger topic which gets a lot of criticism just for being a topic — the post-war deportation of ethnic Germans from eastern European lands, force-marched either westward into Germany (those that made it alive were the lucky ones) or to Soviet gulags, as was the case with Müller’s own mother.
I am reminded of Gregor Himmelfarb, whose book about his post-war experiences shares similarities with Müller’s latest protagonist, Leo Auberg. Himmelfarb was born in the state of Mecklenburg, Germany, and grew up in the ethnic-German region Siebenbürgen, in Romania. When Germans in Romania were required to obtain Aryan identity cards, Himmelfarb learned for the first time that his Russian father was Jewish. Managing to survive the war, he then faced new difficulties for being the son of a factory-owning “exploitative capitalist”, and above all for being “German”. The Israeli immigration services weren’t much help, as they considered him “not Jewish” (he was finally able to emigrate in 1952.)
Every group of people is made up of individuals, all with their own stories. And, as Herta Müller shows, there are so many unheard stories out there worth learning.