Leseprobe

130 “The events that transpired in this village on the Oder in the middle of the twentieth century are surely just a tiny drop in an unending ocean of history.” So recalls Karlheinz Gleß of Branden- burg, who loses his home in Peetzig as a result of these decisions. His small village lies on the river Oder, in the middle of Branden- burg—and in the middle of Germany. No one expects that this village will become Polish by war’s end, henceforth to be called Piasek. For the villagers, the new land survey drawn up at Potsdam means the irretrievable loss of their ancestral homes, their familiar environs, everything from yesterday that was important. The three statesmen conferring in Potsdam have never heard of Peetzig. For them, the fates of the villagers are just those tiny drops in the unending ocean of history. But for the villagers of Peetzig it is a total caesura, a life in which everything is divided into before and after . The decision handed down at Potsdam to displace the villagers means for them the end of “life, irretrievable and irreplaceable life”, as Karlheinz Gleß says in retrospect. 2 Barely one hundred kilometres from Cecilienhof Palace flows the river Oder, on whose banks sits Peetzig, a village in Brandenburg. People lose their homelands. The writer Christa Wolf is one such person. “The exodus from home calls forth a flow of tears”, says Nelly, the protagonist of her autobiographical novel Patterns of Childhood . 3 Wolf likewise originates from a part of Brandenburg that has been lost to history. She was born in the town of Landsberg, on the Warthe River, in the Neumark. There is hardly a denizen of Brandenburg alive today who could point to it on a map. It now lies in Poland, where it is known as Gorzów Wielkopolski. Christa Wolf’s biography also demonstrates the drastic changes wrought on Brandenburg by the unsparing course of events in the mid-twentieth century: war, social breakdown, eventual displacement. Borders are moved. Millions of Europeans lose their homeland. Among them are 14 million Germans. One of those is Friedrich Biella. Early in the morning of 21 Janu- ary 1945, he and his family board a couple of horse-drawn wagons and leave their little village in Masuria. The day is recorded in his note- book under a brief entry, “Order to leave my farm”. Through the ham- fisted diction, we witness the very moment this farmer terminates an intergenerational contract with his ancestors. He must leave behind everything from yesterday that was important. Even the animals. “Our dog ‘Senta’ followed us a way. She became more uncomfortable the farther we got from the village. Eventually she took our advice and went back home.” There follow weeks without any notebook entries, as the strain of exodus takes its toll. The log picks back up in March 1945, after Friedrich becomes stranded in the Duchy of Lauenburg following weeks of wandering. Every day he goes to the local British army headquarters and asks when he can return home. And every day they put the old man off. In his notebook he records their eternally repetitious answer: “Just wait a bit before making the journey back.”