A weekend in the east

I went to Dresden on Friday for the Burns fellowship "midterm meeting" (technically, more like the three-quarter-term meeting, since there are only two weeks left!) and was startled by the city's beauty. Knowing how badly it was bombed during World War II, I was expecting something bleaker. There is still some evidence of that senseless destruction, to be sure, but the lavish Baroque architecture has been restored to splendor in several key places.

We were lucky enough to get a private tour of the Green Vault from its effusive curator on Friday night. This was literally like walking through a treasure chest, and I appreciated the simplicity of the displays, which kept the artifacts safe and yet approachable. There was a dazzling array of diamonds, silver, gold, crystal, pearls, porcelain and ivory in the collection, but I think my favorite piece was a humble cherry pit. Somehow, an artist had managed to carve over 100 faces onto this miniscule natural canvas! I asked the curator why someone would have bothered to do this, and I liked his answer: "To astonish you."

On Saturday we moved on to Leipzig, where the highlight was wandering through an area called the Spinnerei -- an old, abandoned cotton mill that now houses artists' studios. I loved this combination of ruin and creativity; the tired old brick walls seemed to welcome the burden of fresh ideas and colors.

In two places during the weekend, we learned about the Stasi and its astounding breadth and impact in the former East Germany. I was struck by the sinister brilliance of some of the agency's schemes -- they literally drove some people crazy, by systematically destroying their professional and personal lives in a way that left the victim wondering if it was their own fault -- and the utter stupidity of others, such as "collecting" people's smells in jars as part of surveillance. We met with the director of a modern-day agency that helps people seek reparation for their losses due to oppression by the Stasi, but he said it can be very hard to prove this legally. He himself was once a victim, and said it was personally liberating to gain access to his Stasi file and finally see exactly who had accused him of what, and why certain things had happened to him, such as losing his job and failing to graduate from school. I can only imagine what that must be like...certainly puts my own problems into perspective.

He said the question that he and many other east Germans are now asking is no longer "What did the Stasi do?" but instead "How could this happen? How could humans have been convinced to do such inhuman things?"