A Cemetery in Leipzig

https://auntyuta.com/2012/11/23/a-cemetery-in-leipzig/

This is a copy of my post from 23rd November 2012:

We had come by train from Berlin arriving at the Main Station in Leipzig (Hauptbahnhof)[/caption] A tram took us to the Southern Cemetery (Südfriedhof). When we got of the tram we could see the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.Crossing the road, we found ourselves right at what looked to us like the main entrance to the cemetery. There was a friendly lady in the building next to the entrance. She had the particulars of the graves at hand which were still under the care of the cemetery. People usually pay a fee which covers five years of care. If for any reason a renewal fee isn’t paid anymore, the grave site becomes a new plot for a new grave. My grandfather’s grave dated from February 1947. I knew that some of my cousins had continued to pay for the care of it. We even knew that the grave should be in section XXIV. I asked the lady could she please look up whether the grave-site still existed. The lady said, indeed, this particular grave was still under their care. It had been paid for till the year 2017. She showed us on the map where section XXIV was. This was it. We didn’t get any information about the position of the grave. We thought with the help of the grave’s number we should be able to find it anyway. Each grave under care had a particular number. We had the number of our grave. However to see the number you had to remove a stick from the soil. Then you could see the number underneath the stick. The problem was the numbers were not arranged in a consecutive order. We found the section all right. The grave-site number? This was another matter. We saw a young working woman who saw to the surrounding garden areas. She tried to help us find what we were looking for. She couldn’t work it out either where this particular site was. A gravestone with my grandfather’s name on it? Forget it. We covered the whole section, right left and center. We found nothing. In the end I felt rather tired and had a rest on a wooden bench while Peter kept on searching. Nothing! We hadn’t packed any food. Somehow we assumed we would be able to buy some food somewhere. But then except for flower-shops there had been nothing near the entrance. The toilet near the entrance was under repair. In the middle section of this huge cemetery there were toilet facilities which had been indicated at the entrance. Eventually we were heading for this middle section which turned out to be very beautiful: There were lovely well kept garden sections and stunning buildings with comforts, plenty of water and even a prayer room. Eating something, well, this had to wait. There was an office. Peter made inquiries. In this office every particular about every grave from way back was filed away. The lady from this office was able to give us a print-out with the exact position of the grave. Immediately we were full of hope again and we headed all the way back to section XXIV. We searched, and searched, and searched. We knew we were in the right area. Still no grave. We just could not see it! What was wrong? We didn’t know. I took another rest on that bench where I had been sitting before. Peter roamed about close by. The rest of the story is in the following pictures to be seen. Me, taking a rest We definitely had entered the right section. Peter contemplated in front of this more recent gravestone that here was a person who’s name ended in “….mann”. But where was “Spickermann?” Peter picked up the stick at the end of this grave site that said it was still under care. He turned over the stick, looked at the bottom of it. This was it. He shouted over to me: Darling, Darling, I found something! Look, look, look at the name! Wow, I had been sitting close to Grandfather’s burial ground all along! This is how this 65 year old gravestone has been supported for I don’t know how long. Walking through this cemetery with its tall trees was actually quite uplifting and relaxing. Lots of autumn leaves on the ground already. View to the middle section of this huge cemetery where the Crematorium is. I might publish about this a bit more some other time. An excellent cup of coffee was on offer in one of the flower shops close to the cemetery. We were told they didn’t sell any food yet. With the coffee we did get a very tiny biscuit. After coffee we had the energy to walk a bit closer to this impressive memorial. The tram took us to the city center of Leipzig where we indulged in a beautiful meal in the old council building’s restaurant. . This is where we had a lovely cooked meal.

A bit of Family History

This is a bit of family history about Peter’s parents and Peter’s paternal grandfather.

https://berlioz1935.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/october-27th/

Peter’s father, Richard Hannemann, was born on the 28th of October 1900.

Seventeen of his descendents live in Australia and nine in Germany . Two of his grandchildren have passed away.

https://berlioz1935.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/6-november/

Peter’s mother, Frieda Hannemann, nee Müller, was born on the 16th of November 1900.

“She was always a rather physically weak child, did not like any strenuous activity. On Sundays her father liked to walk with the family across the Tempelhofer Field (later Airport Tempelhof) where the walk over the sandy ground drove her to tears. But her father wanted to have his beer on the other side of the large field.

After school and training to be an “early childhood carer” she worked for a little while as a nanny, but later, during the Big War, she joined the Post Office and became a telephone operator in the new technology of telephony. She had a beautiful, clear voice right to the end of her life. In old age she still sounded like a forty year old on the phone.

Peter’s parents got engaged in 1922
and married in 1929.

https://berlioz1935.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/my-granddad-and-world-war-i/

This blog is about Peter’s grandfather, Otto Hannemann, father of Richard Hannemann.

“Otto Hannemann, was a carpenter foreman in the growing city of Berlin. Born in the small town of Lukenwalde, south of Berlin, he looked for work in the big city to support his growing family.

When the war started he was not called up straight away. Only later, in the beginning of 1916, he was called upon as he was a reservist (Landjäger).
It seems he had his training in Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg

He was sent to the Western Front. (Perhaps he was even opposite Australian forces.) We know from the war reports and history books that it was hell. On the 2. 12. 1916 he fell. Some reports tell of cold and frosty days. He is buried in a war cemetery just outside Lille: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lille”

A Video well worth watching!

https://auntielive.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/george-monbiot-capitalism-is-destroying-our-living-plant-and-life-support-systems/

‘‘If everyone pursues private luxury there is simply not enough resources to meet everyone’s needs. If we try to obtain public luxury then we create space and support for everyone’ ‘You have to leave as much on earth at the end of your time on earth as there was at the beginning’ This talks delves into areas around capitalism, life support systems, new models of democracy, citizen assembly, non party politics, proportional representation, referendums, flat pack democracy and alternatives to capitalism. LOVE IT TV – thinking outside the box. Please share our video and help others to live more naturally on the planet.’

You find the video when you go to auntielive!

A Copy of ‘Experiences in my Life’

On the 10th October 2018 I wrote this:

“Yesterday there was on Peter’s Facebook a link to this blog. A few people were interested in reading it. I reblogged it here so maybe some more people might want to read it.”

So today, one year later, I looked again at this blog and decided to copy it, hoping that some blogger friends who haven’t seen it yet, might want to have a look at it.

Originally I published it here:

https://auntyuta.com/2017/10/05/experiences-in-my-life/

Here now is the copy of ‘Experiences in my Life’ from the 5th October 2017:

“It has been a while  since I added anything to my childhood memories. If I had another look at it now to see what I have written  some time ago, maybe I would find a few things in there that I do not remember so well anymore now. With time the memories seem to fade somewhat. This is why it is important to write down the things that I do still remember now.

Today I thought about it how blessed I am that I have a number of great-grandchildren. Yes, there are five of them now. Grandson Tristan has two girls, grandson Ryan has two boys, and granddaughter Roxanne has one boy. The two girls are nine and ten years. The boys are five and three years, whereas Roxy’s little Carter is now 10 and 1/2 months. Since all of us do not live very close together,  I cannot see the family on a daily or weekly basis. Even a regular monthly meeting is usually not on the cards for Peter and me.  After all we are both in our eighties. Still, I am very happy that Peter can still drive enabling us to participate in special family celebrations. A few times a year our extended Family does come to visit us. I am always thrilled when a lot of visitors turn up at our place!

Everyone tells  us that it  is great that our family keeps in contact for birthdays, and at Christmas time and Easter. I do appreciate this very much and am very grateful for it. It is very rewarding to see the growing up of  great-grandchildren.  Watching them at their different stages kind of reminds me of my own childhood.

I often ask myself: What was I like at such and such an age? I still do have vivid memories about some events and some family members from the time when I was about three or four. So would my great-grandchildren perhaps remember people and events from the here and now when they are in their eighties?

When I go back to the time when I was about three or four, Cordula often comes to mind who was just eight months younger than I was. We could see each other quite often. Actually, I think she was a bit like a sister to me. When her Mum took Cordula for an outing. I was often allowed to go with them. I have such good memories about these walks! I cannot recall that my Mum ever asked Cordula to come along with us when my Mum took me for  an outing somewhere. I think occasionally Cordula would come to the apartment where I lived to play with me. But usually I would go for visits to  where Cordula lived just two floors further up on the fifth floor.

To me – even as a child – these  five story high Berlin apartment buildings  were just perfect as a  place to live  in. When we moved to a desolate country area because of ever increasing bomb raids on Berlin, I missed Berlin very much.

Last year when we went for  a visit to Berlin, we  stayed in an area where  all the buildings  were five stories high. All of them were beautifully restored and maintained. “Wie im tiefsten Frieden”  – like there was absolute peace. This is what we used to tell us during the war when something seemed to be like it was before the war started. These buildings I  am referring to were last year already well over 100 years  old!”

One month ago, on the 13th September 2019, granddaughter Roxanne had a Baby daughter: Evie Rose. That means little Carter ( nearly 3 now) has a baby sister. He loves her to bits!

Last weekend we stayed in Sydney: Grandson Troy did get married to Antonina. It was again a great family event!

In October 2017 two bloggers made comments to

 “Experiences in my Life”

I copy these comments here together with my answers:

  2. It is always rewarding to have family keep in contact. After marriage one of my brothers and one sister moved to Queensland. Another brother lives in Holland. The distance makes it more difficult but sometimes we phone or even visit.
    The grandsons are now in their teens and start making their own lives.

    Reply

    1. That’s right, Gerard, distance makes it more difficult. We often talk with Peter’s sister in Berlin via skype, also we do talk via skype with my brother who lives not far from Berlin. To be able to skype for free for any length of time is a marvellous thing. However seeing our siblings in person and being able to give them real hugs is something else altogether. In our modern world because of overseas flights we do have the opportunity to keep some real person to person contact. But no matter how often we take to the air to go for visits in distant lands in the end we have to live most of the time without our far away siblings . On the other hand it may perhaps be possible to tell oneself that overall the spiritual is somewhat more important than the physical?
      How often do very elderly people lead a very lonely life because none of their loved ones lives near by?

      Reply

When Did Capitalism Become Our Religion?

by Daniel Jenkins edited by O Society October 13, 2019
Jenkins says: “I’m not the first person to point out what Sanders supports is a “green” social democracy—a large and generous welfare state and more tightly regulated capitalism, with greater attention paid than ever to ecological concerns. I certainly don’t oppose any of that, which is why I’m a Sanders supporter. But as I argued previously, we have to address the more fundamental property relations of capitalism if we’re really going to achieve justice and save the planet from further damage.”

O Society

“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”

~ Luke 16:13 KJV

We talk with historian Eugene McCarraher about the myths and rituals of the market, the lost radicalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the rise of neoliberalism.

by Daniel Jenkins edited by O Society October 13, 2019

One would be hard-pressed to find a form of modern rationalism more extreme than capitalism. The laws of supply and demand and the commodification of goods like health and education strip away the mystery and sense of sacredness once a vital part of human life. Capitalism, Marx observed, tears asunder “all fixed, fast-frozen relations” and “drowns the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor…in the icy water of egotistical calculation.” It wrings…

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The Importance of Fascism in End Stage Capitalism

A Reblog: “The Inevitable Decay of Monopoly Capitalism

Strachey takes the Great Depression of the 1930s as evidence that capitalism has reached its final stage of monopoly capitalism. Quoting Lenin, he lists the three telltale signs that monopolistic capitalism has begun to decay:

1. The monopolistic corporations that control finance capital (ie banks) essentially merge with the monopolistic corporations that control production.
2. There’s growing focus on exporting capital (ie moving factories overseas).
3. National governments, which are essentially controlled by their monopolies, are in constant conflict with one another over who will control the resources, markets and cheap labor of the Third World.”

The Most Revolutionary Act

coming-struggle-for-power

The Coming Struggle for Power

by John Strachey

Victor Golancz Limited (1932)

Free download link: The Coming Struggle for Power

Book Review

In The Coming Struggle for Power, British historian makes the prediction (writing in 1932) that capitalism is in its death throes and will end by 1950. He was wrong, obviously. Strachey had no way of predicting the tremendous boost monopoly capitalism would receive from Cold War military spending, nor the “financialization” (the shift from selling products to selling financial instruments) that would happen in the 1970s.

The book is largely historical, tracing the transition all global economies underwent from feudalism to mercantilism (large scale international trade) and from mercantilism to capitalism. In Europe both transformations were violent. Strachey points to the Rebellion of 1640 (during which Charles I was beheaded) and the Revolution of 1688 (in which James II was overthrown) during the feudal-mercantilist transition. The Enclosure…

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This is a Reblog: Unbalanced Trump a crisis for US capitalism

“What may tend to happen is that the mounting campaign against the unstable and “unpatriotic” (in the sense that he’s more loyal to a foreign capitalist class than to his own class) president could swing the sentiment so massively against Trump and the Republicans that even voter suppression cannot overcome it. It’s also possible that the suppression and fraud could be the last straw in provoking a new mass movement.

For working class independence
This is what socialists should be agitating for and organizing – for a movement in the streets against Trump. This movement must be free from the control not only of the Democrats, but also of their representatives – the nonprofiteers and the union leadership. It should link up the repression and reactionary policies of Trump with the failure of the Democrats and the need for a mass working class party.

And if none of this happens, and Trump is able to bully and fraud his way back in, then look out America and look out world!”

Oakland Socialist

Like a spoiled six-year old having a temper tantrum, Trump is flailing about and out of control. How can they keep any semblance of stability, how maintain respect by foreign forces as well as by at least most workers at home for the top representative of US capitalism? How can they ensure that the right decisions are made? How can they keep the ship of state on course, headed in the right direction, if the captain is mentally incapacitated?

If they had reason to worry before Trump made his precipitous decision to allow Turkey to invade Northeast Syria, now they are doubly concerned.

Exhibit A is an article by George T. Conway III in The Atlantic magazine. A harsh critic of Trump, ironically George is the husband of Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway (that must be an interesting relationship!). However, he is also an important figure in his own…

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