#MOIN! In Northern Germany, as is generally known, we don’t waste our energy on words. Hence it is all the more astonishing that here of all places, in the middle of Bremen, people have decided to waste their energy on turning one small word into a almost ridiculously large symbol. I’m not talking about any […]

The Am Wall Windmill Translation: Ian Watson You built me just to catch the windfor yourselves and your clever planof letting others do your workand that, that was my lifespan I spread my sails and crunched the cornwith my teeth of granite stoneThree wars I felt blow over meand many’s the town musician howled alone […]

A Piece of the Berlin Wall in Bremen Translation: Julie Comparini On the square in front of the Bremen Übersee-Museum stands a piece of the Berlin Wall. A fraction of the 155 kilometers of concrete and barbed wire that separated Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Separated families, separated lovers, separated people. Most of them irreversibly. […]

Memorial to the theft of Jewish property by the Nazis Translated by Dariusz Schimankowitz By Moritz Rinke On the 10th of November 1938, on the night of the pogrom, the Zwienicki family heard the rumble of the so-called “Rollkommandos” – small motorized task forces – in front of their house in Bremen’s New Town. It […]

Weserburg Translated by Ian Watson Dusk; and down by the river drifts a gentle breeze. I walk a while along the Weser towards the Weserburg, with my collar up, my hands deep in my jacket pockets and my shoulders hunched. And as I stroll along the river esplanade I glance into the water and notice […]

Karstadt Translated by Monika Zobel I have always felt a strange kind of comfort in department stores. No matter how hostile the outside world, how cold and stormy the weather, there was a comforting constancy in the department store, consisting of warmth, light, and perfumed air. I cannot think of department stores without directly feeling […]

The City Library – Book Burning Translated by Monika Zobel We have carried a whole century. Hauled here, piled high and intertwined, we were supposed to make an impression on people. And we did. We could be seen from afar, coming from the Ostertor, a gate to the city. It is still possible today. Trace […]

Anticolonial Memorial “The Elephant” – Pushing Trees Translated by Amina Ceesay An elephant tramples gently on the paper. A line is erased and it moves even more slowly, more carefully. Next to the elephant, words, crossed out, underlined, half-finished. She carefully writes vocabulary in her notebook, the elephant stomps around it. How are you doing? […]

Ansgari Churchyard Translated by Kevin Behrens Do you see that column there? The bronze column crowned by an open Bible, a ship’s hull and a cross? The one that commemorates Ansgar of Bremen, the “Apostle of the North”? Yes? Have you discovered it, the Ansgar column? Good, then close your eyes and blank out what […]

Telephone Booth (We have arrived safely) Translated by Anja Rademacher “We have arrived safely.”“I miss you.”“I’m about to run out of money.” These are the three sentences that simply belong to every, shall we say in every telephone box. The most important three sentences. They virtually ‘lived’ there. And let’s not forget, speaking used to […]