Myer’s Hotel i Metzer Str., har sin charme. Møblementet lugter af det gamle DDR og jeg glor lige ind i en mur bag matterede vinduesruder, men badeværelset er tiptop. De har installeret et elektrisk klaver med hovedtelefoner, som en del af aftalen. Lyset, eller nærmere fraværet, minder mig om min mormors mørke stue i Rådmandsgade i 50’erne. Jeg tænder for TV ‘et, Günter Grass er død og de viser ”Bliktrommen”. Er du født germansk, grav dybt!

Jeg tænker på Stefan Zweig, der tog sit eget liv i 1942, forvisset om at nazismen ville smadre den civiliserede verden han var vokset op med. Han skrev lyset frem i sit exil i Brasilien.

På kant med skyggen
lyset flakker mørket op
i Prenzlauer Berg

English

Myer’s Hotel in Metzer Str., has its charm. The furnishings smells of that old DDR and I stare straight into a brick wall behind frosted window panes, but the bathroom is up-to-date. They have installed an electric piano with headphones, as part of the agreement. The light, or rather the absence, reminds me of my grandmother’s dark living room in the 50’s. I turn on the television set, Günter Grass is dead, and “The Tin Drum” is displayed. Are you born Germanic, dig deep!

I think of Stefan Zweig, who took his own life 1942; rest assured that Nazism would smash the civilized world in which he had grown up.  He wrote the light through in his exile in Brazil.

At odds with the shadow
light flickers up the darkness
in Prenzlauer Berg