Back to the home
Nowhere else are there so many memories associated with houses, gardens or churches, trees, fields, streams or rivers. Nowhere else do we feel so abruptly at home. "Here I went to kindergarten", we say at a small gray-white building. "Here I have my first kiss," we mused in front of a peeled bench in the park. But if we leave the city of our childhood, because it is too narrow for us, for our dreams of life - then we are sometimes overtaken by longing.
Longing for a time when we still had everything before us. In which the future seemed endless. Longing for old friends, hopes, ideals. After the smoky Stammkneipe, in which we discussed all night long. For sounds and smells that are familiar to us. It only exists here. At home. Sometimes this yearning in us becomes so strong that we actually go back. Try to connect to this past. To bring her into the present.
Ute Freudenberg, 51, can remember exactly. That evening, when she wanted to go back. Back to Weimar. In her hometown. Back to the smells of her childhood. To the cherry orchards on the outskirts. A memorial to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where her father had fought for survival for more than eight years during the Nazi era. Back especially to "her" audience in the East. That she resumed after such a long time, even though she had left it. Back in 1984, when she, the successful singer, shaking with fear, leaves her band after appearing in Hamburg.
And stay in the West. "Republic escape" was the name at the time. Too honest she had been too direct she had said her opinion. And was not to trim line - despite production ban on their plates. Despite being told by radio stations to stop playing their songs. In the East she was someone, her song "Jugendliebe" the hit of the GDR - in the west she was nobody. I had to start from scratch. Like her husband, who came six months later, hollow-eyed, with angina pectoris. Because they had shadowed him "over there" every day, interrogated after she was gone.
He no longer got a performance permit for his stunt shows, and his mother and sister also lost their jobs. She had come to the West only with a threat: she was going to unpack the state and everything that had happened to her had been said to him in a telephone conversation with him - of course she knew that her conversation had been overheard. Shortly after, he was with her.
And there she stood now down the street, that evening in 1995. In each hand a salad bowl, which she picked up for herself and her husband from the Italian on the corner. In Dusseldorf. The city that had taken her back then. Where she just started to succeed. Then she found the realization like lightning: "Suddenly I thought: where are you here?", Says the lively singer today. "It was very clear to me: I want to go back!" Ute Freudenberg is not alone with her yearning.
More than 43,500 German women returned from abroad to the Federal Republic last year alone. The official statistics only record this number. No backgrounds. No feelings. Nobody knows what moved women to this step. Nobody knows how many of them might go back to the cities of their childhood. Because the occupation did not bring the desired fulfillment. Because the marriage failed. Because the children are out of the house. Or simply because they had longing.
The return to the hometown is a special form of homecoming, which also keeps writers and filmmakers busy. The author Judith Kuckart has described her in her novel "Lena's Love", Karen Robards in "Past Shadows". In the film "A Second Chance", Sandra Bullock plays a woman who, after the failure of her marriage to her daughter, moves back to her mother. And in the TV series "Solo for Black", Barbara Rudnik portrayed a police psychologist who returns to her hometown of Schwerin - and is immediately involved in a criminal case over her father's GDR past.
Women in the second half of life seem to feel this longing for the roots stronger. "Probably then the feeling becomes clear that life should be round," suspected the Leipzig psychology professor Beate Mitzscherlich, 43, who has written her doctoral thesis on the "individual process of homeland".
"When they are young, women first of all dissolve faster and more easily from home than men - this has been statistically proven," says Beate Mitzscherlich. They follow a partner who gets a good job elsewhere. Or go on a job search, at home or abroad. Nevertheless, there is often a distance, strangeness. Even if they settle in the new home well."This sense of strangeness, that plays a significant role when people suddenly want to go back to their old home," says the Berlin psychoanalyst Irmhild Kohte-Meyer, which has to do in her practice, especially with migrants.
So with women who no longer live in their homeland. "Belonging to yourself is a basic human need - and it could be that women feel this need more."
Anne von Bestenbostel really did not feel strange at home far away from home - on the contrary. She was too small, too tight for her Lower Saxon native Nordenham, when she left at 20. "You can walk from one end of town to the other in five minutes," she says. "Everyone knows everyone - I just wanted to get out." Immediately after graduation she packs the suitcases.
Move to the city, to Hanover. Make an apprenticeship as a bookseller. Moves again, this time to Lüneburg, falls in love, gets married. For seven years she enjoys this life. Then there's the big chance: to take over her father's bookstore, which her grandmother had already founded.
The decision did not let her sleep for nights: "I was nervous weeks before, had a real lump in my throat," says the 33-year-old with the alert look. Because already set, lifelong - she really did not want that. Especially not in this city. "I've been looking forward to the store," she says, stroking her short hair, "but before Nordenham I was pretty scared." Today she has halfway reconciled with the return. And the lack of anonymity can now even gain advantages: "The baker knows me since I was born and I can go shopping without money," she says with a laugh. But even that is everyday life: "If you are not in my age as a mother in a toddler group or active in sports, then there is little contact." In the choir and in the Entrepreneurs Club she is one of the youngest. Having a barbecue with friends in the evening or going to the movies spontaneously is not possible here.
Homeland. Familiarity and strangeness at the same time. The childish idyll, which we often associate with the city of our childhood, does not exist in reality. "This homeland concept lives in the memory and often describes a paradise that exists only in our imagination," said Beate Mitzscherlich. We ignore the bad school grades, the jealousies among classmates, the pubic puberty and the arguments with the parents.
"Returning home and remaining alien" is what the Austrian author Susanne Bock calls a book with the title of the same name, in which she describes her return to her hometown of Vienna. Sometimes it takes a long time to overcome this strangeness. Especially if you have found a new home elsewhere. And then have to return again.
Like Jutta Hunker-Kraut, who went to Taiwan with her husband. The Far Eastern island became her great love. She spent seven years there, her two sons born there. And even though the 42-year-old has been back in Germany for over four years, she can not shake off her wanderlust: "Every time I smell the detergent from Taiwan in an old bed sheet, I stick my nose in it and fantasize Taipei. "
For her two sons, Germany is "exotic" when the family returns in 2003: they do not know snow, they miss their homeland. "Otherwise, we celebrated Christmas at 25, 30 degrees," says Jutta Hunker-Kraut. Now, for the first time in winter, children must wear gloves and down jackets - reluctantly. At first, they only find the parents' home country wet and cold. In the meantime, things are different: Jutta Hunker-Kraut now lives in a small settlement with other "expatriates" who have returned from abroad, designs decorative articles with fabrics from Taiwan, and the children have settled in. Although the elder recently painted a picture of his hometown "My home in Taipei".
So is the homesickness, the yearning for the place of childhood, just an illusion? Is it only in our dreams? In our imagination? Should we abandon this idea and - after all, is the age of globalization - be at home everywhere? "Why should not I feel at home in different places, not feel connected to different people, living conditions and regional conditions?", Says one of the women who asked Beate Mitzscherlich for her doctoral thesis on the subject. Another has discovered in itself "parallel old and new homes". And a third meant: "home, that's the world, the earth." Not quite. Because apparently there is something in us that remains - even if we spend our lives in several homes today. Easily move from Berlin to Boston. From Neu-Wulmstorf to Nairobi. Something we only experience when we are "home" again.
Annemarie Lüdicke, 69, has experienced this feeling. When she returned to Zerbst in Saxony-Anhalt after her retirement as a teacher in Hamburg - after almost 50 years. Every house knows the teacher with the silvery bob here, in "her" quarter.Run happily back and forth between the old buildings, proudly pointing to an old house inscription that still reads: PAUL LÜDICKE, COLONIAL GOODS. Paul Lüdicke, that was her grandfather.
With him the then nine-year-old Annemarie drove in a rickety delivery van over the villages and brought food. And secret messages. Of prisoners or men who had died - in the camps that the Russian occupation forces had established after the end of the Second World War. In which probably her father had disappeared. And her uncle.
Destinies that Annemarie Lüdicke did not let go. Not even in the many years in West Germany, after she fled as a 17-year-old from the communist GDR to Hamburg. Since her retirement she seamlessly ties in with her childhood: In her lovingly renovated old building near the former family home, she has set up an extensive archive. Here she traces people who, like her father, disappeared without a trace in the postwar period. Countless phone calls have led her, interested and studied family stories with a critical eye. And even written a book about their search for clues. Zerbst has become her old and new home. "The grandson of a carpenter, whom my grandfather already knew, has made the doors here, and the meringues are from a bakery that my mother already valued." The singer Ute Freudenberg also enjoys today the special that connects her with her hometown. Often the spirited woman feels "a real bliss".
When she digs with her mother in the garden in the earth. If she can show visitors where she sang her diploma concert. If she can sing again in front of "her" audience - like at her first big open-air concert in Weimar. Many listeners stood crying and holding roses in front of the stage. "This insane love that still comes up to me from people today," says Ute Freudenberg quietly, "that's what carries me, that's home."
Tips: How to master the return
Parting may be hard, but the return is sometimes even harder. It is necessary to master low blows and to circumnavigate traps. Tips from ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-WOMAN employee Sabine Reichel, who moved to New York in 1975 with only one suitcase and has now returned to her hometown, childless and single
disappointments: Who expects nothing, finds great luck, I once read on a cheap calendar page. It is the pure truth. Who expects a welcome command as with a state visit, who will experience bitter disappointments. You have to be prepared for a rather muted interest, and it can happen that just a nonchalant "Oh, you're back?" is noticed. They left them because the world out there seemed more exciting and important. Point. And not all old friends immediately embrace the returnee. Do not forget: It has also committed a small betrayal. And punishment must be, if you are too long away from the warm cuddle atmosphere of friendship. <
Dealing with the past: The question of where the good old days have stayed, in which one sat around carelessly and comfortably and talked through days and nights, can easily be answered. We were young and had a lot of time. The hardest thing is to fill in gaps and accept change. And that means not expecting to pick up where you left off 30 years ago. Life has gone on everywhere, with oneself and with friends. Love, marriages, births, divorces and death have happened and left their mark - without our presence.
No allegations: We live in a time when everyone has a bad conscience because of something. Certain phrases such as "Why are you never calling?", "You'd like to take me to the movies with you if you go that often," "Never have time!" are quickly perceived as annoying. By the way, sentences that usually make men crazy. Who exerts too much pressure on old friends, must expect that either explode or retire. Or both.
New men: Do not expect exciting tips or couplings from long-married friends. When asked if they know a great, interesting, not gay and especially not yet awarded man, there is always only laugh and regretful shaking his head. Most couples have completely forgotten their former singles and feelings.
Instructions for "data": But when you have met a man, you have to be careful not to scare him. It is very tempting to play the sovereign cosmopolitan. But too many experiences in foreign countries, which one carries around like an extravagant handbag, unsettle men very much, because their natural dominance behavior does not come into play properly. For starters, it works best: being curious, asking questions, not telling stories.And when doubts about the attractiveness (of one's own) occur or wrinkles in the unfavorable light indicate our age, always think of Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, who present their casual eroticism so entrancing that it rubs off on all of us a little.
Bottom lines are important !: As an illusionist you have no chance, and being able to check off is the main talent of the returnee. However, it is very difficult to do because people love romanticizing and clinging to dreams. Someone like me, who returns to his hometown after such a long time, of course, tends to search for the places of his past. Such a nostalgia program as a tourist in your own city can be very nice, so make sure. Alone! And then sponge over it! Flattery: Praise to the city and its people is the surest way to the light-hearted hearts of friends - and those who want to be. And there you can exaggerate a bit, as with all compliments. Those who stayed at home also want to savor the triumph of their down-to-earthness, and that is reflected in their great attachment to the city in which they live.
No comparisons !: If you do not like something, you will quickly interfere with your experiences. But special care is needed here. "Well, in New York, people are so much polite / funnier / more positive than here!" - which is also true - you can drop in case of need (of course, one calls out almost the reply "We are here in Germany!" Out). But at the latest at the tenth comparison, there will be sullen looks and the legitimate advice: "You're here now! Come on!"
Search for the new one: If old friends are not there for you, make a generational change! There are exciting young people with whom one can exchange ideas very well. And in the beginning you actually have a very good status in a new city. You're the new passenger, "the New Kid on the Block," and that's interesting for a moment for yourself and all the new people you meet. Do not forget that the reason for leaving home was once the tingling sense of your own invention in a strange environment where nobody knows you from before. One should try to revive this feeling by being open to everything as a fast-stranger. And you can do that everywhere. At readings, in museums and galleries, in rock concerts and in cafés.
