An Open Letter to the Fulbright Commission in Berlin
by Gina Johanningsmeier
Possibly the best way for me to say “thank you” is to let you know about some of the many positive ways in which our Fulbright year in Germany continues to play a major role in our lives here in the U.S. I was determined not to have our Fulbright experience end when we returned home, and so I have made every effort possible to integrate many of the enriching things our children and I learned and experienced in Germany into our lives here, in many cases continuing on in our role as “Fulbright Ambassadors” to promote better understanding between our two countries – but now on this side of the Atlantic. I hope this will serve as a glimpse of what an unforgettable and life-changing experience a Fulbright year can also be for the spouse or partner of the Fulbrighter and his or her family.
Both our second grader, Grace, now 8, and our sixth grader, Emma, 12, with my assistance, did PowerPoint presentations for their respective classes in their American elementary school about their home and neighborhood in Germany as well as about their Grundschule there. Besides showing daily school activities, these PowerPoints also showed school trips, special end-of-the-year school activities, and celebrations such as Fasching.
One of my goals for doing this type of presentation was to give the other American children a positive view of learning a second language rather than being intimidated by the prospect, and I believe I was very successful on that count, in addition to sparking the children’s interest in Germany. In fact, often when I am in my children’s school, sixth graders from Emma’s class will stop, shake my hand, and say, “Guten Tag, Frau Johanningsmeier,” while Grace’s second grade classmates love to greet her with “Guten Morgen” when she arrives at school in the morning. Interestingly enough, this is not unlike what Emma’s German classmates in 4. Klasse would do: whenever I came to pick Emma up from school in Leipzig, her classmates would very sweetly, but very conscientiously, try out their Schulenglisch on me, something which, as a former English as a Second Language Teacher, I was only too happy to encourage.
- Grace and Emma preparing for school
Our daughter Emma spent a great deal of time in the fall after our return from Germany preparing her “History Day” project; the title of Emma’s self-chosen topic was “The Peaceful Revolution in East Germany: Leipzig in 1989." As part of a city-wide event involving 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students, each student was required to research a topic related to this year’s theme of “Conflict and Compromise,” write both a written report and an oral speech, and create a visual display of his or her topic. Emma was so excited and enthusiastic about her topic, no doubt because so many of the events that she wrote about took place in Nikolaikirchhof, where our Leipzig apartment was located, and also because she had heard first-hand from our very kind Leipzig neighbors, Pfarrer and Frau Christian Führer, of the events of 1989 and of their personal role in those events. Her required two-page typed report ended up being 10 typed pages long because she had so much she wanted to say. (One of her classmates, noticing a picture of Emma with the Führers on her display board, commented that Emma was the only student who was actually in one of the History Day Projects!) In addition, Emma was one of only five students chosen to present their History Day speeches to the entire school. There is no doubt in my mind that Emma never would have chosen this topic or been so enthused about it had we not had the opportunity to spend a year in Leipzig and learn about the dramatic events that took place there. And by choosing Leipzig and the Peaceful Revolution as her topic, she was able to share in a very real and accessible way this extremely important event in German history with the many students and adults who came to view the displays and listen to the speeches.
- Emma presenting her history project
In addition to helping with our children’s Germany-related activities at their American elementary school, I have had a number of opportunities to share some of my own experiences from Germany here as well. While in Leipzig, I personally had a very rich experience and learned so many new and fascinating things. Many of my activities centered around classes and numerous lectures as well as excursions, all in German, that I attended at the excellent Volkshochschule in Leipzig. Here in the U.S. I have tried to continue to build on my experiences in Leipzig by taking university classes on similar topics. In Leipzig, for instance, I took a fantastic class on opera and ballet that involved going to a series of lectures about five different works and then attending the actual rehearsals of each work at either the Opernhaus or Gewandhaus in Leipzig; since returning home last August, I have taken two classes on the History of Music. Knowing that I had lived in Leipzig, the professor asked me to give a lecture and PowerPoint on “Bach in Leipzig,” which I was only too glad to do. (The topic naturally expanded to include other notable Leipzig composers and musicians such as Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, about all of whom I had learned a great deal while in Leipzig, especially by visiting their homes/museums there.) Following my hour-long presentation, the professor asked if I would be willing to deliver my lecture again when he next teaches this course, something I very much look forward to doing. (I gave a revised version of this presentation to a fourth grade class, at the request of the music teacher at our children’s school, for their study of Bach and organs.)
For another class I took here, Film History and Appreciation, I did a presentation on the German film Das Leben den Anderen. I was eager to share with my classmates some of the fascinating information relevant to the film that I had learned first-hand from visits to the Stasi Museum in der “Runden Ecke” in Leipzig, and they found this quite interesting.
- Poster of the Exhibition 'Aryanization' in Leipzig, Design: Ute Holstein, Leipzig
Since returning home I have been able to maintain a very rewarding connection with Leipzig by helping with the translation into English of a museum exhibit entitled “ ‘Arisierung’ in Leipzig. Verdrängt. Beraubt. Ermordet.” Before the exhibit opened in Leipzig last summer (July 2007), I attended lectures related to it and then, once it opened, visited the actual exhibit three times in order to see and read all of the extensive materials displayed. The organizers of the exhibit expressed their dismay to me that they didn’t have the funds to have the exhibit translated into English, which would make it accessible to more people and also open the possibility of having it travel to other countries, including the U.S. In response, before leaving Leipzig, I was able to arrange for volunteer translators through friends I had made at the University of Leipzig. Once I was back in the U.S., it was very gratifying to me to further help the project by proofreading and copy-editing the translated subtitle texts of Holocaust survivors’ accounts of their experiences in Leipzig in the 1930's, before these accounts were put on DVD in Germany. I remain in contact with the organizers of the exhibit, and I look forward to seeing them again in person if they are successful in their projected plan to bring the exhibit to Houston, a U.S. sister city of Leipzig.
- Celebrating Nikolaustag
Our experiences in Leipzig have carried over into our non-work and non-school lives as well. We have incorporated into our family traditions here some of the lovely traditions that we learned about while in Germany.
On December 6, for instance, Nikolaus found our clean boots here in Omaha waiting for him on our back porch and filled them with surprises, including German chocolates. At Easter time, we made a beautiful Strauch with eggs we had blown and painted ourselves. This brought back the lovely memory of a young woman, a customer like myself in a florist shop in Leipzig, who kindly explained to me how to blow out raw eggs (something I had never done before), how to put a half match stick on a string inside the egg so that the egg could be hung on the Strauch, and also helped me pick out a lovely set of branches to buy for our very first Easter Strauch. I should note that this was not just an isolated holiday-related incident; we had countless such friendly, helpful encounters with Leipzigers during our stay there.
At Christmas time we had two very special German Weihnachtsliedersingen. The first was with American friends of German descent, who are very eager for their children to learn German, and the second was with a German family who are originally from Jena but who now live permanently here. On both occasions our daughters accompanied us on the piano while we all sang traditional Christmas songs in German. The family from Jena was astounded at the number of German Christmas songs our children had learned in Leipzig, and that they knew all the verses in German from memory. Moreover, they were quite pleased to have their two-year old son, who was born in the U.S., to be in such a “German” environment for the holidays.
For each person in our family, the benefits of our Fulbright experience are too many to count, but I have attempted to list a few of the most striking ones here. I am convinced that at least one of our children will try to return to Germany one day as a Fulbrighter because of the very positive experience they had with the program as young children. For me personally, as the “Fulbright spouse,” the experience potentially could have been less than ideal, since I was going to Germany for my husband’s position, but it ended up being one of the most wonderful years of my life. Like Chuck, I came back a different person –for the better– and the year in Germany gave me the courage to continue things that I began in Germany and also to change the direction of my life.
Gina Johanningsmeier and her family spent one year in Leipzig since her husband, Chuck Johanningsmeier,was a Fulbright Senior Scholar during the academic year 2006/2007 at the University of Leipzig.