Juxtapositions: In Ulm (continued)

We discovered a very comfortable Italian coffee house on Monday to which I returned today *, on the Küfergasse, where the waiter serves you saying, "Prego, signora!"

False alarm newsflash: the coffee machine in our hotel room has been replaced, so now I'm all set to write this post.

Wirtshaus zur Bretzel by day

Last night, in company with Dave from England, we met Dominik at a restaurant of his choice, the Wirtshaus zur Bretzel on the Ulmergasse where all the waitresses wear dirndls. Dominik is from south Germany, and this place served Bavarian specialities, so he was happy with the menu. He told us about Maultaschen, the dumplings in which people used to conceal the meat that as good Catholics they weren't supposed to eat on Fridays, and ate one in der Brühe, served in a clear broth.

In spite of the jetlag, Chris had to set off for work early today, catching the tram with Dave and Dominik to Ulm's Science Park on the edge of town, where the meetings are taking place. Meanwhile I had time for a long and leisurely breakfast reading the local paper, the Südwest Presse, before setting out to explore. I walked the length of Schillerstraße as far as the Donauschwäbisches Zentralmuseum, the DZM, where an exhibition about migration, called Koffer-Geschichten, suitcase stories, is currently on offer. The stories are about the Donau-Schwaben, the people of Swabia who had migrated down the River Danube in the course of the last six centuries and who in many cases had migrated back to Germany after the 2nd World War.

Schachtelboot Ulma, outside the museum

Outside the museum lies a large wooden boat called the Ulma, the last of its kind to be constructed, a symbolic vessel, because the boat has not sailed away like its predecessors. People used to scoff at these boats, calling them box-boats, because they were crudely made, like Mississippi rafts, but they have a phenomenal history. The first wave of emigrants down the Danube went to help fight off the forces of the Ottoman Empire in Vienna in the 1680s; when the Muslims had been repulsed, peaceful settlers followed downstream, generation after generation of country people who clung to their Swabian traditions, but also picked up some central European characteristics, such as the regional vocabulary, different farming techniques, clothes, religious observances and cooking habits. Each display at the exhibition showed a different aspect of this gradual change. The Schwäbisch-speaking migrants settled in an area they called Die deutsche Türkei, a region also known as the Banat, centred on Timișoara, a city Chris and I have visited ourselves. They mixed with the people of different backgrounds in that area and were sometimes confused with the Roma.

View of a German settlement before the war, in central Europe

Hungarian Germans in wartime

Detail from "Deutsche Ansiedler errichten den Ort
Kudritz, 1739", painted in 1996 by Jakob Rosenberger

The painting above reminds me of Kurelik's paintings of Ukrainian settlements in western Canada.

Festival hats, decorated with hand made flowers

As time went by, the Donau-Schwaben became more central European than German, although their loyalties at the start of the 2nd World War still lay with Germany, Nazi Germany unfortunately. Their sons joined German Youth rallies like the Hitler-Jugend in Germany. A poignant part of the exhibition shows photos of what Banat was like just before that war, peaceful country scenes recollected in a spirit of nostalgia. When the war came to an end these people became refugees, having to hurry back to Germany by whatever means they could manage (in horse drawn wagons covered with flour sacks hastily stitched together for a roof) lest they be apprehended by the Russians or their sympathisers and sent to concentration camps in Yugoslavia. By the river in Ulm is a memorial to those who died in captivity (see photo). The ribbon on the right says "Gedenkt der Opfer von Zwangsarbeit und Deportation" (remembering the victims of forced labour and deportation). Once the lucky ones reached Germany with their pathetically small suitcases, there was nowhere for them to live. They had become outsiders in their original homeland.

Trail by the Danube

Walking along the bank of the Donau, I soon reached Ulm's Fischerviertel, with its charming, early 16th century houses. One had a mural showing an old view of Belgrade, one of the boat-people's destinations; another was the Zunfthaus, headquarters of the boatmens' guild. The houses were quirky --- the Schräges Haus, the Schmales Haus (crooked house, narrow house) --- many shuttered windows overlooking the little canals criss-crossed with old bridges. I think I saw a kingfisher dart underneath one of the stone bridges with a flash of blue wings.

Zunfthaus der Schiffsleute

Having explored the winding, cobbled streets of the Fischerviertel (we had supper there later, at the Forelle restaurant, a whole poached trout with buttered potatoes in my case --- Forelle means trout) I continued along the riverside as far as the Metzgerturm, an old stone watchtower in the city's medieval walls, thence up the hill to the Rathaus, where a plaque on the wall commemorates Kepler's publication of Tycho Brahe's star catalogue that had taken decades to complete. Presumably out of sheer frustration, Kepler finally had it printed at his own cost.