As a child, I often wondered why the leaders behind the iron curtain could not create countries where people wanted to live and stay. I thought it was crazy to spend so much effort on building walls and guarding their own citizens. At the age of 10, none of my friends were bothered but as a Swedish child and grandchild of East German refugees, I had a different perspective.

Visiting Two Berlins

The first time I visited GDR, or DDR as I learned, was with my high school graduating class in the mid 80’s. We had a few days in the sparkling West Berlin and then spent May 1st, The Workers’ Day, watching parades on the East side. I still remember the lack of happiness in people’s faces, just totally blank expressions. The only ones that looked happy, were kids sitting on their fathers’ shoulders waving flags, too young to understand. We were of course not allowed to take a single step without our guides. We spent a lot of time waiting and apart from a bus tour around town, we didn’t see much. Strange to think that the Wall has already been gone for longer than it existed. Growing up with it seemed like such a status quo and the Baltic States and the East Block, seemed so, so far away

The Berlin WallRead More »

May 9th, 1945 is when WW2 ended in Europe. That was also my grandmother’s 40th birthday and she had her hands full raising four kids. My mom was 8 years old and the second oldest. During the winter/spring of 1944/45, they spent many nights in the basement of their house in Eisenberg, Thüringen, Germany, listening to bombers heading east towards Chemnitz and Dresden. They went to bed, often hungry, in camping beds around their dining table, to make it faster to get 4 little kids down to the basement when the alarm sounded. 

My mom does not remember any end-of-war celebrations, only that the town eventually got a bit more lively, that people dared to talk to each other again and that American soldiers were handing out chocolate to the kids on the town square. There was a sense of relief that they had ended up in the American zone – until it was turned over to the Russians a few months later.

On days, when I find the current Corona situation particularly tough, I think of my grandparents who raised 4 kids during a flaming war.

May 9th, 1945Read More »

One of our favorite days is here – Poem in Your Pocket Day! Swedish poet Karin Boye (1900-1941) lived through a very chaotic time and many of her poems resonate more than ever right now. I’ll be carrying her poem “Nya Vägar” (translates to either “New Roads” or “New Ways”) in my pocket this year. A couple of years ago, we posted a funflector poem, “Portable Superhero“. Discussions around the dinner table has revealed that some of us prefer to carry our poem in our front pocket, others in the back pocket. Hmm…

Well, maybe you are wearing sweats and a T-shirt this year, so preferred pocket wouldn’t matter. Since you should stay at home if you can, the organizers at poets.org have suggestions for how to share your favorite poems virtually! They also have a poem collection that you can search by topic here.

Please tag @funflector on social media when you share your poem. We’d love to check it out and learn something new !

The funflector team / Elisabeth