Our Sexy Ancestors

Five to eight million years ago our ancestors were covered with dark hair and spent their days swinging from tree to tree. We shared that ancestor with the gorillas and chimpanzees, until some chimps branched off and developed into hominids.

Chimps still inhabit the African continent. They band together in tribes that are fiercely dominated by their males. Aggression and violence are their trademarks—nothing better for them than to fight wars against neighboring tribes.

They are close relatives of ours—96% of our DNA is identical to theirs. Why is it then that many humans are gentle and kind and have little in common with the aggressive chimp?

Researchers have finally figured it out. Apparently, the chimps weren’t all mean and bloodthirsty. Some were peaceful and mellow and decided millennia ago to separate from their brutal brothers. They retreated to the inaccessible jungle of the African Congo where they hid high up in the treetops and enjoyed peace and harmony there. Few humans have ever come to this remote jungle and when they do, these Bonobos carefully avoid being seen. No wonder they were not discovered until quite recently, and it took researchers infinite patience to discovered some of their secrets.

What are some of the secrets of these happy Bonobos?

They love having fun, they are sensual and emotional and form lifelong friendships, they groom one another, take naps, share their food and are surprisingly compassionate. They enjoy meeting neighboring tribes and are glad to roam with them for a while.

The key to their happy harmony?

There may be two. According to Bonobo Researcher Frances White, they are matriarchal, a fact that was long disputed by her colleagues. Bonobo females band together in a powerful sisterhood; they are the ones who are in control. They allot the food and eat before the males are allowed to even touch theirs.

Their other secret? 

They favor constant sex. It’s their favorite pastime—many times every day. They are not choosy; every male has sex with every female. It leaves them no time for gnashing their teeth.

How about the Bonobo babies?

All Bonobos love babies; after all, each baby could be anybody’s baby in this happy world.

Homo sapiens has come a long way since our ancestor roamed high up in the treetops of the jungle and swung from branch to branch. We have gathered considerable knowledge and skills, we’ve multiplied and become ever more diverse. We’ve acquired great riches and have grown increasingly dependent on them. Have we become happier too?

Until next time,

Rosi

The Value of an Open Mind

It was 1953 when a Fulbright scholarship took me from war-devastated Europe to Smith College. I had landed in Paradise. Until I graduated, my smile never vanished. The joy of learning, of open discussions, and of discovering a world poles apart from mine was truly exhilarating.

I had grown up under Hitler when asking questions was strictly forbidden.  You said the compulsory “Heil Hitler” and kept silent, because informers were everywhere. A word that wasn’t the Party line or a joke could land you in jail if not worse. Conversation had died, for we all knew that the walls have ears. Even your best friend could be an informer. When people are starving, the promise of extra food stamps for denouncing others was a temptation that not everyone could resist.

How refreshing to come to Smith College. A student’s questions were encouraged. We invited members of the faculty to join us for dinner and had marvelously heated discussions with our French Professor while living in French House. He usually prevailed for his French was much better than ours!

With mounting curiosity I read the article in the Wall Street Journal that protesters at my beloved alma mater caused an accomplished woman luminary to withdraw her acceptance to give the commencement address.

Christine LaGarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, might have conveyed a wealth of knowledge to the students. Countries in dire need and on the verge of starvation come to the IMF for help, their last resort. In turn, the IMF imposes a stern program to cut back on spending, to tighten their belts and pay back their debts.

Apparently 477 students and some members of the faculty had signed the online objection because, according to the Wall Street Journal, listening to her would mean that we are supporting the IMF and thus going directly against Smith's values to stand in unity with equality for all women, regardless of race, ethnicity or class.

A curious thought. Why refuse to listen to an extraordinarily capable woman? Why deny her the courtesy to speak and other students the chance of hearing her? They might have learned about the hardships of less privileged countries and their struggles to cope and survive. I am sadly reminded of my early youth when only the viewpoint of the person in command was permitted.

After all, what is the purpose of education? Isn’t it to learn about the boundless diversity and variety that life has to offer? As Malcolm Forbes stated: The purpose of education is not to fill an empty mind with facts and figures, but to create an open mind receptive to new knowledge and ideas. The Old Bard puts it most elegantly: Man, proud man, dressed in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he is most assured.

The students’ protest at Smith College was obviously not directed at Ms. LaGarde, a highly accomplished woman with a long and successful track record whom Forbes considers the 7^th most powerful woman in the world. Their objection was to the IMF, a powerful organization, but not perfect; few are. But then, why object to hearing Ms. LaGarde? It might have contributed to a better understanding of the problem and possibly encouraged rethinking the guidelines of the IMF.

It is a grand privilege to have the right to express our views, but we cannot deny this right to others. As I know from bitter experience, the path to tyranny is a slippery slope that begins with intolerance.

Until next time,

   Rosi

Annexation, continued

It was twelve hours ago that we had entered dreaded No-Mans Land that separated the Communist East from our goal, Democratic West Germany. After that rainy night the air was murky, but in the first light of dawn we could notice a road ahead. Was it the West? We hurried forward to look for a road marker. There was one! It was the very same we had passed twelve hours earlier.

Stunned beyond words we stood rooted to the ground, when out of the mist a bicyclist emerged. We should have run. But we could not stir. We stood as if turned to stone.

The man bicycled closer. We could see his gun, probably a border guard. I was sure he'd shoot us, but I was too tired to care. He kept coming closer. Then stopped. Father reached into his pocket and handed him something while explaining our predicament.

“Go this way and that … ” we heard him say. “You’ll come to a large meadow with a creek. You’ll have to cross both. On the far side begins the American sector. The soldiers guarding the area have orders to shoot. So run fast. Good luck.”

It was full daylight when we reached that meadow, a vast, forbidding place. We stared at its vastness. There, at the other side, we saw our goal, the Western sector of Germany, the free world. We could see it clearly, but we were too exhausted to feel its promise; it had been a long night. We stared at the meadow, then at Father, and for an instance I perceived a hopeful, encouraging flicker of a smile and a tiny nod. It signaled go.

We ran with pounding hearts. We ran for our lives. We dared all to reach freedom.

Until next time,

Rosi

Adapted from The Madman & His Mistress

Annexation, continued

One of my readers expressed keen interest in knowing how we escaped from Communist East Germany, a memory I had deeply buried for fifty years, being too painful to remember: 

We had managed to return to our home in the city. It was bombed but still partially inhabitable.

From behind the curtains my little brother was waiting for the all-important water truck, which occasionally brought water to the city that lay in ruins. A merciless tide of soldiers roamed the streets. How will it all end, I wondered. When will we die?

“Father is coming,” my brother whispered.  “He’s in a great hurry.”

Swift steps came flying up the stairs, two at a time, and Father’s panic-stricken face appeared in the door.

“Get in the car! Hide in the back seats,” he called hoarsely.

Seconds later, Mother threw a dark blanket over our heads to keep us out of sight—soldiers stopped all cars with women or children.

Within a minute or two we had left home never to see it again.

A mile or two before we reached the train station, we ran out of gasoline. We abandoned the car and continued on foot, Mother and my little brother walked a dozen steps ahead, Father and me behind as if we were strangers.

The streets were deserted. Ruins everywhere. They rose into the gloomy sky like eerie phantoms. Some buildings were sheared off as with a razor blade, baring the bowels of the deserted apartments. Pictures still dangled from the walls. Unmade beds gave revealed that someone had slept there before a shell blasted off the other half of the room. A boot balanced precariously on a ledge.  Here and there in the rubble yellow covers hid unburied bodies, an official precaution to warn the living of typhoid. Somewhere a dog wailed, forsaken, hungry and scared.

At last, the station came into view, but our hope was short-lived. The platform was packed with hundreds of other pitiful refugees and fugitives, some sleeping, some crying, most of them numb with misery — waiting. No one knew if trains were still running. It was rumored that the tracks had been blown up. Hitler had given Albert Speer, his architect and minister, instructions known as the Scorch-the-earth directives to destroy everything or burn it to the ground. Nothing was to fall into enemy hands.

Had Speer carried out his orders? It would mean no more trains.

No one knew.

We settled on the gray asphalt near the tracks and remained there all day and all night in mind-numbing wretchedness. By early morning, a rumbling sound brought life into the crowd.

A train! Feverish panic gripped the crowd. To get on that train became a matter of life and death.

“Hold on to our hand or to our clothing. Do NOT let go!” Father warned us. “Your life depends on it.”

It did. The crowd stampeded like cattle to get on that train. When the train pulled out, an angry mob remained behind.

At the next stop, Russian soldiers got on the train. The air was tense, stuffy and hot. For days, few passengers, if any, had bathed. Tempers were on edge, but stifled by fear. A pocket watch chimed three o'clock. It was Father's.

"Gimme," a Russian standing nearby demanded eagerly and held out his hand.

Father looked aghast. "It belonged to my grandfather," he pleaded. The watch was an heirloom and a symbol of a civilized world. It was a link to his past—the only remainder.

Yet the Russian wanted no sentimental argument; he wanted the watch. He whipped out his pistol, shoved it into Father's ribs and shouted:

"You gimme! You come with me!"

Deadly silence gripped the compartment. The Russian poked Father harder to get him moving. No one stirred, except Mother. She gently took her husband’s watch, and with a conciliatory smile and a few Russian words handed it to the soldier. She showed him how it worked and what it could do.

The Russian was pleased to hear his mother tongue and delighted with this exquisite toy, and forgot about Father’s arrest.

The tense train ride came to an end in the small border town of Falkenstein. In the distance, we surmised our destination—the American sector of Germany. It lay beyond a five-mile wide, off-limit zone, called No Man’s Land.  Trespassers were shot or captured in No Man’s Land.

Father found a guide who was willing to take us across the border. But at the appointed hour when we came to his door, the guide refused to go.

“Impossible to cross tonight,” he explained. “Three people shot and several captured.”

But we had no choice. We could not return home, nor could we stay in the border town. We had no place to hide, no food to eat, no place to stay. With or without a guide, we had to risk it. The guide drew a map and gave us a bowl of soup that we ate with gratitude. Then, on that rainy September night, we set out to reach freedom.

Around six o’clock that evening we crossed the road that took us into No Man’s Land. The street marker read 153. Gently rolling woods and meadows lay to either side. We walked this way and that, getting wetter and wetter. Uphill and downhill. Trees everywhere. Soon total darkness. Then mist and more rain. We walked and walked.

Every crackling branch or rustling leaf made our hearts pound faster. We stood rooted to the ground, when we heard sounds of heavy boots approaching. Chills shot down my spine. It was pitch dark, impossible to see. We didn’t dare to breathe. The sound came closer, then grew fainter, then disappeared. We changed direction. Hours passed. Where were we?

Suddenly shots rang through the still air; there was shouting and muffled screaming. My brother and I sank to the ground, frightened and exhausted. Would we be next?

“Let’s end it now,” Mother pleaded with Father. To be captured seemed inescapable now. The very thought of it must have been agony to her. It would mean death or separation, rape or torture, Russian work camps or Siberia. Death, Sweet Solace, must have flashed through her mind. Once we were captured, that chance would not come again.

"We have shoelaces and belts," Mother whispered, "and plenty of trees.

Yet Father would not hear of it, nor would we children.

Mother’s words had renewed our tenacity to live. We recoiled from the idea of hanging from a tree. We were young and optimistic. The idea of capture had no meaning to us. We wanted to live. We were back on our feet and doggedly trudged on, hour after hour.

Daylight was approaching. Ahead in the dense mist we saw a road. We hurried forward. There! A few steps to the left was a road marker. It had to be the West!

We gazed at the number. It left us speechless. It read 153, the very same marker we had passed twelve hours earlier.

To be continued next week,

Rosi

A true story, adapted from The Madman & His Mistress

Annexation

The year was 1945 when Russia annexed eastern Germany. Sixty-nine years have passed since then, and few of us who experienced the annexation are still alive. Yet those who are, remember it as if it were yesterday. It was a Russian “check-mate” move like no other. The Russians are experts at chess.

During the preceding twelve years Hitler had battered the German people into total submission. It was easy for the Soviets to become the new master, especially since most people of means and education had fled or were being exterminated.

Law and order vanished overnight. No person or object was safe—not anywhere. Scientists and inventors were the first to be dragged from their beds and shipped to Russia. Doctors and nurses, among them father’s young sister, went next, as well as hospital equipment and beds.

The Czechs had driven us—mother, our pretty au pair and us children—from our mountain cabin with nothing but the clothes we wore. We had taken refuge there from the nightly air raids in the city. 

The Czech soldiers had stormed into our cabin unexpectedly. We had to stand against the wall with our hands above our head, and stared down their gun barrels. Yet mother chatted with them amicably as if they were visitors. They searched the house, and miraculously, none of the soldiers touched us. One of them even escorted us safely to the border that led into East Germany. I still think of them with gratitude.

We hurried to the next village, the Ski Resort Oberwiesental. There, a compassionate hotel owner who remembered mother from better days took us in.

“Don’t open the windows or curtains,” she warned us. “My friend down the street was shot dead this morning while he was using the open window pane as a mirror to shave himself. Soldiers took his mirrors a few days ago.”

So we children watched life from behind the curtains. We had no books, no toys and felt like prisoners in our room we couldn’t leave. Yet the world outside was much too dangerous.

We watched as the Russians marched groups of civilians down the street. We saw them poke people who were passing by with their guns and push them into their group. Where were they taking them? No one knew. They disappeared and never came back.

Sometimes it was women and children they herded away, but I’d rather not dwell upon those memories.

We saw German women guarded by armed soldiers drive cattle and goats past our window. “They are on their way to Russia,” it was murmured, and later confirmed.

When East German schools reopened, Russian became the only language that was taught. However, in the three neighboring countries, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that were annexed earlier, Russian became the only language that was allowed to be spoken in school.

When the long-interrupted mail service eventually resumed, letters took months to get in or out of East Germany; Russian censors were analyzing them first. Some letters made it across the border, some did not, and some had passages that were thoroughly blackened out. So letter writers took to veiling their messages to get past the censors. It became quite an art. I’m glad to live in the Land of the Free, where there is hope that the sanctity and privacy of our electronic mail will be restored one day.

Precarious as it was, we managed to escape to West Germany. An incredible adventure, but we made it—you may have read about it in The Madman & His Mistress.

We were East German refugees now, and deeply despised by the West Germans. We competed for their shelter and food, and there was not enough to go around. Years of severe hunger and deprivation!  But thanks to the Marshall Plan that fed us starving children a heavenly noodle soup at lunchtime we survived and we were free.

Many years later, as luck would have it, a scholarship brought me to the United States (and my first good meal). What a blessing to live in these United States of America, a country that does not lie in the path of annexation.

Until next time,

Rosi

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to perceive the joy or pain of another person and share these feelings as if they were our own.

Maxi, our beloved German Shepherd, had extraordinary empathy. When we children came home from school disheartened and depressed, Maxi would sadly hang his head and lick our hands consolingly. But when we came home with big smiles because it was Friday, he’d jump and run, wagging his tail with joy.

The memory still brings tears to my eyes because one day a Nazi official came to take him away. He was to be sent to the front—World War II was raging. Maxi was the only friend we had in whom we could confide our pain of always being hungry and cold or being beaten by our teachers for no reason at all. Merciless informers were everywhere, and complaining was strictly forbidden.

The capacity for empathy varies widely. Women tend to be more empathetic than men. Some adults may be totally lacking it, while some small children can show amazing discernment. When my daughter was a few months old, a visitor came. She took a glance at the baby and then gushed forth in exuberant praise, so insincere that even the baby perceived it. When the woman tried to pat her, the baby turned away and cried.

Empathy goes a step further than sympathy. While a sympathetic person feels compassion and pity, an empathetic person will actually feel the pain as if it were her own. In times of deep distress an empathetic friend who will share our grief can be of great solace.

When a good friend has lost a loved one, we may feel at a loss for words. Empathy may provide an answer—to share the feelings, share the sadness, share the silence or tears. A bereaved person does not want to be cheered up or hear platitudes, such as time heals all wounds. It is better to speak loving words of the deceased or quietly share the pain.

Time does heal many wounds, but not all. When it comes to the pain of losing a child, time cannot heal that pain; at best it can help a person to slowly become accustomed to the loss. With empathy we can reach out and touch a person, not just with our hands or with our words, but with our heart.

At times and in varying degrees we all need empathy—someone who will try to understand us and share our feelings.

Until next time,

Rosi

You are your Universe

Now that scientists have glimpsed the first whisperings of our universe—a trillionth of a second after it was born with supposedly a Big Bang, scientists are more willing to accept the idea of multiple and parallel universes. I like the idea of infinite space and infinite time. It eliminates the awkward question of what may be hidden beyond our Universe and what came before there was Time.

Not so long ago we thought of ourselves and mother Earth as the very center of the universe. Eventually though we came to admit that we are just a planet in a solar system, and not even a big planet. Now we know there are millions of solar systems and each is part of a giant galaxy. At night, when we look at a star-lit sky, we realize that there are millions and millions of galaxies traveling through space.

What actually is a universe? We can think of it as an independent body that functions on its own, yet has many ties and interconnections with the world around it.

Look at your dog. Isn’t he a universe unto himself too? He may be dependent on us for food and shelter, but he’s still autonomous. Do we really know what he thinks and what he feels? His eyes and tail communicate well his joy when we come home, or when we feed and walk him. But he still is himself, a world of his own.

It’s the same when you consider your child. Let me call her Ann so we can omit the he-or-she, him-or-her references. Ann may have her mother’s dimples, and her father’s temper, her grandfather’s musical talent and her grandma’s freckles, but she is not one of you. She is her own individual self, at times difficult to fathom even by her. She is her own universe.

And this brings us to ourselves. We are all a universe unto ourselves. Not two of us are alike. We all consist of blood and bones, and yet we are of such complexity and differences that doctors and researchers are constantly baffled. In addition, each of us is host to a microbiome of thousands of different species of life, all categorized as bacteria. The present estimate is about a hundred trillion of them. Each person may hear, see, feel and taste the same thing, and yet we form our own impressions, our own memories, our own thoughts.

We can never totally understand another person, but we can empathize. Empathy can help us to understand someone and to learn more about our species.

Likewise, no one can truly understand us, even though at times we wish someone would. Yet no one has ever walked in our shoes and experienced what we have. Each of us is a universe unto him- or herself. It may be tough to accept, and yet it is good to know that we are autonomous. It makes us more willing to accept others. They too are on their own, just like we are. The mere recognition of the autonomy of each person imbues us with a deep sense of respect for other human beings, each one another universe. In the parlance of our younger generation, it’s AWESOME. 

Until next time,

Rosi