Week 40.08

                              Tendring Topics …On Line

 

My Trip to Zittau

 

            My trip to Zittau could hardly be described as a 'Tendring Topic', but it is really all that I can think about just at the moment so I hope that you'll find bits of it interesting.    If not, switch off and try again next week … though I should warn you that next week my mind will probably be focussing on that second operation on my ear that I'm due to undergo on Wednesday afternoon!

 

            At 87 I couldn't even attempt to make a journey on my own to the very eastern edge of Germany.   It was only the companionship and support, plus the driving and navigating skills of my son Pete and daughter-in-law Arlene that made the trip possible.  We flew by Ryanair from Stansted to Leipzig (Altenburg) where my good friend Ingrid Zeibig was to meet us and where Pete had already arranged to pick up a hire car for our visit.

 

Leipzig (Altenburg)

 

            Leipzig (Altenburg) airport came as something of a surprise.  As our plane landed and taxied to a standstill we were surprised to see, not acres of sterile concrete all around us, but a large grassy area over which a relatively narrow (but quite wide enough for safety!) concrete landing strip had been constructed.  Round the perimeter of the airfield we could see still-camouflaged bunkers. 

 

            Clearly Altenburg had been a Luftwaffe base in World War II, probably for a fighter squadron (the German equivalent of 'the few'), based there to protect Leipzig and other nearby towns from air attack.   The atmosphere of the place though seemed to be more that of World War I than World War II.   The sight of the Airport Buildings, resembling from the distance an overgrown cricket pavilion, did nothing to dispel this illusion.   One half expected to see a red-painted biplane, port wing riddled with machine-gun bullets come limping in, and the great Baron von Richthoven  climbing from the cockpit, cursing the new English air ace; 'der verdammte Biggles!' with whom he had had a bruising encounter

 

            It must be said though that the airport buildings turned out to be more like Dr Who's 'Tardis' than a cricket pavilion.  Small it undoubtedly was but it still had room  for a welcoming restaurant, for baggage handling and for the inevitable queues at the 'Check In Point' and at 'Security'.

 

             Ingrid Zeibig, my friend for many years, was waiting for us. She guided us first to a nearby village where we lunched with her 96 year old grandmother, a remarkable old lady whom Pete and I had met last year and whose acquaintance we were delighted to renew. Then we went on to Zittau where we enjoyed an evening meal with Ingrid's mother, brother, sister-in-law and little niece.  Finally we drove on to our holiday apartment at Oybin-Hein, high in the mountains seven or eight miles from the town.

 

            Leipzig (Altenburg) airport, by the way, is a long way from Leipzig, though there is a bus shuttle service provided.  It is as though Clacton Air-strip had been extended, provided with a long heavy-duty concrete runway and basic air-port buildings, and dubbed 'Ipswich' or perhaps 'Chelmsford (Clacton-on-Sea)'.  Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea, if only we could get Ryanair or Easyjet interested!

 

A double welcome in Zittau

 

            The reason for my wanting to visit Zittau at this particular time was to attend an ecumenical event.  Throughout the summer, on a Wednesday evening each month, three local religious traditions (Roman Catholic, Lutheran Evangelical and Methodist) have united to spend an hour in meditation on the theme of the Great Zittau Lenten Veil (or Fastentuch). This is a prized piece of linen on which are painted 90 pictures depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. In its seven centuries long history I am believed to have played a tiny part.

 

            These meditations take place in the Museum/Church of the Holy Cross where the Fastentuch is on permanent display.  They are accompanied by appropriate music, readings and pictures projected onto a large screen erected within the church.  On 24^th September the readings were to be excerpts from a German translation of a long article (8,000 words) of mine entitled 'Return to Zittau' that I wrote after my visit to the town last year.  I had been invited to attend and perhaps to say a few words at the end.

 

            As the day approached and it was increasingly certain that I would be able to attend, it became clear that I would be rather more involved in the event than I had imagined.   Posters, hand bills and a press release referring to 'the Englishman, Ernest Hall's' role in the history of the Fastentuch and announced that I would be present and would take part in the proceedings.  A few days before we were due to fly I was asked if I would look in at Zittau Town Hall at 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday 24^th, as the Oberburgermeister (the Mayor) would like to give me a civic welcome.

 

The Civic Welcome

 

            Zittau Town Hall (Der Rathaus) is a very imposing 'Prussian style' building, dominating a market square which, on the 24^th, was teeming with stalls and market traders.  Pete was driving the hired car, and with me were Arlene and Ingrid. The latter would, if necessary, act as interpreter.   We were met by Helmut Hegwald, previously just a voice on a phone.  He was a town councillor who was, I believe, also organiser of the evening's 'meditation'.   He welcomed us warmly, urging Pete to drive the car through the enormous archway to park within the Town hall precincts.

 

Then, he accompanied us to the Mayor's Parlour where we were no less warmly welcomed by the Oberbürgermeister, Herr Arnd Voigt.  He spoke no English but had his own very competent interpreter, a young Polish girl student from the local University who spoke both German and English fluently.  Over a cup of coffee and biscuits we had a friendly chat about my time in Zittau as a POW and my connection with the Fastentuch.  I was very glad that I had asked Ingrid to come along with us.  It was she who had, in the first instance, suspected this connection when I had told her, in an email, how I had helped transport heavy packing cases from the Town Museum to a ruined building on the summit of Mount Oybin, eight or nine miles away.

 

I gave Herr Voigt a message of greeting and good will that I had brought from Councillor Roy Smith, Chairman of our District Council, and he formally presented me with a sterling silver ring and cross, the ring symbolic of the comprehensive nature of God's revelation in the Old and New Testaments portrayed in the Great Fastentuch, and the cross symbolising the New Testament message, graphically displayed in the Smaller Fastentuch, 'God so loved the World …………'.  A citation explained that the ring and cross were presented to anyone who had played a part in preserving the two Fastentuchs for posterity. 

 

 Before departing, we were given a guided tour of the Town Hall. The Council Chamber was particularly impressive.  All three of us had had wide local government experience but it was only Arlene, a Mancunian, who could claim recalling a Council Chamber (that of her home town) that rivalled  Zittau's in splendour!

 

The Ecumenical Event

 

            The evening of the 24^th was cold and wet and the church unheated.  Not many people will turn out for this, I thought.  But I was wrong.  The roomy nave of the church of the Holy Cross, if not packed, was certainly well filled.  The Great Fastentuch was displayed, in all its splendour, across the entrance to the choir and sanctuary.

 

            Ingrid's mother and brother were already in their seats.  Ingrid, Arlene, Pete and I were ushered to reserved seats in the front row.  Central was the Great Fastentuch, on the right a large screen for the slide show and on the left a raised pulpit.

 

            Helmut Hegwald announced that the meditation that evening would include readings from 'Rückkehr nach Zittau' (Return to Zittau) with appropriate music and appropriate images on the screen, and that they were pleased to have the author, the Englishman Ernest Hall, with them.

 

            And so it began.  My Flickr site (www.Flickr.com/photos/ernestbythesea) had obviously supplied many of the pictures displayed.  Others must have been archive pictures from both German and British sources and yet others had clearly been taken quite recently in and around Zittau.   At first a large picture of the Fastentuch appeared on the screen with a photo of my head and shoulders, taken in uniform in 1945 when I was 24 years old, superimposed upon it.  There was martial interspersed with funereal music as picture after picture of the fighting in the neighbourhood of Tobruk in 1941/'42, on both sides of the line, were displayed.

 

            Then the theme of the pictures changed – to my life.  The earliest to be displayed was of myself aged 17 (but I look about 14) just after I had volunteered for the Territorial Army in 1939.   Then there was one of me just a few months later, in civvies, with my new girl-friend, destined to become my wife.   There was a picture of Heather and I strolling down Tottenham Court Road in London, a picture from our wedding and so on, and on.

           

These pictures were interspersed with others taken in and around Zittau when these places were mentioned in the extracts from 'Return to Zittau' some of which were being read by a lady standing just in front of the Fastentuch and others by  Helmut Hegwald from the pulpit.  I was very pleased (and those who insist that 'the Germans have no sense of humour' may be surprised) to note that there was unrestrained laughter at the two or three places in my story where laughter was appropriate.  I was no less pleased  afterwards, when one of the ladies in the audience told me that there were other bits that had almost moved her to tears.

 

            The final image on the screen was again that of the Fastentuch with a recent head-and-shoulders picture of myself superimposed upon it.   I was then asked to sign the 'golden book' that recorded the names of all those who have been involved with the two Fastentuchs, and was invited to say a few words to the audience.

 

             After apologising in German for being a lot less than fluent in their language, I spoke in English while Ingrid stood beside me interpreting.  I said that I had been in their town over 60 years earlier as a Prisoner of War but had come back now as a friend, and had been delighted by the warmth and friendliness of the welcome that I had received.  I was proud to have played a tiny role in the 700 year history of their Fastentuch.  I understood that three Christian traditions were represented there and that I brought greetings and best wishes from three traditions in England.  I was in membership of the Quakers and of an Anglican Church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition and I had a close association with the United Reformed Church who, I thought, resembled the German Lutheran Evangelicals.  All had asked me to bring their greetings.  Finally I wished them all good health, happiness and peace and asked for God's blessing on them all.  There was lengthy and, I think, sincere applause.

 

            And that was that.  Mission accomplished!

 

And what else?

 

            That was the end of my 'mission' but it wasn't the end of our brief holiday in Europe.

 

            Zittau is the 'three-country-corner-town' so one day Pete drove us to Wroclow (you may still remember it as Breslau) in Poland and on another to Prague in the Czech Republic.  How heartening to find that those much-fought-over borders between Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic are now non-existent; no border guards, no customs control!

 

            We enjoyed both excursions but they would, I think, make another story!

 

            Oh yes, on the one day remaining we went by the narrow gauge railway from Zittau to Mount Oybin station and from then on towards the summit by 'road train'.  Old age and arthritis again stopped my climbing further than the souvenir shop but Pete and Arlene went on to the summit and saw the ruined monastery to which on a February day in 1945 I had helped transport for safety the packing case believed to contain the Great Fastentuch, the reason for our trip to Germany!  Later we went to a party to celebrate the second birthday of Ingrid's lovely little niece Maja with her parents and grandparents.  It was one of the happiest experiences of our visit.