Frau Matilda The Beast of Acceptance

By Kate Gostick

Ithink it was the lack of knowledge of the basics of the German language that almost led to the extermination of poor Matilda, our Newfoundland dog. Shortly after we arrived for our three year expat assignment in Frankfurt, a letter came which I just kept putting off reading because it looked so difficult and long. I would glance at the “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren” and even this simple Dear Sir/Madam would fill me with dread, so I would place it back on the ever-increasing pile for yet another day. After putting it off for thirteen days, I finally decided to take on the challenge and it was then that the true horror of a pending doggy peril hit me. We had fourteen days to prove that Matilda was of “pure race” or she would be “collected and exterminated!” Germany’s recent history made the language in the letter uncomfortable as visions of cattle trucks heading to concentration camps sprang to mind. I frantically searched the paperwork we had brought from America, which had also been perpetually put off for another day, and eventually found evidence of her heritage in her pedigree. I rushed down to the town hall with all her papers and she was saved from the “extermination” with only a day to spare!

The holocaust was a dark, dark stain on German history and maybe should not be used so flippantly to talk about a letter about a dog, but the language used was poignant and unchanged from that which had been used to describe the millions of unfortunate Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The word nazi did not seem connected to the lovely natives of our little village who smiled “Guten Morgen” as they passed marching and laughing along the paths through the endless fields, maintaining their well-oiled joints. However, as they left the country paths and headed through the medieval town, through the town gates, on to the cobbles and past the castle, the same feet walked over golden cobbles amongst the grey, each with a name, a date, a place. These were the Stolpersteine that marked where Jews affected by the holocaust had lived and when and where they had died. I too had walked over them many times in the first couple of years I was there, never taking the time to look down as I rushed to get an ice cream or meet a friend for lunch or coffee, but now on this day the sun caught the edge of one glistening up at me. I am sure they had glinted in the sun on other days, but this was the day after I had been on a walking tour of Frankfurt for parents at the school and these little stones in the cobbles of the city had been pointed out to us and their significance explained. Now I took notice.

I had expected the Jews in the city were affected, but naively hadn’t thought they would be in our little village. All along the road through the town, stone after stone alerted me to its existence. I read every one and I remembered. All Germans are made to remember in an attempt that they will learn from the past and not repeat it. The holocaust is taught to every child in every school, every year and they are made to feel guilty for their forebears’ actions.

In America, things are very different. Every year in November they are not taught of the mass genocide against the Native Americans perpetrated by their forebears, but it is taught as a propaganda fairytale where everyone sat together and shared the food they had, so that the brave pilgrims did not starve in their first winter. Rather than learning from the past, it is celebrated with Thanksgiving turkeys, paper pilgrim hats, and freezing cold games of football.

Britain is no better. We even put a defining adjective before our name making it Great Britain, defining the power that colonising most of the countries of the world, as Great. Children are taught that only twentytwo countries in existence have never had the benefit of the greatness of the largest empire in history, but a historical amnesia fills those same classrooms like ether when it comes to Boer concentration camps or the Amritsar massacre.

Only when you look in from the outside do you see the propaganda that becomes the cultural norm, allowing judgment of others, free from self-reflection. From the outside looking in this reflection glints off every stone that bears a forgotten soul and reminds us that we are all the same both at a personal and national level and could all benefit from a little more reflection and a little less judgment. www.lancmag.com

French we were told was the language for your wife, Italian for your lover, English for business and German for your dog. Maybe this is why, after the shaky start, Frau Matilda embraced German culture with all four paws and after dinner would sit and bark until we took her to the pub for a pint.

They loved Matilda as she loved their beer gardens lined with bits of discarded schnitzel and sausage. She was immediately accepted when we arrived, but the locals took a little longer to warm to the rest of us. We had been told by our cultural trainer that Germans were like coconuts and it was tough to get through the outer shell, but once you made it through they totally opened up to you. This did seem to be the case.

A few days after we arrived, we went to the local ice-cream shop. It was on the main street in the town in one of the lovely black and white timbered buildings that looked like they had been there for all eternity. Outside metal tables and chairs tumbled out on to the streets some sporting large umbrellas to add a little shade. We found the only free table and sat down and I asked in my very best German for a strawberry, a vanilla and two chocolate icecreams. It wasn’t that difficult and I was quite proud of myself until the arrogant waiter shouted at the top of his voice in German, “What do you want?” He then turned to the rest of the patrons sitting under the umbrellas and asked, “Was sagt deise Frau? Ich kann sie nicht verstehen!” He smiled and nodded at his audience as if to assert that he was part of them and I was not. As he ran a hand through his thick black hair, a lady on the next table glanced over at me and smiled reassuringly as she repeated what I had just said and then turned to me and told me that I was perfectly easy to understand and complimented me on my German. Her reassurance allowed all the muscles in my body that had tensed up a few minutes earlier to relax back against my aluminium chair. Her smile meant that, rather than dreading going into a hostile town, I could pluck up the courage to try again and again to fit in. She probably forgot about what had happened as she left the table and headed down the cobbles and

They welcomed us in until they saw we had three young children and then bluntly told us that the dog was welcome, but with three kids, the rest of us needed to find somewhere else to eat!

If there was ever to be any form of discrimination it always excluded Matilda and was aimed firmly at the two-legged members of the family. When we went to one restaurant with Matilda we asked for a table and they welcomed us in until they saw we had three young children and then bluntly told us that the dog was welcome, but with three kids, the rest of us needed to find somewhere else to eat! Some restaurants even had a reserved sign on the tables, even though nobody had reserved them. This allowed the owner to vet you before giving you a table and on many occasions, the lack of revenue was preferable to us. Some tables even had a sign that blatantly let you know that you were being discriminated against. The Stammtisch table was reserved for locals only and often stood empty as we were sent away hungry. In the last six months of our three years we were granted a seat on the Stammtisch and, at that point, knew we had been accepted. I felt no warmth in this acceptance though. It had come with a trail by exclusion for the previous two years and so was not a place I wanted to be. In America, there was no trial by exclusion. We were considered acceptable immigrants and always invited to join the locals, sometimes feeling like the entertainment or prized new possession, but this just shows the ridiculous nature of prejudice.

Our favourite restaurant was La Table. They welcomed all of us, Matilda and the kids, with open arms. I would try to tie her up outside, but they would insist that she came into the tiny cafe where she filled the white tiled floor and made the waitresses jump over her like show jumping ponies to deliver the food to the half a dozen or so tables with tablecloths covered in pink and blue hydrangeas. One day, shortly after arriving in Germany, I went there with my new friend Laurie and her two children. She had just been to the shops and had bought an enormous courgette which she placed on the table next to the delicate china teacups. As the food arrived we realised that the table was far too small for seven of us and a humongous zucchini so, as another table was vacated, the waitress suggested we moved, allowing us to spread out a little. We jumped at the chance and Laurie leapt up, courgette in hand, to claim the table before anyone else came into the tiny cafe. The sleeping Matilda awoke with a start as Laurie’s right leg stretched over her back towards the larger table. Before Laurie’s left leg could follow, Matilda stood up making Laurie have to fight to maintain her balance as she straddled the 120 pounds of terrified Newfoundland. As Laurie’s left hand clung on to the table, her right arm waved in a circular movement, still clutching the colossal green vegetable. Matilda looked around for a place to escape the zucchini wielding rodeo star, but she was hemmed in by tables and screaming children. Her big brown eyes looked at me begging for help and eventually I managed to free myself from behind the table and steady her long enough for Laurie’s left leg to rejoin her right, allowing her to securely place the courgette on the table and take a seat. The waitress placed our food on the table with a gentle “Alles gut” and nothing else was said. You would think this level of disruption to a “ladies who lunch” kind of cafe would mean we were all banned and that Matilda and her courgette welding jockey would definitely not manage to find an unreserved table ever again. However, the little cafe, filled with German ladies wrapped in pashminas, huge diamonds glinting on their fingers, positively encouraged us to return. From that day both La Table and Laurie were to become two of my most favourite things in Germany. I learnt that every society has people like the lady who supported me in the ice cream shop as well as those who choose to alienate and exclude like the restaurant owner with reserved tables. This led me to become determined that my table would always be a “La Table” rather than a “Stammtisch.”