A Wound which will never heal

 The original cross in memory of Peter Kollwitz

I didn't mention two important visits for me last week, during my birthday outing to WW1 sites in Belgium; one was to the German Military Cemetery near Diksmuide. I had only once visited a war cemetery years ago, with Eric my husband, to find his uncle's grave 'near Poperinge'. With the help of the War Graves Commission, he had discovered the grave was in Canada Farm Cemetery and I remember how impressed we both were at the immaculate state of maintenance there; graves looked newly washed and the grass, cut by nail scissors. And I remember how moved he had been at the sight of the grave stone identifying his uncle's remains, the uncle who had died two years before Eric's birth and whom Eric had often heard mourned and remembered by his grandmother.

 One of over 50 self portraits

I am an admirer of Kathe Kollwitz, a German-Jewish artist born in 1867 who died two weeks before the end of the WW2 in April 1945. I had long wanted to see her pair of statues, The Grieving Parents, sited in the German Military Cemetery in Vladslo, near the plaque
recording her son, Peter's, death in 1914. I had first met her work when I stayed in Cologne in 2009 and visited the Kathe Kollwitz Museum. Over her long life she produced etchings, woodcuts, drawings, lithographs, sculptures, beginning her studies at the age of 12. After her marriage to a doctor, Karl Kollwitz, in 1891, and their move to live in a working class area of Berlin, she quickly became interested in his patients, poor  artisans and labourers and their families, who fascinated her and excited her empathy. Even more important than her concern at their plight, she also found them aesthetically beautiful. For the rest of her life, she focussed on depicting the poor and dispossessed, the peasants and labourers, the struggling members of the proletariat.

Her second son, 19 year old student, Peter, joined the army immediately war began, in 1914 and was killed two months later in October 1914 in Flanders. After suffering what she called, 'a wound which will never heal' Kathe's life-long intermittent depression re-surfaced on this unbearable loss. She determined to create a memorial to her son and all the other sons who had died and started work almost immediately but was repeatedly dissatisfied with the result. She continued her efforts for the next five years before putting the idea on one side. Eventually the sculptured portraits of her and her husband, The Grieving Parents, were finished [1931] and went on exhibition in Berlin before being mounted near Peter's grave in Vladslo.

After the rise of Hitler, predictably the Nazis did not approve of her art, labelling it 'decadent' and she had to resign from her job as Professor at the Akademie der Kunste in 1933 and was threatened with arrest and deportation with her husband in 1936 although her, by now, international reputation ensured that this did not happen. Her husband died in 1940 and their Berlin apartment, to which they moved after their marriage, was bombed in 1943 when many of her works were lost.

Last week the Vladslo WW1 cemetery proved to be a continuing haven of peace; beneath many trees over an extensive grassland, are placed low square plaques, lying in neat, soldierly lines on the ground, each with ten names incised on the stone. An amazingly lively 90 year old lady caught up with us, as we wandered towards the Kollwitz statues; she lived 'next-door' but clearly considered herself the custodian as she explained there were 11,000 names recorded there and she pointed out where Peter Kollwitz's name appeared. The Grieving Parents stand at the far end of the huge plot, opposite the entrance, in poignant mourning pose; they are monumental images of grief and self-reproach; self-reproach for the guilt felt by so many grieving parents for their encouragement to their sons to volunteer to fight for the Fatherland. It is an incredibly moving portrayal of grief, regret and loss.

 Vladslo Cemetery looking towards the Kollwitz statues

After Vladslo came Poperinge to see the long-awaited Talbot House which did not disappoint although the good idea of creating a B& B there to ensure continuing income was somehow marred. The stylish glass addition, now housing the Talbot House museum, would have been great adapted for accommodation leaving the original House updated, renovated but still authentic. One can look around some of the guest house and toil up the vertiginous climb to the attic chapel, while the exhibition in the glass extension is really interesting with a marvellous video of a WW1 soldier

chatting to camera for twenty minutes, beautifully done. And the huge garden is simply an oasis of green curved restorative peace. Tubby Clayton's dream of making a sanctuary for war-torn men of all ranks was incredible and inspired and the exhibition conveys that powerfully. I mean to tell Dr Van Reyninghe, my downstairs neighbour, of my visit to Talbot House; he persists in believing I am related to Tubby Clayton and occasionally pops an article on him through my letter box.

Part of the glorious garden of Talbot House;
 glass extension on the right.

The trip to the WW1 battle area was an early birthday treat, not the jolliest of subjects perhaps but a day for me to treasure. We dined in a quiet courtyard backwater in one of the many restaurants and cafes lining the large sunny square in Poperinge where the busy-ness and colour made it impossible to imagine the unspeakable horrors happening around it one hundred years ago. I wonder if it will take another hundred years to restore Syria and Libya to their erstwhile vitality and beauty?

One last brief call to the John McCrae War Cemetery, just because we were near. John, who died in 1918, was the Canadian doctor who wrote the immensely moving, 'In Flanders Fields' thus single-handedly making the abundant poppy the enduring symbol of self-sacrifice in war.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks, still singing, bravely fly

Scarce heard above the guns below.



National Day

A friend sent the above image to me this week and it has star billing because it made me laugh so much. Just love it. Cannot imagine where the original notice was displayed but the spray-painted addition underlines the subtle truth contained therein!

 

July 21^st is the National Day, a big feestdag for the country. I was intrigued enough about the day to wonder why and from where it came, the English hardly having a National Day unless one counts St George's Day which is barely celebrated. Belgium, as such, has existed only since 1830/31 when, following the example of yet another French revolt, the southern provinces of United Netherlands rebelled against Dutch rule. There was political alienation as well as economic and religious disparities involved and the Dutch were expelled, giving Belgium de facto independence. A National Congress was formed, a Constitution written and the decision made to adopt a constitutional monarchy with its implicit suggestion of political stability, rather than a republic which might have frightened the horses in foreign governments. The aftermath of mob rule after the French Revolution in 1789 still cast a long shadow.

Street entertainers in Brussels on July 21st 2016

SWAT team on duty, a new feature of this year's parade

Congress invited Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a German aristocrat, to be the first King of the Belgians on June 4 1831 and he was crowned on 21 July 1831. He vowed to accept the Constitution and his coronation date thus became the first National Day of Belgium. Usually in Brussels, there is a church service, a review of the army and police with a flypast by the air force and various stalls publicising and explaining the roles of the military, civil defence, emergency services and other government departments. Notable public buildings, normally closed to the public are open and there is a variety of street entertainments and firework displays available. I have discovered, after the event, that this year, unusually, several members of the Belgian Royal Family did not attend the official service and celebrations in Brussels owing to family disagreements. Astonishing to the British outsider here; could not imagine any Royal rift being made so publicly obvious in the UK. Prince Philip and Diana used to manage to appear, smiling, on the Buck House balcony, despite mutual loathing. I then discovered that several leading Flemish politicians also chose to absent themselves as a potent protest; their party would like independence for Flanders.
 

Many smaller cities and towns have celebratory events; in Brugge there are free concerts in the Markt where hundreds gather in the cafes and restaurants ringing this central point and thousands more stand shoulder to shoulder in the Markt itself, drinking coffee and beer. Happily there seems not to be the culture here of drinking to oblivion or even, to real excess, and, noticing this has made me consider the good points of living in this young country. Top of the list must be the absolutely first class health service for which one pays, but so little that it is enough to incur responsibility in the users while being easily available to all, with financial help for the poorest. Perhaps the most striking aspect of life here, taken for granted, indeed barely noticed, by the natives, is the lack of serious disparity in wealth. Taxes are very high but this seems not to breed much resentment, rather a quiet pride in the very real benefits which exist for every citizen and the relative social equality it confers.

Two days stand out during my past week; the annual Beelden in Het Witte Dorp, the outdoors sculpture exhibition in Lissewege, one of the prettiest of many pretty villages in West Flanders [and often referred to as the White Village from its many white-painted houses] It is about 8 kilometres from Brugge. Much of the display is on the huge grass area at the side of the 12 ^th century barn, itself a wonderful historical survivor but there is a large display in the church itself. The church is of almost cathedral-like proportions and is rumoured to have been financed by the Knights Templar, a
notion largely based on the little mystical head, perched high in the rafters, called Baphomet. I know no more than that!  Lissewege, church and village, is an idyllic setting for an important and interesting exhibition full of challenging pieces, often irreverent and eccentric.

 

The second day was yesterday when I received a great early birthday present of a car trip [amazing how the occasional outing in a car assumes important proportions when one no longer has a car!] to some of the WW1 sites in Belgium  crowned with a lovely lunch in Poperinge. My own energy, or lack thereof, shortened the day somewhat so we didn't make it to the Last Post at the Menin Gate but breath was caught at Diksmuide where the memorial tower told a story I had not heard before. The second tower built after 1946, to the dead of both world wars, has AVV and VVK writ large in the form of a cross near its summit. In front of it stands the remnants of the first WW1 tower dynamited in secret in March 1946 by anonymous desecrators. It was experienced as a huge insult to Flanders and the Flemish; the apparently inexplicable act, almost a year after WW2 hostilities had ceased, was interpreted as an assault by Belgians, not outsiders, seeking independence, and still arouses strong emotions today. One of the less successful aspects of the Belgian state is the ethnic tension between Flemish and Walloon which is signalled in the linguistic differences and the elaborate civic and governmental arrangements put in place to accommodate the uneasy relationship within what is, effectively, an artificial, that is to say, a man-made state. I would not go as far as the leader in the New Statesman last week, describing Belgium as a failing pseudo-state but it is a country of uneasy political tensions. Everyday life here is, however, super!

 Alles Voor Vlanderen; Vlaanderen Voor Kristus

The original tower, mainly demolished in March 1946