Right here, right now
Germany; Weimar; concert hall
Happenstance is one of Bookpacking’s favourite phenomena. Within 20 minutes of arriving at Weimar’s quirky student-run Hababusch hostel, we found ourselves in a Klezmer concert. Receptionist Kai checks me in and mentions there’s a Klezmer workshop happening in town; do I fancy coming to a concert? In no time at all we’re walking through the quaint snow-filled streets of Weimar, past statues of Goethe and Schiller. We’re only at a concert given by the cream of the world’s Klezmer and Romany musicians. I hadn’t even heard of Klezmer until a few weeks ago in Krakow’s Kazimierz, and now I’m listening to feted musicians from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the US, UK, Ukraine and Germany. Kai chats to musos who’ve returned to the former DDR town for this winter spin-off from the larger Yiddish Summer festival.
Some of the music is terribly plaintive. The imagination wanders: how many places must this song have been played in? From happy family gatherings to remote farms under threat of Pogrom or even in the nearby Buchenwald death camp. I think about my own recently departed grandmother again. And again I think about the mother given an overdose in the Krakow ghetto flat; administered by her son to avoid an even worse death at the hands of the Nazis. A familiar feeling comes; a sense of loss, of something ripped from the world. The religious or the poetic might describe it as the sound of thousands (millions?) of voices screaming out from a hellish past.
But the coin has two sides, and we finish with a grand finale and uplifting danceable numbers. 10 or so get up from the mostly muso audience and, linking hands, dance around the room in a Hora. I think back to the wild dancing I saw once at an orthodox Jewish wedding in London, an impressive sight indeed. Then girls present flowers to the band and a standing ovation ensues. The whole event is being filmed, and I feel privileged to be here. Timing, eh?