What are you reading, Mr. Hinz?
I have moved five times in Berlin in the past 30 years. Currently, the next move to an old apartment in Pankow is imminent. When I moved, I often wondered who had lived in the apartments before me. It would be nice if the houses could tell the story. Berlin-based Regina Scheer takes artistic liberty and actually lets a house tell the story in her novel "Gott wohnt im Wedding" ("God Lives in Wedding"). It is a fictional apartment building at 10 Utrecht St. The novel spans the last hundred years of eventful German history by interweaving the fates of different people from several generations. Regina Scheer writes about persecuted Jews, Roma and Sinti, about those who hid them at the time, and about the survivors' descendants who return to Berlin and to Utrechter Strasse. The novel gives an exciting insight into the history of Wedding and tells the stories of its protagonists with a lot of human warmth. I enjoyed reading the book very much and still find it a nice idea if the Berlin houses from the Gründerzeit could tell their story.
Regina Scheer: „Gott wohnt im Wedding“, Penguin Verlag
