News from Germany
RC is moving right along in Berlin. After eight months of living here, I am proud to report that we have an active, little RC Community started. RC was decimated in Germany a few years ago, with conflicts among leaders, so we are currently the only organized Area in the country.
After setting up our structure in November, we started a biweekly combined fundamentals-experienced class, with me as teacher and Alfred Kux, a German man returning from five years in London, as assistant. Most RCers in Germany have never had the benefit of a fundamentals class. In mid-March, Jim Berger led the class on Jewish oppression/liberation. Then Ray Stiefel came at the end of March, and we conducted a national day-long workshop on "Close Friendships Between Women and Men." There are only a handful of people on the speakers-of-German mailing list, so an all-Germany national workshop is not as big as it sounds. People are willing to travel great distances for any contact with other RCers.
At that workshop we had five people from far outside of Berlin. Counseling them on their isolation changed my perspective on things. I knew I had to become more active. Since then I have traveled to Cologne to meet with an RCer there, I will be in Hamburg to meet with two others, and I am working my way south. Alfred does similar outreach.
In the meantime, Alfred and I and two assistants are conducting a two-weekends fundamentals class for experienced and new RCers in the beautiful hill country south of Hanover, as a first step in spreading RC outside of Berlin. Our two assistants will soon be able to lead their own classes - one here in Berlin, the other in Cologne. The nine participants are a joy to work with. Among the hardest things for people to counsel about is "being German." It always brings up lots of shame and pain.
Alfred has just started our first fundamentals class for new RCers, and half of the participants are men. In the meantime, we are continuing our regular class and I have started a women's support group.
Translated publications and articles are an urgent need, though four of our new members get Present Time and translate articles. Fortunately, the coordinator of German translations, Heide Rosenfels-Heschl of Vienna, put together an eighty-page newsletter with fabulous articles and a few commitments, so all of our members finally have some solid materials in their hands.
I look forward to meeting Heide in Budapest where Julian Weissglass is leading a Wide World Change Workshop in July. Two of our members will participate in his Educational Change Workshop in Estonia.
Uta Allers
Berlin, Germany
reprinted from the newsletter of the Rochester, New York, USA RC Community