People often ask me why I love Europe. They ask me why I get excited when I hear “La Marseillaise” or “Ja Vi Elsker Dette Landet”, or why I almost get goosebumps at a “je ne sais quoi” or “aufwiedersehen”. Considering I’m an American, it’s weird. We “Amurikans” don’t like Europe, what with all their snobby French people or their crazy Germans and such. But like many other Americans, I wasn’t raised with traditional American values – I never learned to love football and baseball, and I didn’t try apple pie until I was about 12 years old. In fact, I was raised with some traditions that are considered gross and disgusting by many Americans – ever put butter on a ham sandwich? But none of this ever answers the question of why I love Europe. I love Europe because I believe in it. Maybe it’s because my family was thrown out during the Holocaust before they were ready to leave, but I believe that Europe represents my past, and it represents my future. The earth underneath Die Brandenburger Tür is never going to move, and that means that anytime I feel down, anytime I feel hopeful, Europe is somewhere that I can think to, some place that I can run to and already feel part of, and I believe that each and everyone of us has our own Europe.
For me, Europe is ever changing, becoming more accepting, but still perpetually the same. Family reunions are filled with stories about my grandma’s “wunderbar” childhood in Germany before the Nazis came and the new social climate in Deutschland – a country which she has surprisingly forgiven and still thinks highly of. I can either look to that wonderful past or to the bright future – whichever looks better at the time. Europe is the place that has given me some of the happiest and some of the saddest stories, and still continues to change every day. But what makes Europe the perfect escape is that it’s somewhere I already belong. One day I was speaking French with my mother and I made the mistake of saying “tu venez” instead of “tu viens” – she said that this mistake was “disgusting”. My grandmother rejects any restaurant that is not “elegant” (she came from an aristocratic family), and “küss dich” is the goodbye that evokes the most feeling. When someone confesses that they don’t know what “Der Erlkönig” is, it’s met with bedazzlement. For the first 5 years of my life, my name was “liebchen”.
Unlike other places that we can day dream about, Europe is somewhere that has been in my history and has been in my family since I was a baby. But Europe is something bigger than a collection of countries; Europe is the history and pride that we all have in ourselves, a sense of nostalgia and longing, and a feeling of hope and belonging. We all have our own Europes.