Category Archives: Women's lives

Who was Anneliese Walter?

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Mennonite Heritage Tour: encounters with women (part 5 of 8). Introduction.

Berlin was one of my favourite stops. We did a hop-on-and-off-the-bus city tour and the weather was perfect, sunny and pleasant but not hot, and maybe it’s the sense of accomplishment you get riding the top of one of those double-decker tourist buses, as if you’ve actually grasped the important places, all those sights you’re rolling by. An illusion of course, but a very pleasant one while it’s happening.

Brandenburg Gate

We also roamed on foot around the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, went into the startling valleys and alleys of the Holocaust Memorial, and had an interesting visit to the roof terrace of the Reichstag Building, with its panoramic views. Berlin seemed to me all energy and confidence. So much of it looked smart and new. Continue reading →

“Owning” Muenster

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Mennonite Heritage Tour: encounters with women (part 5 of 8). Introduction. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

At dinner on the evening before our Mennonite Heritage Tour’s visit to Muenster, one of the people in our group remarked that we needed to “own” Muenster even as we “own” Auschwitz (where we would stop later).

By Auschwitz, of course, he meant the Holocaust, and by Muenster, he meant the historical events of 1534-35 in that city – the “rebellion” of radical Anabaptists in which they tried to establish the “New Jerusalem” there, complete with a king (Jan van Leiden), polygamy, extreme violence, a long siege, eventual victory by a Bishop’s army on the outside, and the killing of hundreds, with the leaders’ bodies displayed as a warning in three cages that still hang on the city’s Lamberti Church. Continue reading →

If only I were younger!

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Mennonite Heritage Tour: encounters with women (part 4 of 8). Introduction. Part 2. Part 3.

If only I were younger! Because — if I were — I might try to learn Dutch. Then I could read Anne Zernike’s autobiography, Een vrouw in het wondere ambt: Herinneringen van een predikanate, as well as the biography of her currently being written by PhD student Froukje Pitstra.

Plaque noting Anne Zernike was ordained here

Anne Zernike (1887 – 1972) was the first female pastor in the Netherlands. The 100th anniversary of her ordination on November 5, 1911 in the Bovenknijpe Mennonite congregation, where she served from 1911 to 1915, is one of the anniversaries the Dutch Mennonites are celebrating this year. Continue reading →