The house by the lake

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2020

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A summer house built by a lake outside Berlin in the 1920s reflects much of Germany's 20th century history. Its first owners fled the Nazis. The Berlin Wall was built through its garden. Then after the reunification of Germany it was recognised as a historic monument and made into an education and reconciliation centre. Alex Stanger has been speaking to Thomas Harding whose great grandfather built the house, and who has written a children's book about its changing place in the world.

Photo: The Alexander Haus today. Credit: André Wagner

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Stanger.
0:41.0	It's an unusual one today as I'm not bringing you the story of a person but rather that of a house
0:48.7	A little house by a lake in Germany that has witnessed a European history unfold within its walls and across its
0:56.1	garden.
0:57.1	So what's really interesting about this house is a physical structure which provides a bridge
1:01.5	between the past and the future.
1:04.4	This is author Thomas Harding.
1:06.4	His great-grandfather built Alexander House in the 1920s.
1:11.2	This little wooden house, seen a hundred years of German history, a hundred years of
1:16.0	European history. When my family was there it was during the Nazi period, then the
1:21.2	next family he moved in was there during the Second World War.
1:24.0	And in the 1960s, the Berlin Wall was built between the back of the house and the lake
1:30.0	right through the garden.
1:31.0	Thomas has researched and written two books about the house and its inhabitants.
1:37.0	I went to meet him at his home in England to look through his archive of photographs, documents and film.
	...

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