This is too cool.
Rosi was born in Mainz in 1934.
She’s lived here all her life.
She’d always talked to her grandchildren about her life, whether through their interest or perhaps from a simple need to share her life with them and at some stage – probably mid 2022 – the conversation seems to have gone like this:
“You know Gran, other people need to hear your stories. They’re too important to be lost. Why don’t we just let you talk while we film you and we’ll put them on Instagram so that anyone can watch them?
https://www.instagram.com/rosi_aus_mainz/
Which is how she ended up in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, one of the serious national broadsheets.
And with 20,000 followers.
(Make that 20,001….)
She’s an absolute delight and non-German speakers have no idea what they’re missing out on.
Sharp as a tack, speaks in a lovely soft Mainz dialect and is a joy to listen to and watch.
She talks with the current proprietor of the wine bar her father used to frequent on a Sunday, taking her on a makeshift kiddy seat on his bike when she was 3 and longing for a lemonade in their brightly coloured bottles that were out of the financial scope.
Or of the post-war period when Mainz lost its industrial base on the other side of the Rhine – in the time-honoured tradition of re-drawing political borders with the” geographical features” pen.
Or Kristallnacht through the eyes of a 4 year old.
Or of the murder in 1944 of her mother, suffering from depression , in a psychiatric clinic.
So many stories and all told with an innocence and clarity that belies her age and an intensity fuelled by her experiences.
This is seriously important stuff.
Mainz Daily Photo 