By Lisi Niesner

U.S. troops arrived at German KZ (concentration camp) Buchenwald, near Weimar on April 11, 1945. The hands of the tower clock on top of the entrance gate are exactly set to a quarter past three: the time of liberation.

Walking through a memorial side of a former concentration camp feels indescribably oppressive. Between July 1937 and April 1945 a quarter of a million people were imprisoned in KZ Buchenwald with a death toll of around 56,000. This is a place as inhuman as it may be possible, full of sorrow, torture and death.

Prisoners had to endure a dreadful extent of humiliation, starvation, coldness and disease. Many worked to death, others died in medical experiments or were murdered arbitrarily. Here on the grounds of the former concentration camp, you become even more aware of the terrible magnitude of the systematic genocide by the Nazis.

Visitors enter the inmate’s camp through an iron gate with an inscription which is just readable from the inside, “to give each his due”.

Survivors, their relatives and others gather annually on April 11, at 15:15 pm for a commemoration ceremony at the memorial to all inmates’ of Buchenwald located at the former muster ground. Twice daily, the prisoners had to line up for a roll call. They had to stand, to march, to form lines and sometimes to sing for hours. Naked prisoners were flogged there and others were hanged on gallows for all to see.

The commemoration ceremony involves the Buchenwald camp song.

I observed former inmate Szaja Chaskiel, born in 1929 in Poland who emigrated to Australia after the war. While sitting in a wheelchair he sang the words with a powerful voice and full of fervor:

(excerpt translated from German:)

“O Buchenwald (beech forest), I cannot forget you,
Because you are my destiny.
Those who left you, can realize
How wonderful freedom is!
O Buchenwald, we will not moan and complain,
And whatever our future -
We still want to say “yes” to life,
Because the day will come -
Then we are free!”

I then stopped taking pictures. This situation deserved respect and when the music silenced he still continued singing.

I had to summon courage to walk up to the former inmates and to address them as it was a very difficult list of questions I had. There are so many details and each survivor has his own individual ordeal which could fill an entire book. I was not sure if I can simply go and ask about their heavy past. Would that be rude or even offensive?

I have deep respect for Ukrainian survivors Victor Karpus’s, 88, and Petro Mischtschuk’s, 87, courage and strength to wear their old prisoner’s garb. Karpus was in several concentration camps for a period of three years. He even once managed to escape from a camp but got captured and came to Buchenwald until its liberation. “Work or die – it was impossible to get out from Buchenwald”, Karpus concluded and I saw him walking away with companions showing them the places of his memories at the former camp.

“The employable have to be destroyed by work”, Eva Pusztai explained the Nazi attitude. Her right eye filled up with one tear and ran down her cheek. She composed herself at once and smiled.

Pusztai, born in 1925 in Budapest, Hungary has Jewish origin. In July 1944 she was deported to Birkenau and six weeks later to Muenchmuehle, one of 136 satellite camps of Buchenwald. The forced labor in the arms industry or in the stone quarry took the imprisoned to the brink of their physical abilities. “You got just enough food to survive. I lost a third of my weight and I was almost starving to death”, she said. She offered to take a picture of her in front of the gallows.

Naftali Fuerst, Vice President of the International Committee Buchenwald-Dora and Subcamps, was born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1932. “It was hell – I was dying there”, he said.

Fuerst was in three concentration camps, including Auschwitz before he came to Buchenwald at the age of 12. People who arrived on mass transport from Auschwitz were placed in the Little Camp which transformed to a cruel place of death for thousands of Jews. “I was seriously ill and owe my life to my late brother”, Fuerst, who now lives in Israel, said.

I met Professor Elling Kvamme on the corner of former Barrack Block 22. Kvamme was born in 1918 in Oslo, Norway where he also taught medicine at the University. “Students are always dangerous and the Nazis realized it very quickly”, he explained. Kvamme was arrested in 1943 as a member of an underground paper and as a dangerous political opponenT.

He was forced to take part in the Nazi program of Germanization and had to work at the pathology in Buchenwald. Before the dead were cremated in a specifically developed incineration system to veil the traces of murder, the pathological facility examined corpses to prepare specimens of skin and skeletons for anatomical collections.

“Where is your god? Why he does not help you?” Jakob Silberstein, born in Poland in 1924, reminds the mocking of a high-level Nazi on Yom Kippur. He survived six years of captivity in concentration camps Buchenwald and Auschwitz and witnessed brutal actions by the SS. “They screamed: the last is shot (the last person will be shot), when we had to enter into a cattle car for transport”, he told. Silberstein experienced first-hand being locked in a standing cubicle for one week, carrying stones and drinking rainwater for days. In Auschwitz he survived 50 “Schmitz” (blows) and became tattooed with number 68743.

“I already stood inside the gas chamber in Birkenau when a SS man asked for skilled labor and I stated I was an electrician which luckily saved my life “, he said. After the liberation he got to know that none of his family and friends in his hometown Tomasov had survived. Silberstein today lives in Israel and tirelessly tells his story.

Vasile Nussbaum spent one year in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. “Buchenwald was a sanatorium in comparison to Auschwitz” he said without hesitation.

Born in Klausenburg, today’s Romania, in 1929 Nussbaum visits every year on liberation day: “You never know what’s coming, today we are 83-years-old and in the next year we are no more here”, he said as he appeared in good health.

Regrettably he was not wrong. The opportunities to meet, talk and listen to eye-witnesses of World War II will not last forever. Watching interviews of concentration camp survivors on television or facing them while looking straight into their eyes makes a huge difference.

By Lisi Niesner, editing by Victoria Bryan

Peter Breiter, 41, is not your typical bank manager. He wears jeans and a jumper to work, he writes everything out by hand, and he’s also not afraid to use a mop to clean the floor. But neither is this a standard bank, staffed by a row of anonymous employees behind glass screens. The Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG cooperative bank in southern Germany is one of the smallest in Germany and a visit here is like stepping back in time.

From the waiting area with ladies sharing local gossip to the office, where Breiter still uses a typewriter and an adding machine, the surface enamel worn away by years of use, things do not seem to have changed much since the bank was founded in 1890. Even the price list is shown in deutschmarks, with the euro equivalent hand written on.

The bank nearly didn’t make it this far though. At the end of the 1980s, Germany’s bank supervisory authority withdrew Gammesfeld’s operating licence as it didn’t have the requisite number of staff to meet the ‘second pair of eyes’ principle to double check transactions.

Fritz Vogt, manager at the time and whose grandfather founded the bank, faced a three-year jail sentence for illegally operating a bank and it was only after six trials and a ruling from the federal administrative court that the bank was given permission to operate without the usual two full-time employees. Vogt, now 82, handed over the running of the bank and its approximately 400 current accounts, in 2008 to Breiter, who left his career-focused job at a bigger bank in a neighboring town.

Breiter, whose suit now hangs unworn in the cupboard, says he took the job in Gammesfeld to prevent the bank from being gobbled up a bigger rival. “I’ve not regretted a single second,” he said, explaining how former colleagues had mocked him for leaving to join a ‘museum’.

With the customer base restricted to those living in the tiny village of 510, Breiter, himself born in Gammesfeld, prides himself on knowing each customer and their transactions. “If a farmer asks me for a receipt of his dairy earnings, I don’t need to look in the accounts,” he says. Customers also appreciate the chance to chat to someone familiar about everyday life. “People pour their hearts out to me – job, divorce, money – but when I go home the bank is taboo,” he said.

Breiter is also proud of the fact that the bank is run in the best interests of its customers, rather than to maximize profits. “We don’t impose account fees or charges on our customers and there are no payouts of dividends or bonuses, either to me or others,” he said. Raiffeisen Gammesfeld restricts its business to traditional retail banking – no credit cards, shares or funds. Annual profits are stable at around 40,000 euros and the biggest loan it ever agreed was for 650,000 euros – peanuts for larger banks.

During the financial crisis in 2008, the phone was ringing off the hook, Breiter said. “The whole of Germany called. Some wanted to invest multi-million euro amounts, but I refused because they were not from Gammesfeld!” Despite its tiny size, the bank does a brisk trade around the lunchtime hours. Mandes Rueger, an insurance salesman, comes in around twice a week to use the bank. “I can’t tell you how long we’ve known each other,” he says of Breiter. “Must be around 20 years, since we met at the local soccer club.”

Later in the afternoon, Vogt appears to help out with some paper work and to share some laughs with Breiter. During his time at the bank he rejected the idea of IT, preferring his trusty fountain pen, and now eyes the ‘new’ computer with its floppy discs warily. Even now, the bank is still not connected to a central database and any account updates are sent via the regular mail.

Vogt says he believes a bank should take responsibility for people’s money. “If we had lost our clients’ money, we would no longer have dared walk through the village.” For the future, Breiter has one major aim – to get access to the central Raiffeisen Bank computer, so he can download statements to his computer instead of waiting for the postman to deliver them.

By Lisi Niesner

“You can join me and pick up the deer carcass”, German wolf researcher Werner Freund invited me as he climbed into his lorry. I quickly jumped in. A rotten smell of meat hit me. I thought I wouldn’t smell it after a while but this proved to be a very false assumption. We chatted while driving and he told me about his education as a gardener and his first botanical job at the Stuttgart zoo. Soon, his job turned into a predator zookeeper after the initial bear keeper was injured. “I have cataracts, but have heard it can be treated very well today”, he suddenly added. I started monitoring his driving suspiciously until we reached a house, not far from the French border. There it lay in the snow, directly on the driveway. He asked me to give him a hand, and in view of the fact that Werner Freund is almost 80 years old, it was just polite to help him load the animal’s cadaver. On the way back I told him I had never loaded or even touched a dead deer, which seemed to amuse him.

GALLERY: LIVING WITH WOLVES

Back at his home he changed clothes to confront the Mongolian wolves pack with a familiar odor. I was curious. Werner opened the door of the fence and entered the enclosure. First the alpha male wolf Heiko, came towards him and licked his mouth which is a sign of acknowledgment and a sign of membership of the pack. After this ritual Werner got the deer cadaver, put it on the snowy ground, lay down and held it in a manner as if it were his prey. As a child I was told, like most other children, the tale of little red riding hood making me wary of the big bad wolf with bared teeth on display. Unexpectedly the pack was shy and approached carefully. Werner took over his role and bit into the leg of the deer but spat out the raw meat. I was too busy trying to shoot pictures through the wire-netting fence, to wonder what was going on in front of me. None of the wolves competed with him for the food.

In the afternoon I met Werner at the enclosure of the Arctic wolves, he had changed his jacket again. It was terrific watching the beautiful white animals howling in anticipation. They recognize the sound of Werner’s car and were excited long before he arrived at the gate. “From the moment the wolf cubs taste meat and blood, they turn into predators and cannot be domesticated like dogs”, he said while entering the enclosure with a bucket of meat. From when the Arctic wolf Monty, named after the horse whisperer Monty Roberts, and the female wolf Deborah had a litter of cubs, Werner began feeding the cubs from the mouth. It was incredible that the whole pack adopted this behavior.

Werner proceeded to a small hill where the pack assembled. He made odd, muted noises to call the pack. “I had to re-educate my voice as my German dialect sounds quite hard, but the wolves are used to gentle noises”, he explained later. He sat down and started howling. For my part, this was the absolute highlight. The light was just perfect and the wolves roamed around while he was always centered. They stopped sometimes to join into the wolf song and their breath became visible in the cold air.

“People said, I am half human“, Werner said with a canny smile later as we sat at a table in his living room having a cup of tea together. One side is human the other side is lupine. “I have always remained human”, Erika his wife joined in and mentioned how quickly their 50-year marriage had passed by. Back in 1972 they adopted a wolf from Yugoslavia. Ivan the wolf was released into an enclosure and mated with a female wolf who gave birth to cubs soon after. When they visited the wolf family they had a life-changing experience: “Ivan brought one of the cubs to us and laid it down”, Werner related as if it had been a miracle. Apparently this was the moment when he decided to dedicate his life to the wolves. I listen to his stories about the wolves, how he raised them at home and I noticed that he used terms like muzzle and claw for his own body parts.

Werner Freund looks back on an eventful life. If you ask him, he answers that he has two lives: “Which one I like best, I keep to myself”, he concluded before we said goodbye.

An unsettling night followed this story. It felt as if something was scuttling on my skin. It was a tickling feeling which made me scratch and I saw bugs bustling around in my mind’s eye. In the morning I could not remember exactly what I had dreamed, but the one thing I knew, all night long I had heard the buzz in my head.

I got plenty of mosquito bites, a bee sting, and on top of that several times I encountered stinging nettles and thistles while shooting Vienna’s city beekeepers. The Austrian organization Stadtimker, retains wild bees and honey bees in the city area of Vienna. Everybody who has a little garden or a roof-top can join and make room available for one or more bee hives. The beekeepers build up the hives and fully care for them generally once a week.

The hives are placed on prominent buildings in the city center: On the roof of the Austrian chancellery, the State Opera or the Burgtheater, just to mention a few of the most important. The organic honey and even cosmetic products can be purchased in some cooperative shops in Vienna.

I joined beekeeper Felix Munk while he cared for the honey bee hives on top of the chancellery, in the gardens of Belvedere palace, and next to the oil port. He supplied food and water, changed honeycomb and checked the development of the bee colony as well as the weather resistance level of the hives.

I love assignments where I can wear the work clothes of my subjects. In this case I put on a long-sleeve white protective vest with a netting hat to keep the bees off my face. Felix told me just one simple instruction: Do not wave your hands when a bee appears. I believe everybody is well aware of this advice, but apparently not everyone sticks to the rule. I can definitely say there is no reason to freak out. Lots of bees buzzed around my head or sat down on my bare hands. I even reached into a little box full of bustling bees and not one responded to this intrusion at all.

I try to avoid lots of numbers and scientific content in my stories but while traveling on the bee bus, I learned a few interesting things: The honey harvest can decrease by up to 60 percent during a rainy summer when the bees stay in the hive and eat the honey reserves; a battle between two queens can take up to five hours – in most cases the younger queen wins; the bee venom is a medically recognized treatment for rheumatism; a worker bee’s life only takes around six weeks and it literally works to death; 60 percent of the pollination is done by wild bees of which 500 different species appear in Austria.

Sergej was another city beekeeper at the Lobau location where the organization has its own queen bee cultivation. Sergej used a smoker to simulate a forest fire while he shared a bee colony to create a second one, giving them a new queen. Bees started drinking or simply tried rescuing the honey and were too busy to sting when they smelled the smoke. Beekeepers say that bees can remember bad experiences and call aggressive bees “the sting bees”. Lucky me, I met this kind of insect. I was photographing and one bee decided to sit down on the ISO button of the camera. A few seconds later a thorn stuck in my finger and the bee’s death was imminent.

Now, I can barely remember the buzzing sound, the scuttling feeling is gone, no more pictures of nonexistent insects and my finger is no longer swollen. For today, I find bees very likeable animals.

The wooden gate was half open. I knocked on the door and entered. The room was sparsely lit. Everything in the unexpectedly small workshop was black or grey and the few things that had been colorful in past days were now soot-black. The smell of iron was dominant.

Blacksmith brothers Johann and Georg Schmidberger stood at their workplaces. They did not look up. Smith’s dirty hands rhythmically led down the hammer to a strike. The beats were powerful but with a gentle accuracy. This was a seriously cool scene.

The welcome was friendly but reserved and there was no introduction on how to behave in a blacksmith’s workshop where the iron is heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). There were no precautions at all. Carefully I stepped back and forth inside the workshop in order not to disturb. Hammers and tongs in all sizes were piled on each other next to plenty of pieces of metal in all conceivable shapes. Between all those tools and metal items, I absolutely could not even name, I felt like an intruder.

In 2009 Johann and Georg were assigned a heavenly business. The Vatican engaged the brothers to produce 80 handmade breast harnesses which gradually replaced the 500-year-old harnesses of the Papal Swiss Guard. The need for replacement can be blamed not only on the visible ravages of time, but also today’s men have grown out of the old iron armors. Nowadays people are simply taller. One harness takes 120 hours of handiwork and resembles the ancient piece with just two distinctions; the fact that they have no signs of wear and the two little copyright characters stamped into the harness.

Both men radiated a calmness which I had definitely not expected. Johann sketched out the engraving of the decoration onto a harness with a black felt tip pen while Georg stood at the forge heating another part of a harness. Every movement seemed to be part of a routine. They exchanged work places and working steps without the need for commands. “We are very well attuned with each other since our childhood,” they said while nodding affirmatively. Both learned the blacksmith trade from their father and their father from his father and so forth. The knowledge passed from father to son through five generations.

SLIDESHOW: LOST ART OF BLACKSMITHING

Johann and Georg’s favorite wrought ironwork is the restoration of medieval swords and lattice gates, heavy locks and huge keys as well as treasure chests. “We make everything from wrought iron, a simple nail or an ancient harness”, Johann, the older brother explained.

The constant sound of a hammer banging on iron was loud and resounded in my ears but the noise was interrupted in patches when they heated the harness parts in the forge or ran their hand over the sculptured metal. In the meantime Johann started to grind another part of the harness to a smooth and shiny surface. Besides these noises, the hissing of the embers and the faint sound of the file, it was unusually quiet, with no conversation between them. The brothers appeared quite modest and to push the work forward seemed to be their only aim. Work was halted from time to time when a visitor, friend or client showed up at the workshop.

To this day, the brothers have delivered 22 harnesses to the Vatican; personal delivery, of course. The collaboration with the Vatican turned out to be very pleasant. Even the Swiss Guard armorer visited the brothers in their workshop. And when they waited outside the Swiss Guard headquarters door they were quickly waved inside. “Indeed, we were allowed to use secret back doors”, they said with a mischievous smile.

This is not a story of knights; no knight’s armor, no knight’s castles – not even swords. It does consist of plenty of honor, pride, old-fashioned traditions and to top it off a codex. Now when I imagine the Middle Ages, I believe some farmers must have been quite close to chivalry.

SLIDESHOW: AUSTRIAN VILLAGE CELEBRATIONS

In times past, Austrian residents of Gailtal valley, mainly Noriker horse breeders, took advantage of their surefooted draught horses and operated a trade of wine and salt across the Alps. During these journeys they likely imitated or adapted what they discovered into a custom which lasted centuries and continued to the present day. The first written records of Kufenstechen did not appear before 1630, but we know that the rite is far older and likely related to knight festivals.

I arrived the night before the celebrations in Feistritz an der Gail, a village of around 660 in the province of Carinthia. Anticipating their most important annual upcoming festivity, I expected that everyone would be in a tizzy, but instead residents went about their quiet routines.

I began researching. As it is in small villages, stories change hands as often as a coin. I was told that once, a city in a nearby valley floated the idea of wanting to stage a copy of the Kufenstechen event. The indignation was perfect and provoked a huge discussion involving the whole Gailtal valley for months. The rumor that someone wanted to fake their traditions was much more than a personal offense for every single resident. They sharply underlined that the custom should not practiced by non-Gailtal born people. In conclusion, a code was written and sworn in by the villagers to secure the procedure of Kufenstechen; tying the custom to strict rules which had existed for centuries.

The rule states that 40 unmarried and childless men and women, all no younger than 16 and no older than 30 years, may participate. No matter what profession – engineers and bricklayers, soldiers and students, hairdressers and clerks – but it is necessary that they are born in Gailtal; only they alone are allowed to carry on the Kufenstechen tradition and pass it down from generation to generation. For the young people, there is no question whether to jump in or not, they do. It is an honor and even the youngest look forward to reaching the age that they can take on the responsible of ensuring their tradition survives.

I watched the final dance rehearsal under the lime trees in the evening. I noticed residents peeking from the surrounding houses, checking whether their offspring conveyed the essential seriousness of the event as at least 2,000 spectators were expected to visit the next day. I could not imagine how these guys, who looked and behaved like the most normal youths in the world, would transform into proud representatives of the “Gailtal” custom.

And how they changed!

Early in the morning, while the men dressed quickly in jackets, Lederhosen, hats and overknee boots, it took the girls and their mothers hours to get ready. The day before they had soaked the petticoat, produced from eight meters of fabric, in starched water and ironed it for more than six hours to create a stand-away wavy skirt. The traditional Gailtaler costume is very elaborate and precious as almost every piece is handmade and embroidered. In total, the outfit costs at least 2,000 Euros and it is worn without makeup or jewellery. Without exception, the dress is paraded on just this one day of the year.

The men’s excitement peaked during lunch in the presence of the women, right before the horse riding began. Obviously, it is dangerous as there is a risk of getting injured as the history of recent years has shown. In one unfortunate case, death occurred.

Fathers proudly patted their son’s shoulders, trying to hide that they were more excited than their children as they handed over the iron club, with which they had beaten the barrel when they were young themselves, decades earlier.

Maybe some of you do not see the point of dressing up in traditional clothes and riding bareback on Noriker horses, beating a wooden barrel attached to a pole – smashing it with an iron club until the very last wooden splinter has fallen to the ground. The winner, who beats down the last piece of wood, is then awarded a floral wreath. For these guys, this is a big deal, to be the bravest and the wildest, to be the one galloping the fastest and striking the hardest. To be the one who in the end wins the coronal for at least once in life is dignity. On the other hand, some say, it is highly shameful to be the worst rider. When their sons show huge courage, they bring pride and attention to their families who will later be honored with the congratulations from numerous villagers. Even weeks after the event, it will be still be the number one topic of conversation.

Directly after the horse riding the men ask the girls to dance under the lime trees. Call me corny, but this is a really cute thing when young men pay their respect to the young ladies. The dance is an old rite of introduction into the society which in ancient times was the only opportunity to have officially close physical contact with the opposite sex. These days it is certainly not the only contact between genders but what has lasted is that the dance starts slowly and orderly and finally ends in a hilarious polka supported by the men’s joyous yodeling.

Personally I have experienced wearing a traditional costume, or more precisely a Dirndl dress. When I was a child my mother put me into it – I hated it. It is very unlike me. But beyond that, I marvel at the young folk, retaining this amazing custom for at least another century.

Born as bay, chestnut or black foals, the vast majority of Lipizzaner horses are grey. A gene mutation is responsible for the loss of color pigments in their coats and causes what we see as white coloring in their growing age. The progressive silvering process starts the first year before the horses often completely turn white between six and eight, comparable with the aging of human hair, but with the process incredibly sped up. The color of their coat is based on the Mendelian inheritance and as grey is the dominant gene, in rare cases a small number of Lipizzaner horses stay dark into their adulthood.

Homozygous Lipizzaner are a brighter white, known as milk-white. As white is often a symbol of elegance and dignity, no wonder Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria chose these horses for his court stud founded in 1580. Their famous reputation owes not only to their brilliant white coat but also their mental and physical power. The Lipizzaner are graceful, agile and strong as well as being frugal, sociable and have an exceedingly good memory which makes them particularly suitable for the art of classical horsemanship and dressage riding.

It’s hard to believe that Lipizzaner are among the endangered breeds of domestic animals – worldwide only about 5000 animals exist.

The Spanish Riding School is an establishment based in Vienna, Austria, with cultural heritage and tradition where the high school of classical horsemanship has been cherished and maintained for over 430 years. The court stables where today 72 Lipizzaner stallions are accommodated were completed in 1560 and are still one of Vienna’s most valuable Renaissance buildings.

Photo courtesy of Helmut Graf

At the age of four, still with a silver coat, the Lipizzaner stallions leave their birthplace Piber in the Austrian province of Styria and travel to the Spanish Riding School where they are subsequently trained according to the principles of classical horsemanship.

The first priority of a Lipizzaner’s training is in no way different to that of any other horse and can be summed up as the pursuit of obedience, suppleness, responsiveness and deals with the elementary field schooling of the Remonte, in other words the young horse is ridden as much as possible in a natural posture in uncollected gaits and on straight lines.

The following year comprises what is called the secondary field schooling, the Campagne School. The collected horse is ridden in all gaits, turns and circles in complete balance.

The “Haute École” means that the rider brings his horse to perfection. Everything now depends on the individual skill, talent, strength and sensitivity of each stallion. The stallion learns the Piaffe, the Passage, Pirouettes and to change legs in the canter. It takes about six years for a stallion to complete the schooling. Only very few, particularly talented and sensitive stallions master the art of “Schools above the Ground”, the Levade, the Capriole – which is the highest and most perfect of all jumps – and the Courbette which we know from paintings and equestrian statues of famous generals, such as Napoleon, sitting heroically on their horses.

The training is comparable to a top athlete, every Lipizzaner horse receives individual care and attention, a regular work schedule and a specially created food plan is part of their everyday life. The supply of revitalizing water, magnet therapy covers and solariums with infrared and ultraviolet light complete their daily wellness program. Furthermore they receive regular immune prophylaxis and a veterinary examination twice a week.

Not only the horse, but also the rider has a long hard journey from a young cadet to successfully achieve the status of a fully qualified rider. The process takes between eight to twelve years. Many give up and only the best persevere. Since September 9, 2008, for the very first time, two young women started their training with the Spanish Riding School. One of them is Hannah Zeitlhofer who recently graduated into the ranks of an assistant rider.

The rider and his horse form a homogenous unit and after a strenuous workout the rider pulls out a titbit – a piece of cube sugar – from the pocket of his tailcoat, to give the horse the delicious reward. Even in the stables there is a vibe of aesthetic perfection – when the master of the horse walks between the horseboxes and each Lipizzaner responds to his presence – no nervousness, no unpleasant smell, everything perfectly clean, prim and proper. Exactly what such a majestic horse deserves. As befits an artist, Lipizzaner and their riders go regularly on tour.

Egg. Or as it’s known in other languages:
Ei, яйцо, jajiko, muna, uovo, ägg, yumurta, oeuf, αβγό, tojás, vajce, بيضة, aeg, jaje, ovo, yai, 雞蛋, telur, huevo

It’s the hard-shelled reproductive body produced by a bird and especially by the common domestic chicken, which is the definition that first comes to our sense. Obviously an egg is much more than the daily of decision how we like to have our breakfast: scrambled, fried or poached. Tea enthusiasts use a tea egg and we call someone naughty a bad egg. We walk on egg shells when we act cautiously as well as using eggs for certain sayings: no two eggs are exactly alike, for example.

Even scientists, theologians and philosophers have spent quite a lot of time thinking, discussing and literally quarreling about the egg. The question of how life began has always bothered mankind; we come up with approaches and theories to answer one question in particular: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The egg plays a special role in every culture around the globe. It is the beginning and the end, life and death, birth and mortality. In many cultures, eggs were and still are symbols of cure, fertility, hope and sacrifice. They are also given on the way to the afterlife in some faiths.

In Chinese mythology, earth (yin) and heaven (yang) are formed from the world-egg Panku and ancient Egyptians represented the sun god Re as an egg. The Greek mythology of creation describes that Eros, who set the world in motion, arose from the silver world-egg. In Hinduism, Brahma and Shiva were born from the cosmic egg and Christians believe that the egg symbolizes hope and resurrection. Just to mention a few examples of how the symbolic character of the egg survived over centuries in different and widely separated civilizations.

Austrian sculptor, artist and retired university professor Wander Bertoni, aged 87, finally made his idea come true: he created his own egg museum. The numerous eggs he has collected from all corners of the globe over the last 70 years, often purchased at flea markets or received as gifts from his students, have found a home in a “glass nest” building with two levels embedded in the sculptor park on Bertoni’s property in a little town called Winden am See in the Austrian province of Burgenland.

From a variety of materials manufactured and originating in different cultures, eras and styles, around 4,000 eggs are displayed with one thing in common: their unique shape.

The egg is a good example of design theory:
“If you squeeze a ball, which has an absolute geometric form, a deformation occurs into the shape of an egg. From an absolute repose has been created movement and expression, the first sign of life of the abstract world of forms and geometry.” – Wander Bertoni

In addition to exhibits of wood, ceramics, stone and glass eggs in many different sizes and colors, ornate chicken and goose eggs are lined up. Finely painted icon images from the Russian Orthodox-Church can be found next to beaded eggs from Romania; Venetian motifs beside the Chinese, cultic phallus symbols next to fossilized dinosaur eggs, sacral portrayals are juxtaposed beside plain kitsch.

I watched Mister Bertoni talk about his favorite egg sculptures, the Lingam stone eggs from India, a phallus symbol of the Hindu godhood. After all these years of careful collecting and cataloging Wander Bertoni still looks at the showcases, which I assume he already did at least a thousand times. His passion has not lessened. His enthusiasm is as it was on the first day. It seems that he can still discover something fascinating or never seen in every single egg. It was something unexpectedly odd but it suited him so well. Rough sculptor hands gently holding a fragile egg; it could not be more opposite.

And yes, I confess that I had fun sitting in Bertoni’s huge egg sculpture.

Imagine a snow-covered mountain, imagine an 85 degree grade at the steepest point, imagine wearing a race suit, goggles and nothing else but a helmet and a back protector for safety. Now clip on your skis and speed straight down at a top speed of 90 miles per hour. Crazy, don’t you think?

We are talking specifically about the 3,312-meter-long “Streif” downhill course on Hahnenkamm mountain in the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbuehel. It is regarded as the most difficult track for racers and the most challenging assignment for photographers on the Alpine Ski World Cup calendar. Several racers have crashed in years past and some were seriously injured, but the winners gained immortality.

Early morning race day, skiers and photographers start to prepare to do their best work. Racers get ready at the starting area close to the top of Hahnenkamm inside a cozy tent next to the start house where they can stay warm and concentrate on their adventure of speed. On the other hand photographers have to carry their gear — which includes cameras, lenses and, of course, skis — up the hill to find a position to shoot action images on the course. They have to establish their positions at least one hour before the race starts. Sometimes the FIS race director moves photographers who could be standing in the way of a crash to a safer spot. Cold temperatures, snow and wind make photographers dress in very warm clothes, thick gloves and ski boots, while ski racers wear a thin race suit like thermal underwear to minimize wind resistance.

Now concentrate! Stay focused!

The racer jumps out of the start house, skates to build up speed, facing a 50 degree slope leading into a right and left turn before he goes airborne at the 85 degree “Mausefalle” jump. He reaches a speed of up to 62 miles as he enters the “steep hill” where the first group of photographers are ready to shoot.

Covering a downhill race requires expert skiing skills so you can reach certain photo points on the slope. On top of that you have to use crampons while standing on the steep track. It sounds simple, but have you ever tried to fix crampons to your skiing boots on a steep surface of almost pure ice? If you fall, you slip fast and far. If you are lucky your camera does not break. These conditions make the Streif the hardest race and push racers to the the edge of their abilities. Each one knows the possibility of a crash is near.

A Sssssssssssst sound and the racer has already passed by, just a few hundredths of a second in range of your 500 mm lens and yes, you got some sharp frames.

There is a bit of time to rest as the racer arrives at “Oberhausberg”, makes a turn, and jumps over “Hausbergkante”. Photographers catch him right at the moment it looks like he is flying directly into 50,000 yelling spectators in the finish area.

After a turn into “Traverse” another bunch of photographers is waiting — concentrating intensely because you never know at which point the racer will appear. You react quickly and move the camera to the left or right. Sssssssst and in a blink of an eye he disappears and speeds at up to 90 miles towards the 70-meter finish jump. After around one minute 55 seconds his job is done. He crosses the red finish line, raises both arms and the crowd cheers. Up on the mountain, photographers transmit their images directly from their cameras and focus on the next racer to come.

Usually I am absolutely not a fan of places where a mass of tourists assemble. I hate standing in line, dislike crowded sights, do not endure guides, prefer to eat meals characteristic of the country I’m visiting and I particularly cannot stand how functional tourists dress in their newly bought outdoor clothing – even if it is not necessary at all. That wind and water repellent jacket, those pants with a cooling fiber effect and, of course, the super soft sneaker shoes replacing the aerated sandals.

However, it has become a routine of mine to visit my relatives who live in the Zillertal valley but I had never visited the tourist attractions in the area. The Zillertal valley, located in the western Alps in the Austrian province of Tyrol, is well known for their “hardcore” tourism that has been operating for years.

It has never been easier to reach the top of a mountain or a glacier without shedding a drop of sweat. The expenses amount to around 30 euros and after a 30 minute ride on the cable car you will get access to a stunning view! On clear days you can look infinitely far.

There I was, right next to the cable car station atop the Gefrorene Wand summit at 3288 meters (10787 feet) above sea level, in a crowd of tourists acting like they were at a playground surrounded by this inhospitable glacier area. Children were sliding down a slope on inflatable tires, sportsmen put on their skis and some tourists took off their clothes to get the ultimate vacation snapshot from the glacier which they would likely show off proudly when they returned home. The impression I got was that it was like Disneyland in a winter wonder land. Not that I was surprised, but it still made me feel uncomfortable observing the crowds behavior (and how they were dressed for temperatures below 0°C) on a glacier as they stumbled over the snow as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

I found myself in a guided tour with tourists who were partly dressed in tee shirts, shorts and summer shoes but also wearing helmets. I was truly attracted to the aspect of this unusual combination of clothes that I decided quickly to join the tour.

“For security reasons, put on your helmets, and take off your sunglasses”, the guide’s voice resounded as a group of eager tourists entered the Nature Ice Palace inside the Hintertuxer glacier. The glacier is actually an ice crevice discovered by Roman Erler in 2007.

The extraordinary aspect is that you walk inside a true glacier and not in a hollow where ice is generated by a stack effect. The glacier formed the hollow through its motion and it is still moving and changing its shape. Due to the pressure of the icecap, curved icicles emerged and the hollow was formed to 15 meters at its highest point.

Erler explained that some parts of the ceiling (icecap) are only about 30 years old, which shows that the glacier is constantly changing and the ice is not necessarily ancient. The research area is regularly visited by different organizations to analyze the ice and the underground lake of the glacier.

The entrance to the ice palace was immediately jammed by shoving tourists. A couple of them, mostly the guys with tee-shirts, started shivering. The path led through a narrow corridor to a circular route over ladders and slopes. The spare colorful illumination demanded a high ISO setting and a shutter speed between 1/30 and a 1/5. Right next to me, two elderly women with obviously huge courage fought their way through the ice palace. Both “I have never been on a glacier candidates” were wearing low shoes, sort of slippers, in which they stood ankle-deep in frostily glacier melting water.

One hand clung to a safety rope which was fixed on the iced wall, the other hand held a snapshot camera. Their feet slid across the icy wet surface but it could not keep them from taking pictures of each other. Although they moved forward at a snail’s pace, it seemed as they would break their necks with every step they made forward but surprisingly they still appeared to be having great fun. It took the women one hour to cross a 20 minutes tour which brought the guide to the edge of his patience. “Maybe next time, they will wear proper shoes” he added.

Honestly? I was thinking the same thing.