Life Style

Words have meaning. They shape how people feel about an issue, remember events and respond to developments that affect their lives. For decades, people in Germany have referred to the anti-Jewish violence that cascaded across the country on November 9, 1938, as the "Kristallnacht" or "Reichskristallnacht." The translation "Night of Broken Glass" is widely used in English. In Germany, that has begun to change. Historians debate the origins of the term "Kristallnacht," but it has nevertheless entered the lexicon of German history as such, "owing its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC.The sheer scale of damage, vandalism and looting that took place on November 9, 1938, led the e...

"I can still clearly remember the morning of November 10," said W. Michael Blumenthal. "My father was arrested early in the morning. Amid the commotion and despite the fact that my mother had forbidden me to do so, I went outside without being noticed. I saw the broken shop windows on Kurfürstendamm boulevard and smoke coming out of the synagogue on Fasanenstrasse." Blumenthal was only 12 years old at the time.  The Fasanenstrasse Synagogue in Berlin was set on fire by a Nazi mob on the night of November 9, 1938Image: Getty Images Jews were humiliated and beaten On the night of November 9, 1938, Jews throughout Germany and Austria were the victims of mob brutality: 1,300 synagogues and 7,500 businesses were destroyed and countless Jewish cemeteries and schools were vandalized. The pol...

British-Hungarian writer David Szalay has been awarded the Booker Prize for fiction for his novel "Flesh," a tortured story of a Hungarian emigre who makes and loses a fortune. The 51-year-old writer beat five other finalists to take the high-profile annual literary award, which honors the best English-language novel published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. It comes with a 50,000-pound ($66,000, €57,000) prize and a big boost to the winner's sales and profile. Written in sparse prose, "Flesh" follows the life of a working class and taciturn Hungarian man over decades. It charts his teenage relationship with an older woman to his time as a struggling immigrant in Britain to working for the ultra-wealthy in London. "I wanted to write a book with a Hungarian end and an English end, sinc...

It can seem like a strange coincidence to see children parade through the streets of Germany with lanterns to mark St. Martin's Day on November 11 while, at the same time, colorfully dressed carnival revelers shout "Alaaf" or "Helau." Do these things really go together? In fact, Carnival and St. Martin's Day are two customs that share a common origin dating back several centuries. Bishop Martin of Tours died on November 8, 397, and was buried three days later. This was a huge event, and explains why November 11 is celebrated, and not the day of his death. The legend of how Martin shared his cloak with a beggar while he was a soldier in the Roman army became the most famous story about the saint's life. A 1623 painting representing soldier Martin giving half of his cloak to a beggarImag...

The year is 1838. A young German real estate agent, Thomas Hutter, is tasked with traveling to far-off Transylvania to meet the mysterious Count Orlok regarding a house for sale. While journeying through the Carpathian Mountains, he is warned multiple times about Orlok, but he remains undeterred. Upon reaching the castle, the count — pale, cold and sinister — personally receives him. Hutter realizes too late that something is amiss in the castle: Orlok is a vampire. Thus begins "Nosferatu — A Symphony of Horror," the 1922 silent film classic by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, regarded today as a cinematic masterpiece. Murnau came up with a new way to depict fear and a sense of being threatened, laying the foundation for the modern horror film. The genre has many fans worldwide, and people often...

Gen Z remixes him. Millennials grew up with him. Boomers watched him rise. For millions of people within and outside India, Shah Rukh Khan (aka SRK) remains one of the most recognizable and resonant icons of the Hindi film industry. This year alone, the actor, who turns 60 on November 2, notched several viral moments: In May he became the first Indian male actor to walk the Met Gala red carpet , in June he did a cameo in Ed Sheeran's "Sapphire" video, and in October he went viral for a selfie taken in Riyadh with South Korean "Squid Game" star Lee Jung-jae — an image that some fans called the "collab of the century." Google Trends searches on him span Mauritius to Myanmar. So what is it about his myth that transcends time, platforms and countries? The man behind the myth Since his 1...

To this day, Johann Strauss II is known the world over as the "King of Waltz." Even back in the 19th century, his dance music in three-quarter time made crowds go wild and won the hearts of women around the globe. Johann Strauss was a pop star of his time, drawing large audiences of young people and filling up ballrooms. The violinist and composer performed for the Tsar's family in Russiaand even toured the US. With his violin in his hand, he electrified listeners and even had his own merchandizing, including special accessories and memorabilia. He composed his famous waltz, "The Blue Danube," for the 1867 Paris World's Fair. He attained worldwide fame in 1872 through his performance at the World Peace Jubilee festival in Boston. At that concert, he conducted an orchestra of 20,000 musi...

She sits on stage dressed in black, smoking an e-cigarette, her blond, curly hair flowing down from her thick knit cap. The unrelenting Maria Alyokhina, a 37-year-old activist and performance artist best-known as a member of Pussy Riot, is presenting her new book "Political Girl: Life and Fate in Russia" in Cologne as part of the literary festival lit.COLOGNE. Maria Alyokhina is one of several women who staged a protest the evening before Vladimir Putin was reelected president of Russia — a position he continues to hold to this day. That night, the group donned colorful clothes and masks and held a "punk prayer" before the altar of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, calling on the Virgin Mary to "throw out" Putin. Pussy Riot’s act of resistance garnered worldwide attention. The Vir...

Over 30 million people in Sudan — 66% of the population — are currently in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 12 million have been forcibly displaced since the Sudanese civil war broke out in April 2023 between the country's army and a powerful paramilitary group. Almost 4 million children under the age of 5 face severe and acute malnutrition. Women and girls are particularly exposed to sexual and gender-based violence. "In my experience, it's the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," Samy Guessabi, country director in Sudan for the NGO Action Against Hunger, told DW. He was attending the event, "Khartoum Calling," which was organized by the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin earlier this month to raise awareness about the Sudanese conflict and its humanitarian impacts. Kharto...