dandelion

The dandelion exploded when I touched it, spreading out into a thousand directions and leaving its stories scattered all throughout the everyday. Dandelions can break through asphalt and beton, and they break through history, too, sprouting up on colonized lands, and in the fields around Auschwitz, and on my bike route. Remaining unnameable, unclassifiable, they pierce through times, places, horror and resilience.

These are remnants of a performance done within the School for Multispecies Knowledges at Zone2Source Gallery, Amsterdam. The photos were made by Tasha Arlova.

Feel free to take your time to explore this website - there is a lot of material to discover...

TW: mention of the shoah

Dandelion coffee

Dandelion coffee is made out of the roots, its taste is somewhat sweeter than regular coffee and it does not contain caffeine. It was popular by demand after the second world war in Europe, when "real" coffee was a scarce commodity.

1. harvest some dandelion roots - preferably in fall and winter, when all the sugar is stored underground. The roots don't taste like much in spring and summer, as all energy is put into the blossoms.

2. clean the dandelion roots - give them a good scrub, but not with too much water.

3. chop them up into small pieces.

4. roast them in a hot pan until they are very crispy and dark brown.

5. Use about three teaspoons per liter water. You can either use it as filtercoffee - I personally recommend using a french press. Enjoy!

Every part of the dandelion is useable: the leaves are edible, the flowers have healing powers when made into a tea, the roots can be used for coffee and rubber production, and the seedlings on their parachutes can be used for making a wish as one blows them away into the wind.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART TO READ

Taraxacum kok-saghyz is a special type of dandelion. Another name for it is “Russian Dandelion”. It produces natural rubber in its roots. Dandelion rubber has many good qualities: it is more sustainable due to shorter transport routes, as well as less land-intensive. In 1931, the former Sowiet Union began growing dandelions on an industrial scale. During the second World War, as delivery chains for rubber from rubber plantations in the global south were disrupted, more countries became interested in the use of the Russian Dandelion. After the attack on the Sowiet Union in 1941, members of the SS were able to take possession of Kok-saghyz seeds. Rajsko literally translates to “paradise” and was a subcamp of the concentration camp Auschwitz. A man named Joachim Caesar was appointed leader of the agricultural facilities and therefore in charge of the experiments with dandelion rubber production. In 1943, the number of tested plants already amounted to 88,000. Around 300 female prisoners were working in Rajsko. In 1945, Auschwitz was liberated. Joachim Caesar was on trial In the Nuremberg Military Trial 1947 and in the Frankfurt Auschwitz-Trial 1964. He was not convicted. Joachim Caesar died in 1974.

In May 2019 German tire-maker Continental AG announced it was about to begin production of the "first bicycle tyre made with sustainable rubber from dandelions".

A year later, in June 2020, Continental AG published a report on the involvement of the company in the Second World War. Independent historians found the Continental AG to be “one of the backbones of Hitlers wartime industry”, having used forced labor from imprisoned people in concentration camps.

Sources: https://johost.eu/vol3_fall_2009/vol3_tw.htm

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russischer_L%C3%B6wenzahn#cite_note-Uhlemann-8

https://subcamps-auschwitz.org/auschwitz-subcamps/wirtschaftshof-raisko/

https://www.swr.de/wissen/deutscher-zukunftspreis-kautschuk-aus-loewenzahn-100.html

TRANSSCRIPTS OF JOACHIM CAESAR, the leader of the subcamp Rajsko, from the Nuremberg Trials in 1947

A dandelion generation takes around 4 months. If you count this down,
this means that it has been 231 generations
since the liberation of Auschwitz.
For me, it is three.

why was the house of my grandparents so cheap?
my grandmother on her knees, weeding out the dandelions
from the allotment in the back.

if you would not have been so persistent,
i would have not wondered about this image.

I would not have dug into the soil to trace your root
back to my grandparents/aunts/uncles working for the same factory
that is now exploiting you
I would not have dug so deep into the boxes stuffed with forgotten things
on my grandmothers attic, finding swastikas and survival tips for soldiers.

I was talking to a jewish friend of mine a while ago.
she said: “when I was nine, my grandmother took me to Auschwitz for the first time”
I said: “when I was ten, my grandfather told me that I would have loved to be part of the “Hitlerjugend”.”

The image of my grandmother as a young woman,
post-war, still nazi-germany, looking older than she should
there was no coffee then, after the world war,
so people made coffee out of oaks, oats, beech,
dandelions.

i wonder if she has tasted you, too.

You pierced through my history, my skin, my bones
and I know more now.

my grandmother weeding out the dandelions in the garden.

i convince myself of your innocence
and i convince you of my lack of it.

So I will watch you on my bike ride
to my school everyday
which was built on the ruins of the jewish quarters of Amsterdam
and apprecciate your presence,
a yellow sting in my eye.

there are two names for the dandelion in german:
löwenzahn - lions teeth
and pusteblume - blowing flower
referring to the seedlings flying in their parachutes
through the warm air.

there is no parachute to softly bring me down
on this ground
in these forests,

Your root is relentlessly pushing downwards
You root so deeply, so persistently,
that I cannot but fall down with you

I am falling down with you into the stories my family doesn’t tell
into the fields around Auschwitz, and into the factory halls of the company.

middle: JOACHIM CAESAR, the leader of the subcamp Rajsko, in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. He was appointed leader of the plant research facilities in the subcamp Rajsko by Heinrich Himmler. There, prisoners were forced to work in laboratories, trying to increase the rubber productivity of dandelion rubber. Joachim Caesar was never convicted, despite being a leading officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp.