One of the things I like best, is to go to the old city center and just walk around. I don’t know whether it has to do with the fact that I am a historian, or with the fact that I just really love this city. Maybe it’s both. But taking the metro to Waterloo and slowly emerging from the underground makes my heart jump a little.
The best part is the fleamarket. No, it’s not what it used to be like. Before the war this was a vivid place. Most of its merchants were killed during the war. But walking between the different stands, hearing the shouting of the vendors and the seagulls high above brings back a tiny bit of the original atmosphere. My favorite spot is the antiq books stand. Like the rest of the market, this is not what it used to be.
Most valuable books have been sold to antiqairs or collectors a long time ago. Nowadays, most of the crates contain cheap novels, wornout cookbooks from the seventies or parts of encyclopedias, usually starting with the letter ‘m’ or ‘p’. Just very now and then I find something that attracks my attention. A little history study book, used by students of the rabbinical seminary in the ’10s and ’20s of last century. Their names, their doodles and other little notes are still there, as if they were made today.
