My Life with Kangaroos: A Deaf Woman's Remarkable Story

18. Kangaroos Overcome the Iron Curtain

180 18 Kangaroos Overcome the Iron Curtain ONE morning in August 1967, while my mother and I were vacationing in Zermatt, I received a letter from a mysterious sender, someone I did not know who lived in Dresden in East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR). Frau Christel Göcking Dresden Zoological Gardens Dresden, 9th Aug. 1967 Dear Mrs. Herrmann, Please excuse this unsolicited letter to you, but I was particularly interested in the article you wrote recently in the journal called the Zoological Garden. Your report on the pouch cleaning in the case of the large, gray kangaroo interested me especially, as I am concerned with looking after kangaroos here at the Dresden Zoo. I was therefore especially interested in your remarks on animal behavior. Although we don’t possess any “gray giants” here, we nevertheless have red giants, Derby and mountain kangaroos . The animal behavior that you describe is very similar to that of the so-called red giants. I don’t know, of course, whether you are interested in an exchange of information on this. I would very much like to hear from you. May I ask what your profession is? Do you carry on continuous experiments? Are you a specialist in the “gray giant”? 9781563685590_My Life with Kangaroos.indd 180 4/8/13 11:04 AM Kangaroos Overcome the Iron Curtain 181 May I look forward to hearing from you soon? Yours sincerely, Christel Göcking I could not help but smile on reading this. I was charmed by the thought that behind this impenetrable wall to the east there were also kangaroos! Unexpected coincidence had brought me into contact with a person of similar interests. My mother had noticed the enthusiasm in my face and asked me what was in the letter. After she had read the letter for herself, she said with pride and a touch of irony that now I was a worldwide authority on kangaroos! I was no sooner back home than I sat down, elated, at the typewriter. Riehen, 2nd September 1967 Dear Miss Göcking, Many thanks for your letter of the 9th August. I am of course always delighted to find that others are interested in my work on kangaroos. I have been concerned for many years now with the “gray giants”; it is the only kind of kangaroo we have here in the Basel Zoo. As I have a lot of free time, I can visit the kangaroos there several times a week and invest a lot of time observing them. I often photograph them as well. Added to this, I am on very good terms with Professor Lang, the present zoo director, and spend time with him exchanging information on those issues and questions arising from my research. . . . I would be enormously pleased to hear the voices of kangaroos, as I know that they aren’t really the dumb animals they’re made out to be. Although I myself can’t hear, I know immediately when they produce certain sounds. This I can recognize not least from the movements they make with their mouths. . . . Less frequent are the d-d-d-sounds, which I can apprehend directly from observing their mouths, a process that I’m pretty well schooled in, as you may well imagine. For some years now, I have kept up correspondence in English with friends in Australia, all of whom have a more or less direct relationship with kangaroos. . . . 9781563685590_My Life with Kangaroos.indd 181 4/8/13 11:04 AM 182 MY LIFE WITH KANGAROOS Before I close, I would like to acquaint you with a few of my notable “kangaroo characters.” There is, for example, my most faithful companion, Dora. . . . Of course, I’d be delighted to hear from you, especially when you wish to say a word or two about your “own” kangaroos. Let’s keep in touch. With many hearty greetings, Yours, Doris Herrmann In this letter I introduced myself briefly and also mentioned that I had been born deaf and outlined my special relationship to kangaroos. Dresden, 10th Sept., 1967 Dear Miss Hermann, It’s certain that I’ll be able to learn a lot from you; that will be very useful in my work as an animal keeper at the zoo. The individual phases of pouch cleaning, for example, that you describe have been confirmed by my own observations of the horde of “red giants...