Replay vom 09.03.2019

An International Women’s Day broadcast that brings together two crucial women from CHEAPs cosmos – with some accompaniment by Billy Bragg and the band Ruth Fischer. Shortly before her death in 1961, Ruth Fischer was shopping for shoes in the not-yet-chic Marais district of Paris, when she suddenly spied a young black American woman whose shoes got her attention. She was somewhat shy about approaching the woman, but eventually she got up the nerve to invite her for a coffee. They went to a quiet little café and started chatting, but the young Angela Davis was a little put off by the older communist's decidedly anti-Soviet streak.
Suddenly, a rather unattractive man and a woman entered the café, obviously trying to remain incognito. Ruth whispered conspiratorily to Angela, “On y vas!” and whisked her out of the café before she had time to think. Outside, Angela looked at Fischer for an explanation. “Sprechen wir Deutsch," she said. "Es ist sicherer” Angela nodded in agreement, though her German was not yet as good as her French. They ducked down into the métro and when they came out, they were in an open area on the outskirts of town that Angela didn’t recognize from her guidebooks. Now that Fischer was certain they weren’t being followed, she began to explain. But suddenly she was drowned out by a large explosion that seemed to hit very nearby. The two of them looked for somewhere to hide, but the only thing in sight was an abandoned carnival grounds. They took cover under a gigantic roller coaster as night fell. What happened over the next three days is a strange and curious tale of friendship and conflict between an aging German communist and a young American
revolutionary, a story that has rarely been told.