Happy Birthday, Walter Benjamin

on memories and remembrance, flowers and stones

Benjamin (right) playing chess with Brecht

Yesterday was Walter Benjamin’s birthday. He was born at the height of the German Empire, in 1892, “a well-born bourgeois child”, in his own words, and he died 48 years later, a Jewish refugee trapped between states with little more than his suit and briefcase to his name. In between he made a legacy, a life of …