I’m at kommune Karmitz in Karmitz, Germany. Karmitz is a tiny village with about a dozen houses, maybe 30 or 40 people total (10 of them live at the commune). This is an anarchist commune about 2 hours west of Berlin, in the middle of nowhere. Gorgeous countryside. Forests. Dirt paths. Fields of wheat. 19th century farm houses. Cows. Chickens. Kommune Karmitz is 21 (!) years old; the residents range in age from 31 to well into their 60s. Many past members of the commune live nearby. Sometimes they come by to talk, to help out on the farm, to trade or borrow food. The commune raises chickens, they have 3 cats, a dog, a cow (about to give birth any day now), several huge gardens, apple orchard, juice factory, solar panels, a wood shop, bike/metal shop, several buildings, and dozens of rooms for apple juice, wine, vinegar, silverware, wood, old bikes, lots of old farm equipment.
The commune makes its income from apple juice. There are many varieties, by apple breed, as well as mixes (for example, their celery-beet-apple juice is amazing, and the peach-apple juice is heavenly). There is a bakery on site and they bake bread weekly. They eat it themselves and also trade and sell it to neighbors and a voku (community kitchen, like a squat-kitchen-restaurant, if you’re not familiar). Once a year they have a huge pizza baking festival to raise some money as well.
The members of Kommune Karmitz are active. They and their friends (3 other communes and a co-op are nearby; and many dozens or hundreds of activists live within 30km) organize many protests against the proposal to build nuclear waste storage out here. Two people have a semi-weekly punk and protest radio show. At home, there are many anarchist and radical books to be found. They have a large library with perhaps 2000 books. One night i noticed on their kitchen table where they leave each other notes a new book on american anarchism post-Seattle 1999 with a note affixed that said it was for everyone at the house to read.
I am interested in how the commune works and what people do with their time. People wake up between 8 to 9:30. They have breakfast (almost all food, including the cheese is grown and prepared on site). Afterwards, most go to do a task, like chopping wood, feeding animals or pruning apple trees. Roles are rotated often. They share all income and expenses. There are weekly discussions of finances, actions, feelings, work, etc. Each day a different person is cook and dishwasher. There is rest time too. They are their own boss. For example, after lunch today Rossi fell asleep in his chair and dozed for an hour or two. Other times people take time off to read, or to take a small trip somewhere, or to smoke or to eat or to do whatever they may need or want to do. But they are also hard workers. Chopping wood and farm work all day are not the easiest tasks. I’ve pitched in with chopping wood this past week and I’m a bit sore. Today I was on kitchen duty, but I took off for the afternoon. Tomorrow I’ll try my hand in the bakery. One day we went to gather sand from a mountain and afterwards we spent 30 minutes looking for fossils. At night around 5 or 5:30 or 6 is dinner. Everyone comes together and eats the delicious, filling food. Afterwards, people talk, read, or go out. This week I went to a kitchen night at the co-op, a dance party at a club/cinema in a bigger village nearby, and to an anniversary party for a commune that just turned 1 year old!
There’s a lot more I can and will write about. I intend on doing a longer piece and publishing my photo series and interviews either here or in some magazines. In the meantime (and while my film is still being processed) I’ve posted 2 photos by Nikola Berger as well as my recordings from washing dishes today and chopping wood yesterday. Lofi field recordings made on a borrowed mp3 player while my devices are in the shop.
Dishwashing at Kommune Karmitz in Karmitz, Germany by jewishnoise
Chicken feeding and chopping wood at Kommune Karmitz, Germany by jewishnoise
