Without words: Sigrid Kirbach shows her Offenbach

Sigrid Kirbach from Hamburg has lived in Offenbach since 1981. Her tour as part of the volunteer center's "Ich zeig Dir meine Stadt" ("I'll show you my city") was entitled "Ohne Worte" ("Without words") and the individual stops on her tour helped to solve this little riddle.

After leaving school, Sigrid Kirbach left her hometown of Hamburg, studied in Darmstadt and then worked as a software developer at Lufthansa. Her search for an apartment led her to Offenbach, where she still lives near Wilhelmsplatz. She had her first language difficulties when she came into contact with a technician at the punch card reader. Because the card wasn't being read properly, she was told to "Alsemal druffdrügge" on the button. So she pressed the button immediately, as she had understood it, but only meant from time to time. Hessian is not easy to understand!

The starting point of Sigrid Kirbach's tour was the tower of the former castle church, which was preserved after a bombing raid in 1943. For Sigrid Kirbach, it is a memorial that always leaves her "at a loss for words" when she looks at it, given the horrors of the Nazi era and the Second World War. Many of the tour participants felt the same way. The group then had the rare opportunity to visit the tower from the inside.

But for Sigrid Kirbach, who is now involved in the volunteer center, the site of today's Protestant parish also holds many good memories. As a newcomer to the city, she made many social contacts through the Protestant education center: in the birth preparation course, the only one in Offenbach and Frankfurt where fathers were also allowed to attend at the time, as well as in her children's mini club and kindergarten groups. Friendships from this time have survived to this day.

Only a few steps lead to the next place, the adult education center, "but about 15 years passed in Sigrid Kirbach's life before this place took on special significance for her," explains Sigrid Jacob from the volunteer center. Sigrid Kirbach has been learning sign language at the VHS for 20 years now. Her daughter was just as curious as she was about the language course and turned her hobby into a career as a special education teacher at a school for children with hearing impairments. Sigrid Kirbach has stuck with the course, which has since developed into a conversation course and a regulars' table with lots of social contacts.

The group met Achim Kreutz, the sign language teacher, on the fifth floor of the VHS. As Achim Kreutz is deaf himself, the group sat in a circle of chairs so that he could lip-read. Sigrid Kirbach also translated and the group learned some interesting facts about the world of deaf and sign language.

This is also constantly evolving. There is now a third gesture for Angela Merkel: first it was the indication of the corners of her mouth being pulled down, then her typical "Merkel rhombus" and today the three middle fingers are brought to her head as an "M" to indicate her leadership position in Germany. The gesture for Germany is still the suggestion of the pickelhaube: an index finger is held to the forehead. The cell phone also has its third gesture: in the beginning, the fist was held to the ear with the index finger outstretched - this represented the antenna - then it was the shape of a receiver on the ear and now the right middle finger wipes over the flat left hand - it is the age of the smartphone after all!

Words are important at the third stop on Sigrid Kirbach's tour, but so are facial expressions, gestures and the transformation through clothing and accessories. Sarah Baumann from Theater T-Raum in Wilhelmsstraße was already waiting for the group. Sigrid Kirbach has been celebrating New Year's Eve at this venue for many years and loves the theater performances by Sarah Baumann, Frank Geissler and their team. The "Theatersaal" has a maximum of 38 seats and the audience is always very close. In a ten-minute performance, Sarah Baumann showed how she can transform herself into a wide variety of characters without making a fuss: with a hushed posture into a rather confused woman, on high heels into a lascivious dancer or with heavy shoes, scarf and broad shoulders into a rumbling man.

The two hours scheduled for the eighth tour of the volunteer center's "I'll show you my city" also flew by. In addition to the insights into special places, the participants also learned a lot of personal things from the tour guide. This is also the aim of the tours: to allow participants to experience the diverse and international life in Offenbach in a personal way and discover the city with different eyes.