Dermoplastik

In 2006, for unknown reasons, the polar bear mother at the Berlin Zoo rejected her two offspring. Zookeepers had to rescue the baby bears, no bigger than guinea pigs, from the enclosure with a fishing net. One died. The other was raised, controversially, by the human hand of Thomas Dörflein. It was named Knut. Thomas slept on a mattress beside Knut’s crate every night. He bathed, played with, and fed the small white bear each day. Knut ate cat food and vitamins. The inseparable pair became famous around the world. Two years later, at the age of 44, Thomas died suddenly of a heart attack. Knut died just as suddenly, one Saturday last month. Standing on a rock, he spun in circles, had a seizure, then fell into the water, where he died. The Berlin Zoo has made plans to stuff the bear’s body, and put it on display. Some comments:

“When someone dies in your family I think you don’t want him stuffed in a museum. Knut is not only a polar bear for people, he is a friend, a family member.” Jochen Kolbe “I don’t want to see him stuffed. I want him to live on in my head as he was before, when he was alive.” Triste Dittrich “The bond between man and the bear, this was something very special.” Ergün Özmen “People take their human feelings and put them into animals. The problem is after the death of Knut there was all the overwhelming feelings. While that’s O.K. for humans, in my opinion it’s not O.K. for animals.” Bernhard Blaszkiewitz “Are you going to make fun of us, too? There are a lot of people who say, ‘How can you be so upset when so many people have died in Japan?’ What do you know about how I feel about what happened in Japan? I’m grieving about a very special bear.” Doris Webb

-from the NY Times Berlin Journal, For Mourners of Knut, a Stuffed Bear Just Won’t Do, by Michael Slackman