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Eva Bracker
(88) in her room in the Tabea Diakonie Hamburg.
Photo: Niklas Grapatin / DER SPIEGEL
Cinnamon.
It smells of cinnamon, it smells of Christmas, that is a message that may even reach those for whom the word "Christmas" no longer means anything.
Six women are sitting around a table, a seventh, significantly younger, standing stirring a cake mix.
The others watch.
One of them sternly demands to be allowed to look into the mixing bowl and then nods graciously.
One of them is wondering whether she's actually already 100.
One tells of her escape from West Prussia in winter, away from her home on the Vistula.
One, in a Christmas red jacket, sits in a wheelchair in front of a window ledge full of poinsettias and tears up a paper handkerchief.
She does it persistently, methodically, like work that has to be done.
The dough checker then wants to go to her room. "They're all so - boring here," she whispers to a supervisor.
The 100-year-old gets a jacket, she should get some fresh air.
The West Prussian is called, her daughter is there.
The old lady rises and walks upright, almost like a king, towards the daughter.
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