A German national living in Dagupan who idolizes Dr. Jose Rizal said the Filipino national hero left indelible marks in his country, especially in the city of Heidelberg where he completed the last draft of his controversial novel Noli Me Tangere.

In an interview before the nation observed the 111th year of Rizal’s martyrdom at Bagumbayan, now Rizal Park, Manfred Ollik, a retired colonel of the German Police Academy, said Rizal is honored with a life-size statue in the hamlet of Wilhelmsfeld.

The statue, created by Filipino professor Anastacio Caedo, stands on a fountain in a small park named after Rizal.

The spot is very popular among Filipino visitors in Heidelberg, located east of the river Rhine, according to Ollik, a Knight Commander of Rizal in his country.

Rizal was executed by the Spaniards on December 30, 1896, an incident that fired the flame of the Philippine revolution and the cry of independence from Spain.

Ollik, who used to teach at the Lyceum-Northwestern University, said many articles had been written about Rizal’s sojourn in Heildelberg which until today remains as Germany’s intellectual center.

Ollik cited one article written by Dr. Cecilio Lopez, professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Oriental Studies of the University of the Philippines that described Rizal as the one who initiated the first cultural relations between the Philippines and Germany through his association with many German scholars.

German records show, he said, that Rizal arrived in Heidelberg on February 7, 1886 and booked in a pension, a four-story building at Kalstrrese 16, around 300 meters from the University of Heidelberg.

He stayed in the pension from February 3-17, which was not far from the eye clinic of Dr. Otto Becker, with whom Rizal worked from February to August 1886.

That building where Becker’s eye clinic once stood is decorated with a golden plaque in its front wall on the first floor which bears the name of Rizal.

There is no record that Rizal was a student at the University of Heidelberg, indicating that he was probably not an official student but only sat as an observer in classes in optic surgery.

Another building just across the Ludwigsplatz 12Grabengasse, where Rizal moved on February 18 until June 1886, bears a marker that showed Rizal lived there too.

Documents secured by Ollik in Germany show that it was in that building where Rizal wrote his nostalgic poem “A las Flores de Heidelberg”, considered as one of his best poems.

Accounts of Rizal’s sojourn in Germany show that he was associated with Protestant Pastor Karl Ullmer who had a son named Fritz who, in turn became Rizal’s companion in many outings.

Ollik said that when Rizal was executed in Bagumbayan, Ullmer wrote a translation of the hero’s “Last Farewell”.

Fritz, on the other hand, wrote a short biography of Rizal in German which appeared in the Ethnographic Journal in Leipzig in 1887.

Ollik said that while in Leipzig, Rizal translated Friedrich Schiller’s “William Tell” in Tagalog, which his compatriots in Spain asked him to do.

From Leipzig, Rizal went to Berlin on October 30, 1886. It was in a pension which he rented where he wrote the final chapter of his novel Noli Me Tangere, including 15 interesting letters to his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt.

It was in Berlin too where, in a small printing shop, Rizal published the first 2,000 copies of the Noli.

A Rizalist who put to heart the hero’s teachings, Ollik is a regular member of Dagupan Breakfast Club and once an adviser to the Dagupan City Peace and Order Council during the time of former Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin Lim.

Ollik, who is in Germany half of the year each year, is married to a Filipina nurse from Urdaneta City. The couple and their son, Sacha, live in Bonuan Gueset Centro in Dagupan. —LM

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