Moment of Silence: Karl Linn

Karl Linn's passion was community gardens.

Karl Linn didn't just build some of Berkeley's most resplendent gardens, his friends say. He built communities.

Linn died at his Berkeley, Calif. home early Thursday morning after battling cancer of the bone marrow. He was 81.

?EUR??,,????'??He was a tremendously warm and loving man who always connected with the people around him,?EUR??,,????'?? said Leonard Duhl, a UC Berkeley professor and friend for nearly five decades.

Linn was a psychologist and landscape architect by training, but he made his biggest mark by transforming forgotten swaths of urban blight into lush green space welcome to all.

When he arrived in Berkeley 18 years ago as a retiree, the city had just two community gardens.

His idyllic youth ended abruptly with the rise of Hitler. Soon he was ostracized by classmates and targeted by ruffians. ?EUR??,,????'??I could hear the Nazi's goose-step as they walked down the cobblestone street towards the farm, checking the house and threatening us,?EUR??,,????'?? he recounted in the 2003 documentary film, ?EUR??,,????'??A Lot In Common,?EUR??,,????'?? about the creation of Peralta Community Garden.

In 1934, Linn and his parents fled to Palestine, where they lived on a kibbutz. After graduating from the university, Linn helped start a new kibbutz where members grew orchards on dessert terrain.

?EUR??,,????'??It was during this time that I began to see the importance of creating places for privacy and contemplation, but also for community participation,?EUR??,,????'?? Linn told the Sierra Club. ?EUR??,,????'??Places where young and old could be in each other's presence, but not in each other's way.?EUR??,,????'??

But the widening divide between Arabs and Jews troubled Linn. At a time many of his cohorts were preparing for the coming war Israeli-Arab War, Linn, at age 23, left Palestine in 1946 to study psychology in Switzerland.

After several years in Zurich, he immigrated to New York were he worked both as a child psychotherapist and as a landscape architect.

Linn is survived by his wife Nicole, his son Mark, and his stepchildren Joel, Naomi and Dan.

Source: Berkeley Daily Planet