August 13 Today I spent the day packing. Lots of things to sort and distribute between my carry on and my back pack. I'm bringing a variety of technical gadgets: my external cd player (cause that's how I do music); an external video camera that can be turned in different directions to capture more than what appears on the laptop monitor (I plan to record some stuff using zoom); an external video storage unit, etc etc. Took a break in the afternoon to have dinner at the county fair. That seems to have cleared my mind so that I can take care of a few more things on the to-do list. Where did I leave off in my last post? Not sure, so I'll write a little about what's been on my mind the last few days. I guess I'm still "scratching" (as Twyla Tharp calls it), my ears and eyes open for bits of information and inspiration to guide me. I very much feel like I've just set something in motion because I was curious to dig deeper. Some people think this is a family history project but, although it begins with my mother being forced to leave her home by the Nazis, it has now become more than a personal story. Every individual story of migration - involuntary or voluntary, horrific or aided kindly - is different. I want to know what it's like for others, I guess. More than anything, I don't want this to be seen as self indulgent or exploitative. I want it to be helpful, to help people who are away from their homes to find something worth holding on to and for people who are afraid they will be giving something up to find a place of generosity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

August 24th. Today we returned to Berlin from Schwedt and tomorrow I will leave for London to see my cousins - all 2nd generation survivors like me. I will take a break from the blog for the next 5 days. So let me fill in some of what's been going on the last couple of days. On Monday the 22nd, Elizabeth and I worked hard in the morning in the dance studio on movement ideas. Afterwards we spent some time with Thomas talking more about ideas for the project. By this time I was missing both my jacket and my dance pants. It took a couple of days for me to work out where the pants had disappeared (I had used them to keep my pants dry when we had dinner on the veranda overlooking the canal). The pants are never to be seen again. We tried going back to find them but the staff thought we were looking for black funeral flowers instead of Schwartz hosen... We traced my jacket back to Thomas's van through a photo that EB took. On Tuesday morning I set out after breakfast on my own to ...
Read more
8/17/22 Elizabeth and I arrived in Schwedt yesterday around 3 pm. It was another hot day and it was a relief to be able to splash some water on our faces and lie down for a bit. At 4:30 or so we ventured out to find the Kitchen on the Run where we were to meet Thomas Maucher. The kitchen truck was set up in front of one of the old churches in a plaza. We passed by a man in a yellow shirt and straw hat on the opposite side of the large tree in the middle of the plaza. It turned out to be Thomas. A woman named Grit came to us and welcomed us. As she heard about why we were there she began to talk about why she was involved in the project. Everything was in German but I could see that she was very enthusiastic. She works in a bank but has become very involved in community projects. (I have emailed her the German version of the project announcement that describes what we are trying to do.) Since I'm not able to download to the blog yet, I'll post it, along with pictures, on the An...
Read more

Starting up again

Came back yesterday from London after a much needed break. It was wonderful to see that part of my family again. They are very dear to me and I am grateful to my mother for making sure that we knew who our relatives were! Everywhere I went I met people who had stories of immigrant parents, even at the Lido swimming pool!... Today we had the chance to talk with Michaela Maria Mueller, the author of several books. One of them is about a Somali family that she has followed from their journey out of Somalia ending up in Germany. Unfortunately the book is in German so I can't read it just yet. We had a very thoughtful conversation about what it means to be a refugee and why there is so much resistance in some parts of society. What is the cause? We also talked about How different generations have dealt with the Holocauset here in Germany. We discussed the differences in the way the Ukranians have been looked after vs. the way refugees from Muslim or African nations have been treated. ...
Read more