After the Walk: returning home
notes from walker Julia Simmons
Thinking about blame, and the effect of power, corrupting and changing people.
What would the SS guard have been like if circumstances were different. (Psych experiment prisoners and warders)
What ifs ….
Sharing experiences of German child witnesses. How do you live with that. Group, town, village secrets surfacing, bubbles of memories as the older generations pass.
When walking in silence thoughts roamed. The cold, the mud, and the rain seeping through to my hands. Esther’s footprints, women, young girls barely alive holding each other up for fear of the final solution the deathly bullet dumping you in the gutter.
Pat, my mother, a young woman in London beginning her adult life career meeting her husband to be. A year’s difference in age, in a different country, a contrasting experience bringing our family together.
Aleppo……. We get home to news of further pressure on people to leave their homes. People like Ishmail fleeing for their lives…who will take them …who witnesses their experience….
Arrival at Birmingham airport huge police presence, Fascist demonstrators due. Such a contrast to the warm and welcoming attitude in Winsen.
The world situation seemed ever more present in my mind I feel angry that history continues to repeat itself. Persecution inhumanity, a lack of empathy, a lack of fellowship proliferates. It makes this project more profound. The thousands buried at Belson must continue to be acknowledged, not just for their Jewishness ( not all were) but for their existence and resistance.
Why should I be made to feel frightened of someone because they look different Why should I not offer my hospitality to someone because they have different ancestry. Yes I may have differing values but that should not stop me offering my hand in peace.