Honouring Esther. The Walk in Germany. 4 & 5 February 2016
The February 2016 walk will follow the actual route from slave labour camp to Belsen. Walking 71 years to the day, 4 February 1945, when Esther and a group of women trudged the road to Belsen, many to their deaths on the way or in that last horror. Esther survived and in the walk we seek not only to remember that experience and those who did not survive but to connect and bear witness to all those who are walking for survival across Europe now.
The artists are currently connecting with the twinning associations in Hannover and Braunschweig. Lorna Brunstein is now in direct contact with Annette Wienecke, whose 1996 book, “Besondere Vorkommnisse nicht bekannt”: Zwangsarbeiter in unterirdischen Rustungebetrieben: wie ein Heidedorf kriegswichtig wurde [An unknown special event, Forced Labour Workers in an Underground Armaments Factory: How a Heath Village Prepared for War] provides considerable information on the second world war history of Hambuhren-Ovelgönne including this line drawing of the route of the march.
Herbert Obenaus, Der Todesmarsch der hannoverschen KZ-Häftlinge zum KZ Bergen-Belsen, in: Rainer Fröbe u.a. , Konzentrationslager in Hannover, Bd. II, S. 493-518. referenced in Wienecke 1996 p166. Sketch map drawn by Timo Wolf, Stedden.
The caption reads: On the way past forests, villages and a school. The route taken by the evacuated Concentration Camp prisoners to Bergen-Belsen. The crosses mark the sites where prisoners were buried.
The walk aims to connect with the spirit of internationalism and human dignity that comes through Esther’s testimony rooted in her Bundist upbringing. The artists are reaching out to discover the spirit of resistance and the small brave acts of human kindness that enabled survival. This closing phase of the project reaches out to second and third generation survivors, liberators, perpetrators and witnesses as well as those more recently exiled and dispossessed by war and prejudice.
If you would like to join the walk on 4 and 5 February in Germany, or can support it in anyway please get in touch. The artists are particularly keen to network with those who are supporting refugees in the Lower Saxony now.