In my opinion, there are two ways to travel – one requires boarding a magnificent, metal flying machine that takes you around the world, dropping you in an unfamiliar landscape that will hopefully expand your perspective and challenge our adaptable egos. The other way to travel is through a story. Hearing the experiences, struggles, lingering questions, and imagery of others can bring you to an alternative time and place, usually one that is inaccessible in real time...
Our Shared History : The Spirit of Saving a Stranger
As a child, we often times hear our grandparent’s stories with little interest or empathy. We don’t understand just how significant their life experiences are in the creation of our own moral fabric. But, if we are lucky enough, we will grow to become adults, and have the space and time to explore the ways in which these intimate influences have come to define us...
Stockholm : My Feet Hurt
Denmark : Finding Meaning in the Unexpected
I arrived in Denmark a bit over two weeks ago. My time in Scandinavia is the nucleus of this journey; Denmark is the country that saved my grandmother, not just once, but twice, and here resides the people who gave her not only a home, but a purpose during a dark time in history. It was in October 1939 that she arrived in Copenhagen as a naive child eager for an adventure. She was brought to safety here through an initiative with the Woman’s International League for Peace and Freedom, whom in collaboration with the Danish government, agreed to take in 150 Czech Jewish teenagers and place them with foster families on farms. Their goal was to learn agricultural skills and eventually make their way to Palestine, which only a few ever succeeded in doing...
Sobibór : A Visit to the End of the World
Finding the Family in Kolín
The First Journey : Retracing the Route of 1939
I imagined how she must have felt - from land to sea and from sea to land. From the comfort of home and a loving embrace to strangers and blind faith. From an urban life filled with castles and streetcars to miles of undeveloped countryside. From an education that consisted of three different languages to physical labor that included feeding chickens and milking cows. There was no one there to coddle her and nothing to look forward to...