How can you trip up a man running, carrying his child? Refugee or not. How can one do that?
I don't know... I can't watch these videos and images. I mean, I can, of course; but I break inside, really! I see their faces - and I see myself instead experiencing it! How can people in some countries forget that not long ago, so many of their own, would run away and look for refuge elsewhere?
I am nowhere near the situation in which these people find themselves. I have never been. But I could have, in some way; if communism hadn't fallen, I would most likely have tried to flee. I remember speaking, when I was 16, with a Romanian actor, who tried to flee, during those bad times, but got caught and imprisoned for it. I remember him saying how hard prison was! So cold! (And that reminds me of that letter I saw this summer in Sighet again, from a poor political prisoner. who kept begging his family to send him something for the terrible cold!) But it made me wonder even then, and ever since, what would I have done? Would I risk it? I am almost sure I would.
So many just don't understand what it takes for somebody to abandon everything, and embark on this crazy journey. Sometimes with young kids. Only the dream can keep you going. Blind hope. But you have no certainty, really, of where you are heading to, what you are going to do, what you are going to find. And you go through hell, hungry, thirsty, tired with the exhaustion of 1000 people! And again. And again. And you find yourself in danger more than once, no doubt. And sometimes you run - and you try to protect your kid.
And then someone trips you up - just like that, for their own pleasure! - and you fall... on top of your child!
Think about it! In the 1930s, when so many people were trying to flee Germany and other countries, even well known personalities found it extremely hard to be accepted abroad. Never mind the "non-famous" ... Schoenberg, for example, tried to move to the UK - but he couldn't find a job or at least a publisher, despite the efforts of a British friend. He applied for a job in Australia, at the Sydney Conservatory but was rejected. The application marked with the words "dangerous ideas" and "Jewish" ...
And what was happening to some others not so "famous"?
Look:
"MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for 908 Jewish refugees from Germany, after they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States and Canada, until finally accepted in various European countries, which were later engulfed in World War II. Historians have estimated that, after their return to Europe, approximately a quarter of the ship's passengers died in concentration camps."
"America not only refused their entry but even fired a warning shot to keep them away from Florida's shores".
It is always monumentally hard being a refugee.
And today Hungary fire their own "warning shots", while other states are willing to accept only Christian refugees.
Anyway ... Enough.... Whatever...
I am one third through something for orchestra now. I call it "Refugee". It doesn't matter if it means nothing. It doesn't help with anything. But it is my way to try to ... "understand".
I don't know... I can't watch these videos and images. I mean, I can, of course; but I break inside, really! I see their faces - and I see myself instead experiencing it! How can people in some countries forget that not long ago, so many of their own, would run away and look for refuge elsewhere?
I am nowhere near the situation in which these people find themselves. I have never been. But I could have, in some way; if communism hadn't fallen, I would most likely have tried to flee. I remember speaking, when I was 16, with a Romanian actor, who tried to flee, during those bad times, but got caught and imprisoned for it. I remember him saying how hard prison was! So cold! (And that reminds me of that letter I saw this summer in Sighet again, from a poor political prisoner. who kept begging his family to send him something for the terrible cold!) But it made me wonder even then, and ever since, what would I have done? Would I risk it? I am almost sure I would.
So many just don't understand what it takes for somebody to abandon everything, and embark on this crazy journey. Sometimes with young kids. Only the dream can keep you going. Blind hope. But you have no certainty, really, of where you are heading to, what you are going to do, what you are going to find. And you go through hell, hungry, thirsty, tired with the exhaustion of 1000 people! And again. And again. And you find yourself in danger more than once, no doubt. And sometimes you run - and you try to protect your kid.
And then someone trips you up - just like that, for their own pleasure! - and you fall... on top of your child!
Think about it! In the 1930s, when so many people were trying to flee Germany and other countries, even well known personalities found it extremely hard to be accepted abroad. Never mind the "non-famous" ... Schoenberg, for example, tried to move to the UK - but he couldn't find a job or at least a publisher, despite the efforts of a British friend. He applied for a job in Australia, at the Sydney Conservatory but was rejected. The application marked with the words "dangerous ideas" and "Jewish" ...
And what was happening to some others not so "famous"?
Look:
"MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for 908 Jewish refugees from Germany, after they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States and Canada, until finally accepted in various European countries, which were later engulfed in World War II. Historians have estimated that, after their return to Europe, approximately a quarter of the ship's passengers died in concentration camps."
"America not only refused their entry but even fired a warning shot to keep them away from Florida's shores".
It is always monumentally hard being a refugee.
And today Hungary fire their own "warning shots", while other states are willing to accept only Christian refugees.
Anyway ... Enough.... Whatever...
I am one third through something for orchestra now. I call it "Refugee". It doesn't matter if it means nothing. It doesn't help with anything. But it is my way to try to ... "understand".
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