Ins Blaue hinein
(into the blue)
1939, just a few months after the November 1938 Pogroms in Germany and a few months prior to the
beginning of World War II, my GrandmotherJutta and her family were forced to leave Berlin because her
mother was Jewish.
A traumatic experience that has been present and retold in the family narrative for as long as I
remember.
It even found its way into my dreams. From my early childhood, I had repeating nightmares of having
to
pack and quickly leave because of an undefined threat. Later, when I was 7 my parents decided to move.
A
well-thought-through decision in peaceful times, no danger to life and limb, and yet a big shock and
the
first upheaval in my life.
"Ins Blaue hinein" refects on the shock and trauma caused by the unexpected and sudden departure from
the
place my Grandmother called home. It elaborates on the experience of arriving at an unknown place and
on
finding one’s way around after having lost one’s homeland, and with it, the right to belong.
It discusses how my grandmother's experience lives on and leaving an imprint in me, melts further into
and
exaggerating my own experience.
