"Democracy Must Be Remembered."
And an invitation to join me and Austin Kocher in conversation Wednesday, May 7, 2pm ET
Hello Subscribers! And a warm welcome to the newest among us!
Many of you have written to ask after the recording of my April 27 workshop with Dora Rodriguez: Finding the Words to Change the Paradigm. Please forgive the delay. In addition to experiencing technical difficulties in the days that followed,* it is concert season for me, which is always a busy time. And as this series of concerts took me to Berlin, it meant I was up to my ears in travel logistics as well as back-to-back rehearsals throughout the week.
In fact, I'm writing to you from Berlin right now — a very interesting place to be, given that the parallels to today's tragic history-in-the-remaking can be seen in every trodden cobblestone and street corner memorial.
I’m staying right around the corner from Anhalter Bahnhof, one of Berlin’s most important train stations. Considered the “gateway to the South,” it is from here that an estimated 500,000 people fled the Nazi regime, including children sent to Britian to wait out the war — many of whom never saw or heard from their families again. It is also from there that Hitler & Co dispatched nearly 10,000 Jews to their deaths in Nazi Concentration Camps.
Yesterday, I sang at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Erected at the end of the 19th century, it boasted the second-largest set of bells in Germany until they were melted down during WWII for munitions. In an air raid in 1943, the main spire broke off and the roof collapsed, taking the original stained glass down with it. After the war, the shards were collected and repurposed to create the stunning stained glass mosaic windows that make up the church’s towering walls today.
At the Topography of Terrors museum, which documents the rise of the machinery of oppression, you can easily replace names of yesteryear’s Nazi enablers with those of Trump & Co’s: Paul Joseph Goebbels was to Hitler what Stephen Miller is to Trump, for example; while head of the Nazi Secret Police, Hermann Göring, could be today’s head of ICE, Tom Homan, which makes ICE today’s version of the Nazi Gestapo and its expanding Gulag, now extending to El Salvador, the equivalent of the WWII concentration camp system.
I’ll post more about the parallels later in the week once I’m back in London.
In the meantime, an invitation…
I am thrilled to announce that I’ll be in conversation with Syracuse University Professor and fellow Substacker,
, this Wednesday, May 7, at 2 pm ET.Register here to receive the link to join us!
Stay strong and safe, everyone. The only way through this is...Together!
Sarah
*If anyone has the time and capacity to provide tech support at the back end of the Hope Knows No Borders Book Club & Webinar Series, I welcome your collaboration. Message me privately. Tx!
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