This amazing working vacation has been a complete success for Bonnie and I.
We've encountered breathtaking sights, all kinds of delicious foods, remarkable people and we've been overloaded with history and culture. We even survived a vendetta.
Much of it we've captured in images. But that adventure that moves the spirit and understanding and should be captured in words didn't happen. Until we arrived in Cologne, Germany.
Smack in the middle of our weeklong Viking Rhine river cruise, the magic moment happened to Bonnie all because she needed her hair colored.
Sonya, the cruise director on our longboat, not only found a salon for Bonnie but she made an appointment for her, too., at the end of a walking tour in the middle of town.
Bonnie left me, found the salon and met Ali, the proprietor and stylist who was off that day but opened the salon just for her.
Ali didn't speak English. Bonnie doesn't speak German. So they proceeded to communicate with each other for two hours only using Google Translate.
Ali was Syrian by birth and has spent his last 27 years in Germany. Most of their conversation was Ali's opinion of his adopted countrymen. He said that 90% of Germans need psychoanalysis.
Bonnie revealed that she was Jewish and was struggling emotionally visiting German cities. Every stop had strong reminders about the Holocaust.
In Syria, Ali said, he was brought up as a Kurd and every Kurd was taught to hate Jews. He said his father didn't believe in such hatred and raised Ali to have respect for all people.
For Bonnie, meeting a person for the first time who was brought up to hate her because of her religion was unsettling. But Ali was not that person. After two hours on Google Translate, Bonnie got out of the chair, shared a strong, warm hug with Ali and came back to me shaken, but not stirred.
The Holocaust trauma followed us the rest on the cruise and hit a crescendo touring the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. This is a tour not to be missed.
But the reminders in every city, which I mentioned earlier, were Stumble Stones (also called Stumbling Stones or Tripping Stones.) I have posted photos of Stumble Stones I took in every port we visited. Their story is as special as what they represent.
From Wikipedia:
A Stolperstein is a 4-inch concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Literally, it means 'stumbling stone' and metaphorically 'stumbling block'.
The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency – or, sometimes, work – which was freely chosen by the person before they fell victim to Nazi terror, forced euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of June 2023, 100,000 Stolpersteine have been laid, making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.
Read more about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein including sites all across Europe where they can be found.
Gunter Demnig lives and works in Cologne but his shop is not open to the public keeping his vow to create a remembrance and not a for-profit venture.