Tobias Kumkar - Story of a land

Page 41

Meeting places

Three locations in a landscape

T

hree places in the landscape of Chojna are the beginning of a journey. A journey to meet, to tell, to rediscover, to imagine and to dream your own new perspective of yourself and the world you are part of. Three places in a landscape that is the silent witness of the past, bares its marks. That simply accepts. A landscape of innocence, but also of guilt, that serves as a collection of all our traces. But also a landscape that is free, free of all prejudice, nationality, race and preoccupations. It treats each and everyone that stands within it the same. It does not adjust or adapt to the individual, it stays itself for each and everyone. A landscape that bares the roots of our future. For me this is a journey of meeting places that are part of my own history. Maybe a forbidden history. Places that were taken from my ancestors. Places that meant a lot to them, that made them rootless. Now they don’t stand for my families present anymore, but for my families past. That doesn’t mean they should be forgotten but that they are there to be rediscovered through our own eyes. They are places that bare the potential to create new and different roots. Our own roots. The most important part of this journey is to get down on the ground, be in the place and meet the place and its people. Listen to the stories the place has to tell, the stories we have to tell. Afterwards we will all go our way again, but with one impression richer. One impression that remains, that connects us to a place and to each other. There should be friendship. Not only friendship towards a friend or a defined group but general friendship to the other, any other. To the environment, to the past and to the future.

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