About leaving and arriving. Or: My way to Sydney

The following text is long.

Most of the following text was written before another war, terror and violence. Not only do I work in a subject area that is closely linked to Israel, my workplace is now in the Jewish Museum in Sydney. Everyone here has friends and family locally. The shock, sadness, fear and anger are deep. The atmosphere is more than tense.

I myself think and have to think a lot about the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; think of the people I know there and in Israel: acquaintances, concentration camp survivors I was able to get to know, their families; to colleagues.

I've also always been very lucky in life, which is even more noticeable to me: I've never gone to a workplace where there is, or has to be, security; Security measures, gates when going in and out - this also existed in Jewish institutions before last Saturday; but now it has been reinforced again. I wonder whether you can actually get used to it, get used to it - and it makes me sad that this is part of (ab)normality for Jewish people, and has to be part of it. The atmosphere is tense and depressed and so I didn't post the following text for the time being. I found it inappropriate to share such a text in such a situation - and I still don't really know whether it's okay. There are more important things, clearly. The Jewish Museum in Sydney has clearly set itself the task of continuing, especially in this situation. It's about not hating, appreciating the value of life and peace and, in this sense, carrying on the work and voices of survivors.

__________

It could also be that things will be a little quieter here on the blog soon - and they have already been in the last two weeks. I feel a bit like after a long hike, when there are new ideas and plans, but my feet say: “Phew! Break!".

Surreal.

That is the apt name.

I am overwhelmed.

And jet-lagged.

I feel like I'm standing a little beside myself. My body is here, but I haven't realized the whole thing yet. I'm sitting in the Jewish Museum in Sydney - or rather I've just come from the coffee lounge, I now have a second Flat White - probably my favorite coffee Down Under. It was also invented here in Australia - or in New Zealand, a controversial topic.

But this post doesn't go any further about coffee.

But rather that I have the feeling that I have achieved something great for myself here.

That sounds strange - and it is. I just arrived yesterday.

I'm knocked out, feeling the last months, maybe even years and especially the long flight; stand a little next to me.

But it's not just jet lag, I think.

This is surreal too.

After I was accepted into the circle of the local museum, moved into a workplace, received a key card and an email address, I thought more than once: “Dude, Sarah! That's incredible!" or alternatively and word for word of my thoughts: “Crazy shit?! Is this all really happening right now?” and sometimes in the last few hours I also had a “You really did it!” How incredibly crazy!”

In Australia - AUSTRALIA! - in Sydney, I even get paid for it, I get to do what is important to me and what I enjoy. Reading, writing, researching, meeting people, helping with translation. Advance my work. Looking over the shoulder of a museum with vision during renovation and expansion can somehow be a part of that. “Just in Sydney!” - I kind of have to laugh too.

A dream, absolutely!

And then also: it feels surreal, but it's actually true.

I know (without a doubt) that I am more than privileged - so much! It always scares me and makes me very uncomfortable. And it makes me think I should, want to do more. For everything that is made possible for me here and what has already been made possible for me. I'm not holding back on this.

Of visa issues

Australian border and immigration regulations are strict and exclude many people. People should be deterred, especially from certain countries. (See, for example, an article from the time or for listening, albeit a little older, from the dlf .)

I got my visa in no time.

It took less than two weeks and I got a visa for a year. A year! - with multiple entry. Complete freedom, just like that. When I entered the country, there wasn't even a single question about what I was planning to do here, what I wanted to do here, where my money would come from or whether I would try to stay illegally. The somewhat bored border officer at entry, about my age, looked at me, looked at the passport, compared the photo with the person standing in front of her. A smile. That's it.

Canada may have a reputation for being “immigrant-friendly,” but even there I at least had questions upon entry about where I would stay, how I would finance it, and what accommodations I would have along the way. The most important question was when I would leave again. For at least a few minutes I had the feeling that two different border officials in Toronto were examining me very closely. Afterwards I also had to unpack my backpack. A third person double-checked whether what I had stated was true.

So I had prepared myself for entry into Australia. All my documents were ready in my backpack or on my cell phone: health insurance, savings, income, vaccination certificate, my address in Sydney, invitation letter.

Yesterday at the airport: none of this was necessary.

Nobody wanted to see it.

I wasn't even asked about it.

And that despite the fact that I stated - honestly - that I had been hiking in the Canadian wilderness in the last 30 days. Australia and New Zealand are very careful about what (and who) is allowed into the country. They are particularly strict about anything that could have an impact on flora and fauna.

Actually.

The only question was whether I had a tent with me that I used while hiking. “No, no tent.” The one on the West Coast Trail was borrowed.

- “Ok.”

A welcoming hand gesture.

Waved through.

That's it.

Passport, skin color, origin, invitation letter? This doesn't just leave you with a good feeling.

Of ideas and support

Without the right people at the right time, I wouldn't be here and the path wasn't just as smooth as it appears - and to me - in a beautifully written text. The road was long - in several ways.

But it is even more true that this would not have been possible without the support of others. People who support you. Just like that. That hold doors open for you. Just like that.

But back to my flat white.

The “position” that I have here at the Jewish Museum in Sydney actually doesn’t exist. There wasn't yet either.

It was created so that I could come here.

This is really crazy, I know. Incredibly surreal. And yet: I don't make them up. It's my story, written on October 5th, 2023, afternoon, Sydney time, with the second flat white in front of me.

In 2018/19 I was in Australia for six weeks. Hiking, taking the train, looking at museums: Of course I went to the Holocaust Museum in Melbourne, the Immigration Museum, the Melbourne Museum and here in Sydney to the Jewish Museum. I found all of the exhibitions really exciting and somehow different; For me, it's more innovative and gripping than in Germany - if I can say that in general terms. I wrote to a few employees before my visits there, introduced myself and asked if we would like to get to know each other and met with them. I was interested in what I had heard from education departments related to the Holocaust. How does a museum manage to talk to an extremely diverse audience about the Second World War so far away from Europe and then - or precisely because of this - include the present? How do you work with which groups? What ideas did you have for new exhibitions?

If you believe the latest statistics on Australia's population, then the continent Down Under is the most diverse country in the world: over 300 ethnic groups are said to live here, around 270 languages are spoken in Australia; Multiculturalism has been officially and state-recognized since the 1980s - at the same time - and surprisingly in a negative sense - the indigenous population here hardly has an official voice - there is currently a referendum on it, the mood is very heated and polarized .

In 2018, after visiting the museum in Melbourne, I walked to the beach.

And looking at the skyline and with my feet in the ocean, I had this thought: “That would be cool. Like this for longer.” In my memory I had a smile and a “Mh” on my lips. I remember this moment very vividly. Tilt your head a little, bite your lower lip a little. "How can this work?"

I didn't know anyone from my field of work in Germany who had done this before, and I hadn't heard of anyone either. There are a few people who went to Austria, to Israel, to Poland, to the Netherlands, to England or maybe to the USA. But Australia? Mh, that's a long way away.

It's still not easy for university employees or students to do this, but it's more likely that they can go to another university and apply for fellowships. Why doesn't something like this go to memorials or museums?

Mm.

I had only just moved to Hamburg, but the thought of myself as a Uckermark village child down under excited me. Maybe afterwards? Or in the middle? What would “longer” actually mean?

On December 11, 2018 - after three nights in Australia and a visit to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum - I wrote in my travel diary “Mh, tempts me. I need to think about this further. (...) Why not?"

On a subsequent longer hike along the Great Ocean Walk , I took notes: in addition to experiences of the day, what something like a village child down under would cost; Visa questions that I would have to research after the hike; gathered my first ideas about what I would want to look at - apart from the work, whatever it should look like.

I then had a few more hikes and train rides before and after me until I was in Sydney a few weeks later. What a city! I always wanted to go to Hamburg, loved the port of Hamburg, had just moved there (in 2018) - when I looked at the harbor in Sydney, it occurred to me more than once: "This is a different level!" Cliffs, beaches, bays, the sound of waves, humpback whales swimming by - just: WOW!

On December 24, 2018, I sat in the café in the Jewish Museum, drank a flat white and wrote in my travel diary: “I am completely euphoric! I want to do that!" I asked Simon, who was working in the education department at the time, carefully but specifically. He said that normally people from the field go away from Australia for a while, to Israel, to the USA. Australia is just that pretty isolated, far away. Actually, it would be nice if people came. “Why not?”

I was practically drunk from my flat white on the first visit. “Oh man, I’m so excited. I want to do that. Absolutely! :) :) :) Too simplistic?! Maybe, but I'm not afraid and in the mood for it." That was in December 2018.

There is now no direct line to October 2023, but it is perhaps, no probably the beginning.

The first ideas and emails with Sydney and Melbourne about some kind of research stay in Australia began before I was back in Hamburg. I was written that a position was currently advertised and I could apply. But I didn't do that. The other loose ideas came to nothing, at the latest when Australia closed its borders during Covid. There was also the question of when and for how long; and in what specific context.

Mm.

In 2020 I started my doctoral thesis; I had the idea since 2016. At the time, I didn't know that the remote Upper Palatinate town of Flossenbürg really had more to do with Australia. When I started, I knew that DPs had emigrated all over the world, but I wasn't really thinking about Australia.

So I started researching, digging through online archives and internet forums during the strict German lockdowns one and two and trying to implement what I could with all the restrictions. It definitely helped that I was already working in the field and many colleagues created opportunities for me that (certainly) would not have been so easy for others. In the depths of Covid, some things became trading: “Can you imagine moderating xy online?” Zoom was also intimidating for many, especially at the beginning. “Ok - I have no idea about the topic, but it will be okay. Then will you help me get xy?” or: “If there is the next time slot for an archive visit to you, please let me know? Will you take me in?”

Somewhere along the way (online) and searching for over 2000 DPs who were in the Flossenbürg DP camp, I recognized a pattern:

some go to Australia...

... Australia ...

Mm.

Australia again...

Mm.

And not exactly a few.

And not exactly unimportant ones.

Super exciting!

Mh. Think, head slightly tilted.

That's it!

So over time I also wrote to scientists in Australia, told them what I was doing, what I wanted to do, what interested me, what I had discovered and that I wanted to come to Australia, because I had now also been in contact with DP members . I was on the phone at 2 a.m. German time with a former DP in Port Macquarie, about 400 kilometers north of Sydney, and “met” descendants via zoom.

I didn't always receive a response to my emails to professors at Australian university email inboxes, some declined in a friendly and welcoming manner, and I received no response from some. Actually, only one person actually wrote back. Konrad, a professor emeritus, retired. It would be exciting to see what I was doing and what I would have discovered. A text from him on a different but similar topic, a list of names he knows that I should contact, with him as a reference. Getting me to the Sydney Jewish Museum would be no problem. “How about Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin, Perth? You could do an entire tour! They’re all currently working on new exhibitions.” I was perplexed and stammered - I think I remember: "Well, Sydney would be enough for me."

Did this really happen here? I was flabbergasted and in the 2021 semi-lockdown and afterwards, doors suddenly opened up that I wouldn't have even thought possible before. The way it seemed to me, I just had to go through it. It seemed so simple to me. “Just say when and for how long. We can do that!” – Wow!

How this is financed is a major hurdle. What kind of opportunities would there be in Germany?

The easiest thing would be a doctoral scholarship, I thought. In this context, I would have the opportunity to go to a foreign research institution. I had/have friends who did similar things, but somewhere else. So a long application process began.

Crazy, crazy - I got it too.

Including the stay in Australia. I had already included that in my application. So I had received an acceptance. That was in May 2022. I immediately wrote to Australia and was told again that it was up to me when, for how long, and I was welcome.

And that's also real: at that point I had never seen Konrad in person. We only knew each other from a Zoom conversation and emails. We quickly realized that we knew similar people everywhere, especially in Eastern Europe. When he was in Europe, at the end of 2022, he also came to Hamburg. I told you what had happened and was happening in my project at the time and showed an exhibition that I had curated with a colleague. Even if it wasn't clear when and how exactly, for how long, it was up to me. “Then come over!” was what stuck in my head. I couldn't really believe it. It all seemed so... somehow too simple, much too simple and yet it actually wasn't. So much happiness all at once? That scared me a bit sometimes. It was somehow clear that I wanted to do that at some point. Konrad told me that over the decades that he traveled and worked between Australia and Europe, there were always people who asked him for support to spend time in Australia. But no one in Germany has actually implemented it yet. Somehow - I can't get out of my skin either - that triggered something else in me. That would be pretty awesome and it fits in so many ways.

“See you in Sydney! “I’ll pick you up from the airport!” was said when saying goodbye. I think I was taken aback, on the one hand I was excited and at the same time I asked myself, well, when exactly?

Mm.

A really crazy story; also a feel-good story, a feel-good story. And while I understand any skepticism, it's still real. That's the craziest thing of all!

All of this came to me today - again - as I drank a flat white while sitting in almost the same seat as I did in December 2018.

I recently told this story to a few people on the way here and to people in Europe, and - probably - as expected, they asked what my next dream, my next goal, would be.

First of all, I want to enjoy this to the fullest. I want to be here, analyzing all my sources, meeting people, writing and putting my feet in the water every day. Why keep running? The surroundings are just too beautiful!