Recent changes

German winter rolls on. This week we had at least a few centimeters of snow, enough to make our way to one of the handful of hills around here.

Though, as you take in the picturesque snowy trails and trees with views of the city, it's always disconcerting to me that what one walks on isn't the result of a geological process: the hill is composed of debris and rubble from the WW2 bombing of Leipzig. Collecting this debris took at least 7 years, while some of it eventually went into the stadium we go to for football.

Thinking about all of this as 60,000 people took to the streets to protest the AfD's plans, cooked up with neo-Nazis, to mass deport Ausländers. Even in my most progressive of neighborhoods, 1 in 10 people is an AfD supporter, while the party is on 34.1% support in Saxony.

I don't have a conclusion, or much optimism. Maybe the starting point here is public and tangible remembrance–if we stop hiding the past from each other, we'll have some hope of changing the trajectory for those who come later.