Dresden. We were here on Friday. Some of the team had to get their visas stamped again and so we just took everybody across the border. We had a really good time, and for all the details you can go to my sister Sarah's blog entry and read all the gory details (the goriest being the drive by all the hookers in their lounge-room parlours at the Czech border and the google eyed 12 year olds in the back of our car).
As for me, walking around Dresden is a sobering experience - this is the city that we bombed - we, the allied forces, the English/NZ/Australian/American/my tribe- we bombed Dresden out of anger, at the very end of the war, when we didn't need to bomb anyone, and we did it to get back at the Germans. It was wrong! i have been to many places where abuse took place but very few of them were places where MY SIDE were the abusers. Dresden is one of those places and I am the bad guy.
So I read through picture books of the flattened, smoky Dresden in a bookstore and looked again at the damage we did, images of rubble and steel . And I walked through the streets and thought about the families we killed and the children we burnt and the orphans we made. And I became, as I said, quite somber.
But on a brighter note, I scored a turkey and a pumpkin (see photo) which we desperately need for Thanksgiving next week. And the day was great. Bruce and Sarah felt a real lifting, spiritually speaking, and that was something that was really needed for them. And the kids got a break - a 2 hour trip to another country. Great day! They even let us back in the country - smuggled turkey and all.
