Our Babies
The outward looking Granny Jo, a leading image of her as a child in 1947
It is a baby photo of GRANNY JO mirrored in our barn
I took many photos and gather some here of our babies and GRANDCHILDREN in and
around the barn from 2009 on
My daughter Cora with baby Tilda born 7th April 2009 sitting next to Granny Jo and below father Paul.
Ella, daughter of Louise born on 4th Oct 2016, here with Granny and with her father Gabe and cousins.
Finlay born 5th Feb 2017 with my son and Tracie.
Our daughter Louise holding Freya born 16th August, 2019.
Me, holding Molly, born 5th June, 2020 to Bob and Tracei.
“Every bombed village is my hometown”
– James Baldwin
And every dead child is my child. Every grieving mother is my mother. Every crying father is my father.
Every home turned to rubble is the home I grew up in.
Every brother carrying the remains of his brother across borders
is my brother.
Every sister waiting for a sister who will never come home
is my sister.
Everyone of these people are ours, just like we are theirs.
We belong to them and they belong to us.
IS IT ART ? IS IT NOT ? FOR ME IT IS ART WHERE THE MESSAGE COUNTS, NOT THE SYMBOL
I saw this picture and the message in my mail sent to me this morning, the 3rd of November, 2024. Every day we hang the washing up like this in our barn.
Every day for months I ask myself how to react to what is going on around me. What to do?
What are my artistic skills good for?
What if we had to hang up our washing with fear of our own babies and children who are the essence of our life
here in the barn? I can not,
I can’t
think that way.
But the effect is, my creative ambitions are on hold because of that way of thinking!
I don’t know what to do with these thoughts and images.
Baby vests, symbolising children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, line Parliament Square, October 29, 2024 Photo: Feng
HoTara Dupraz, from the Women Rising coalition, one of the organisers, said: “We have gathered 710 baby vests to honour those named, though we know the true number is far higher and that thousands more infants now suffer from severe injuries, malnutrition, and disease.”
About 30 percent of the identified children slaughtered by Israel between last October and August 31 were younger than five.
At least another 2,800 children killed have yet to be identified.
Research by Oxfam found that more women and children have been killed by Israel in Gaza in the last 12 months than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past 20 years.
Dorothea Hackman, a retired grandmother from Camden, said: “The UK’s failure to condemn and act to stop the violence is deeply shameful.
IS IT ART? IS IT NOT? FOR ME IT IS ART WHERE AND TO WHOM THE MESSAGE COUNTS, NOT THE SYMBOL.
My family escaped the war crimes of Hitler and fled from the Russians. That happened during my early life. Being “German”, that I said to others with hesitation, ever since.
Those feelings followed me throughout my conscious life and education.
To reconcile crimes against the Jewish people became the most important political effort in Germany after the Second World War.
How could it be that I am now experiencing horrific crimes against humanity executed by Jewish people themselves? These acts are inhuman!
Living in revenge is thoughtless and destructive for all parties. I am desperate to work on CHANGE.
And about expanding living space I just read and agreed with somebody saying: A democratic state is not a ‘Jewish State’ that likes ‘Lebensraum’ (‘living space’) every bit as much as Nazi Germany did.