Last night, I thought the sudden, painful swelling of my titanium knee could be the end of my trip. I am still not sure how much I will be able to ride, but I can walk well enough to navigate train stations and Newark Airport. In an hour I should be on the way to Paris to begin the trip.
I also wondered if carrying a backpack would be a problem, but so far, no problem at all. While riding on the trains today, I have been making alternate plans of what I can see and if my bicycle riding is severely limited. Since I have only seen Jerusalem and nearby towns in all of Israel, there will be plenty to see.
The same is true in the Baltic States later in the trip.
This trip, like the one in 2017, is both a bike ride and a chance to visit Holocaust sites and memorials. In the Baltic countries, like Ukraine and Poland, the Jews were almost completely wiped out both by the Nazis and by their neighbors who killed Jews and took their property. As with Rwanda and Bosnia, the genocide was personal and horrible.
I know I will be surprised by things I see and discover. On the last trip, one of the saddest places I visited was the German Military Cemetery at Normandy. While there, I swung back and forth between sadness and anger, because this cemetery is how America should have treated the Civil War. The Germans started a racist war and lost. They memorialize the dead soldiers, but not the leaders or the cause. America should have done that.
Almost 75 years after the end of World War II, Germany is a civilized country. More than 150 years after the Civil War, we elected a guy who says Nazis are fine people.
I found Primo Levi's If tThis is a Man one of the most profound books i've read. In a FAQ section at the back is "I believe in reason and discussion as supreme instrument son progress....." This was jaw dropping for me given all he had gone through. This is the perfect rejoined against Totalitarianism. Any book by Gita Sereny especially The German Trauma. Douglas. Australia.
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