John's ancestral villages.
The most impacting side of our walk back to walk where my ancestors lived in northern Europe in April 2025 was the fact that we were greatly blessed to leave for Australia in the 1850's . East Germany and Poland were no places to be for the intervening period This area was and still is a war zone. Only since the 1990's has free speech been allowed in most of the area we visited ( former East Germany and Poland )with Belarus still clearly under the heavy cloud of dictatorship. The mixed group of us on the bus were so moved by meeting people affected that we all celebrated our freedom by all turning up at the Australian embassy in Berlin to vote on Monday , Hooray ! Did we all vote the same way ? Unlikely! Major splits in everything from the State of our ABC , the reasons why the turbines weren't turning and what the heck they were doing reviving fossil fuel burning set us to focus on other more consensus things in the very first days of the trip. And w...