The Crooked Mirror l Louise Steinman’s Blog
Journeys within and beyond
Search my blog posts
![Welcome the Stranger: An urban installation for social engagement [Lublin, Poland]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/63f5338a0fb0342f12db2636/1679860080727-LHZ35ZJH1TNJ5TD0OBUV/image-asset.jpeg)
Welcome the Stranger: An urban installation for social engagement [Lublin, Poland]
It's been an intense and magical week in Lublin, Poland. A Kabbalistic text appears over the archway of the Brama Grodzka; a flamingo is invited to perch in a storks nest high in a poplar tree; the words of Polish veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq are projected on the walls of the cultural center, reminding us of the hospitality that veterans need after the trauma of war. In the passageway of one the crooked streets of the Old Town, the voice of the local poet Jozef Czechowicz— killed in the German bombardment of September, 1939— fills the air... just near the vinyl record shop where they're playing Talking Heads and Miles Davis. And at the Old Well in what is now the bus depot— and was once the Jewish quarter of Lublin— a voice sings forth on the hour with the words of asylum seekers, some from Guatemala, some from Eritrea, Iraq. "I don't even know where this ship is taking me." "I'm sorry cousin, I could not save you."
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
What does July 4 feel like to a child in a cage in Clint, TX? To a Salvadoran mother wearing an ankle monitoring device afraid of being deported? How can one celebrate the 4th of July in America? The Statue of Liberty is weeping.
as I take care of the pupil of my eye
I have been corresponding with inmates at Otay Mesa Detention Center, where asylum seekers to the US are being detained. There are detainees from Mexico, Yemen, Iran, Tajikistan, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Eritrea, Columbia, and many more countries-- fleeing persecution, rape, gangs, torture, police, threats to family and livelihood. One young man from Congo, has been detained for two YEARS and 28 days. As ICE ratchets up new raids and threatens deportations, please think about these people kept behind bars in a country (once upon a time) predicated on the idea of offering safe harbor to those fleeing persecution.
Among the Righteous, on the passing of Marian Bereska
I can’t let 2015 fade into the night without making mention of a remarkable man who passed away in a little town in central Poland on December 20, the day before the winter solstice.I had the privilege of meeting Marian Bereska first in 2009, when he finally was willing to tell his story of how he and is mother Janina together hid five Jews from the Radomsko ghetto in their little house.
