A Writer's Social Engagement in Freiburg (Germany)

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Be Well Educated and Not Instructed (Satis Shroff)

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Be well Educated and not Instructed (Satis Shroff) Welcome to the capital of united Germany. Remember going to Bonn in the former days--before the Wall was pulled down by both German people from the West and east. The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961.  The Wall cut off West Berlin from all of the surrounding East Germany, until government officials opened it in November 1989. The demolition of the long Wall began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls who had orders to shoot at anyone trying to escape to the West. It was accompanied by a wide area called the "death strip" that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" with nails and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its po...
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MOTHER NEPAL (Satis Shroff)

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MOTHER NEPAL: Savvy Schwarzwäldertorte? Nein, a Himalayan Torte (Satis Shroff) It was the Nepalese king from Gorkha Prithvi Narayan Shah (1768) who described his small Himalayan country as a yam between two stones (China via Tibet and India). The Nepalese battled against the Chinese  in 1790 but in 1792 the Chinese retaliated and in the following treaty the Nepalese had to promise not to attack Tibet anymore, and pay a tribute to the Chinese emperor in former Peking. Nepal paid till 1912. Nepal’s borders in those days of the 19 th century stretched from Kashmir to Sikkim and their expansion was a challenge to the East India Company and the Raj. Soon there were disputes over the Terai which led to a war between British India and Nepal. The war ended with the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816 after which the Raj took Sikkim and part of the Terai with the borders of Nepal remaining intact till this day. Some of the land was returned to Nepal in 1858 by the British as a reward fo...
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LEST WE FORGET: The Agony of War (Satis Shroff)

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Lest We Forget: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Grafeneck (Satis Shroff) It does me good to witness that a Culture of Remembering has sprouted in Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria where the respective museums are doing a great job informing visitors about the World Wars, how people lived and suffered in those terrible days. Young school children are obliged to visit concentration camps, write essays and discuss about these themes. Not a single Abitur class (GCE 'A' level) finishes its final exams without having visited a concentration camp, and discussed about the problems and misery created by the World War I and II, and the National Socialists. Nevertheless, it is scary to feel the fear and anxiety expressed by Hans Sahl (1902-1993) when he wrote: 'More than the onerous task of surviving, my mind is engaged with the thoughts, what'd going to happen to this world that has experienced such things, what will happen to the children who know of the holocaust through h...
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