Hi out threre!

This is my first day in Cincinnati, after a nearly 20 hour trip from Frankfurt to Cincinnati, via Philadelphia.

This morning we visited the "International underground railroad freedom center". This ten-year old museum remembers the time of slavery and the destiny of thousands of slaves and families.

Let me show you my strongest impression of this visit - the escape to freedom.

To be free slaves only had one possibility. They had to reach the border to Canada that offers them protection and freedom. During their run away they lived in constant fear to be caught by their former owners. The help to escape the 'slaves' got from brave people, like the famous Reveren and his sons and Mr. Parker, who belong to the famous organization of "The underground railroad". They risk their lives and the lives of their families to fight against slavery and to enable people to create a new and free life.

One film in the museum, called "Brothers of the border" was about the escape from a young girl and a young man during the night over the Ohio River. The girl ran through the forest, dogs and horses behind her. She reached the river and was saved within the last second from Mr. Parker, while the other young man had to stay back.

During the film you had the feeling of beeing involved in this dramatic scene, because the room was decorated like a bankside of the river, with trees and bushes. You heard the crackle of the woods around you and you feel the fear and the physical effort.

Unfortunatly, in comparison to a concentration camp in Germany, the museum hasn't such an great effect on you. It's just a museum with historical material, but it's not a historical place like the huts in the concentration camps. The huts in the concentration camps are also equipped with historicals beds and daily material so that you can SEE and FEEL how narrow and dirty everything was. In the freedom center you only can imagine.

The danger with younger generations is that they think, that enslavement and unfreedom are historical things but this is not true. As I learned today 27 Million woman, men and children, are enslaved and that is not everything. Enslavement means unfreedom and this means no human rights. So, this topic of ensalvement and unfreedom becomes a very actual and political meaning, that should be recognised by every free human being and take them to action and this is the result younger generations should get, when they were thought about slavery and genocide.

Let me close this entry with the rememberance to our ISWI (International student week) 2009:

"Human rights. Right here. Right now."