So very true!
Powerful and moving photo.

A superb sculpture. I so agree! I am descended from Russian Jews who fled here from Warsaw when it was in Russia in the nineteenth century. My father was born Ruben Rosenbaum but the family changed their name before World War Two to avoid persecution by Moseley's lot. A huge number of Brits are descended from immigrants, including the Royal family!

It is a very moving sculpture. I also share your sentiments, and view of history. I have had several letters published in the local paper concerning, anger, stereotyping etc. One that was not published as yet reads, "Bigotry is a mad dog that will surely bite its owner, and will be difficult to put to sleep." As a child, I and a group of friends would huddle together with our own particular brand of paranoia, fearful that we would be sent back to Europe and be exterminated for being Jewish. This made it, of course difficult to ride in a Volkswagen. In the book The War Hotel, the author talks about in the Balkans, how leaders would create frictions and frictions between different ethnic groups that had been getting along just fine. She mentions the creation of The Boggy Man, as a devise to demonize the identified "out group", and rally the troupes of fear and anger against them. I am concerned that in America this same simplistic drum beat is sounding again, and those political voices responsible will not acknowledge their part in any destructive consequences that might occur as a result. The psychologist Albert Bandura has written about the depersonalization that takes place terroristic thought, that allows people to treat people as not being human and then subject them to inhuman acts. I see elements of this same process taking place through the mouths of some who say they wish to lead us. It can be considered normal to fear the unknown, including The Stranger - it is criminal to exploit it. As you can see, you seem to have struck a cord in my that has been playing about for a long time. Human beings should not have to be subjected to such horrors.

Stunning capture my friend. God bless.

I agree with all you say; it's a sad and very dismaying world we live in. It makes me feel so helpless and useless seeing the rise of rich idiocy all over this country (and I'm sure the rest of the world too, but the powers that be and news sources don't share those things with us.) A wonderful sculpture and excellent capture!

I didn't know you came from Holocaust survivors. My 20th C ancestors escaped Europe, but before the 30s. It's a heavy history to carry. My The whole difficulty with "terrorism" as a term is that it doesn't include the terrorism created by the western powers, it just includes the terrorism created by asiatic powers. All forms are terrible, and all need to be condemned. (I'm not a leftist who says it's "all our fault," nor one who says it's all "theirs". We're all in it together, and should be condemning of all such acts, no matter who did them.) If a western country has fair security measures in place, they should be able to share the call of refugees across the many western nations. We're in the age of refugees; not that they haven't existed prior to 1900, but that this age has brought so many to the world. And I agree with all you say about our attitudes towards them: Every country has the right to defend itself against unwanted intrusion; but we have a calling to know the difference between those who bring harm and those who don't. It's tragic when one gets lost in the shadows we create around the others.

The photo lets the sculpture speak for itself; and it could pertain to any type of refugee. I'm struck that it's a bearded man, maybe because that's what many europeans though jews looked like. But maybe not. It doesn't harm the piece a bit, to my eye; it's just someone too old to be able to protect himself, in shackles and crouched by oppression and murder. A touching evocation. And your shot isolates it in a sea of stones. Sensitively done, and I appreciate the message, as I do your bringing your personal history into it. A powerful upload.

(Do you know Sebastiao Salgado's photography? He captured refugees as few have. He's been criticized for making refugee life 'beautiful'. But overall, he captures the massive sweep of forced migrations in the last 100 years. His work can be stunning. If you don't know it, it's worth seeing. ((His jpgs are way too small---his photos can be huge---but they're worth seeing regardless.)) )