Day 4

The trip is going wonderfully. Yesterday we toured the island and got a feel of where the bodies washed up on the beach. When we saw the triangular stones over the graves, we didn’t understand, but at the museum this morning they explained that the prisoners, even the Jews, didn’t wear the Star of David, but the triangle with the colour explaining what type of prisoner they were.

The women at the museum greeted us warmly. This is where we came last year to pick up my housemate's painting done by a local artist and loaned for a special exhibition.

One of last year’s employees, who just retired came back to help us. At coffee break time, she’d brought ribbon and we worked on making Christmas decorations.

My German is so rusty but I caught about 1/3 of what was being said. My housemate was invaluable in the other 2/3rds.

The man Julia had worked with last year over the transport of her painting came with his wife to take us to a fish restaurant for lunch. His father had taught the artist who had done my housemate's painting and he showed us the house where the artist had grown up.

His wife had been raised on a huge farm, which was confiscated by the communist government, but the current government has made retribution by giving all five sisters a piece of a forest.

Interestingly, I always thought of the shape of the island as a lobster claw, but if you look at it another way it looks like a Gorilla with its hands on the ground.

The island didn’t get electricity until the 1950s and most was provided by wind power.

What seems out of place is the number of thatched roofs some with solar panels.

And as my housemate said, travel is broadening. When she said it we were eating a German breakfast with the fish, wursts, käse und brotchen