Members of our team flew from various places in the U.S. to our rendezvous in New Jersey — there to board the plane for our nine-and-a-half-hour flIght to Tel Aviv.
Flying so far east and so fast, one gets the curious experience of watching the sun go down and then come up again surprisingly soon. So we met the dawn over the Mediterranean and now here we are.
Our mission: to collect more stories from people liberated from that stalled train near Magdeburg, to learn all we can from relatives of the liberated, and to renew and strengthen friendships all around.
When I say “the team” I mean Mike Edwards, Matthew Rozell, Laura Rozell, Josh Fronduti, Joe Hammers, Karen Shackleford, and yours truly.
Karen and I are the only ones in the group who haven’t been to Israel before. It’s been on my “bucket list” ever since I was a child.
Our rugged (therefore heavy) equipment cases carrying state-of-the-art cameras, and lighting equipment plus a sturdy tripod and much more.
(UPDATE AFER THE TRIP: I was right in anticipating that we would be shlepping these cases up and down staircases and steep hills and over rough roads. It was hard work! But I knew it would be — that’s why I was amused on the first day by their going into an airport cart cheerily emblazoned “HAVE FUN!“)