#lisbonrouteproject

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My trip allong the Lisbon Route from Marseille via Perpignan, Banyuls-sur-mer, Portbou (see detailed map of the so called "F-Route" named after Lisa and Hans Fittko who helped hundreds of refugees over the Pyrenees to Spain) Barcelona, Madrid, Badajoz and Lisbon.

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Short audio excerpt from The Lisbon Route Project installation

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Escape route

After fleeing through half Europe most of the refugees ended up in the south of France. Their only way out was an ancient smugglers' path over the Pyrenees to Spain.

The term path gradually proves to be an exaggeration. Now and then there is a path to be seen, but increasingly it is just a barely recognizable, gravelly track between boulders.

After the ascent through the green hills the path runs parallel to a well-known "official" road that leads along the mountain ridge. The refugees route runs below the road and is concealed by the mountain overhang, so that it couldn't be seen by the French border sentries who patrolled above. At some places the road and the path get very near each other, and there the refugees had to be attentive.

Some impressions from the escape path from Banyuls-sur-mer(FR) over the Pyrenees to Portbou(SP).

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Walter Benjamin Memorial

Yesterday I was visiting the Walter Benjamin Memorial by Dani Karavan in Portbou(Spain).

After an exhausting flight over the Pyrenees Walter Benjamin eventually arrived in Portbou. There he was told that he would be handed over to the French authorities the following day, which meant his subsequent surrender to the Nazi authorities. Under police surveillance, he stayed the night at Portbou where he took a strong dose of morphine. The next morning - 26 September 1940 - his dead body was found. He was 48 years old.

Dani Karavan's monument entitled Passages is a highly sonorous place amplifying the sounds of sea and the sounds of Portbou into an enormous drone.

Entrance to the Walter Benjamin Memorial

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The paradigma for refugees in Portugal was to disobey the law.

Yesterday I had the privilege to meet the Portuguese historian and writer Irene Pimentel for an interview. We were discussing the role of Portugal as a center for refugees during WW II, Salazar's objections towards the refugees, the impact of the refugees on the Portuguese society and what would have happend with Portugal if the refugees were allowed to stay ,the role of emigration nowadys in Portugal, and many more interesting facts.

Irene Pimentel is an expert on contemporary Portuguese history and has written books on the matter such as "Salazar, Portugal e o Holocausto/Salazar, Portugal and the Holocaust" and "Judeus em Portugal durante a II Guerra Mundial/Jews in Portugal during World War II".

Listen to: Interview Part 1

Listen to: Interview Part 2

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In the course of their research, Berlin journalist Christa Heinrich, (born 1951), and Jens Brüning, (1946), have found contemporary witnesses still living in Portugal, and encouraged them to bring their experiences of flight and survival to life once again on film. The protagonists Ruth Arons, Grete Friman, the Adelsbergers and Siegfried Rosenthal, tell their story in the film „Lisbon - Harbour of Hope" and we also meet them in their private surroundings in present day Portugal. Has this country, with its helpful, friendly people, really become their home? And what about the ones who travelled on? 

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In the opening scene of iconic movie Casablanca (1942) a narrator presents one of the WW II refugee trail from Paris to Marseille and via Casablanca to Lisbon: "Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But not everybody could get to Lisbon directly; and so, a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up."