In May of 1945, my German Grandmother Inge (short for Ingeborg) began the start of a 800km journey to return home to Hamburg, from a small town in what was then Czechoslovakia. The journey took the best part of 3 months, mostly on foot, accompanied by her 18-month old daughter, and was undertaken when she was heavily pregnant with her second child. She documented the journey retrospectively in the form of letters to her husband, who was a prisoner of war at the time.

The letters go into great detail, describing her experience of the invading Russian troops, the people she met on route, and the general atmosphere of a defeated Germany. She describes being a refugee with all that entailed, as well as meeting concentration camp survivors, surviving on the kindness of strangers and giving birth.

This summer I will be following her journey, using her detailed documentation of this time as a guide. As she did, I will be walking where I can, taking trains occasionally. My journey will take 21 days, and will be documented using a combination of sound, video, photography, drawing and auto-ethnographic writing methods.

This website serves a repository, to collect early impressions, thoughts, and imagery. During the journey, this site will be updated regularly between the 9th & 31st July 2022.