The Love Parade: One year later

I couldn't do a better post than what you find here, posted by Fred Schywek, honoring the people who died. Silence and respect and yes the Mayor Adolf Sauerland has to go. You can follow the memorial service at /www.nrw.de/. Warning: Probably these links in German will only function during about a week.

Het motregent verdriet

massaal in de wereld gezet

stilaan worden we allemaal

nat

Love parade

Duisburg
 *

One year after the Love Parade disaster, I see and hear the sorrow in others as it lives on, as it is brought back in all its vividness by the memory of fear for loved ones.

Sorrow brings loneliness. The only connection possible is one is held physically and feels supported. So memorials are a help. Survivors see their pain acknowledged, realize that others people know and understand that the survivors are still suffering in body and/or soul of the consequences of that fateful day. People who lost their loved ones can feel the solidarity and understanding of a mass of strangers and maybe just a feel a touch comforted by it. Twenty one people died, yet one young woman was pregnant. So a father to be lost two, just as grandparents lost a child and grandchild at once because of sloppy planning in the organization of the event. I understand the anger one feels at the dignitaries of Duisburg who refuse to take personal responsibility and refuse to leave their post. The kids just wanted a day of fun and dance and partying and they didn't find the joy of life, but panic and pain and death. Those who survived and the witnesses to the drama who were powerless to do more than what they did- some saving a life- some being wounded or unconscious and saved by a turn of fate are not yet healed.

It is three days after the bomb in Oslo, after the shooting of young people on a Nordic island, where they came together to look into ways on how to make a better, more just world.

It is Sunday and sadness reigns.