War is always a difficult topic to write about and over the nine years I have being writing the Europa series with Nick Armbrister, it has proved far from easy and over each book has proved an emotional struggle for both of us in other way or the other.
Europa I, our first book I always remember being an real charge course in research of pieces from Eva Clarke, one of only three babies born in Mauthausen concrentration camp who survived the Holocaust to Dr. Michael Siegel, a respected Jewish Lawyer who was beaten brutally by the right wing police and marched through the streets of Munich at the edge of Second World War being just two stories out of many.
I wish I could say it was a one off project, but it was never going to be the case as I then saw a film called ‘A Film Unfinished’ an incredible film / documentary released originally in 2010 documentary film by Yael Hersonski, which re-examines the making of an unfinished 1942 German propaganda film (titled Das Ghetto, "The Ghetto") depicting the Warsaw Ghetto two months before the mass extermination of its inhabitants in the German operation known as the Grossaktion Warsaw and it forced me in 2016 to write my segment of Europa II talking directly about that camp in short, sharp bursts and I knew then this would be a ongoing project.
III (2016), IV (2019) and V (2022) all followed in due course touching on different elements of war, focusing primarily on how war affects people not just the leaders bringing things right up to date with the retreat from Afghanistan in February 2022.
After the mess from that, both Nick and me thought surely that would be it and considering the world was just coming out of Covid, hopefully we would learn to finally live with our neighbours.
Sadly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 changed everything and spurred us both on again. I certainly was still struggling emotionally with what I saw in Afghanistan and was not planning to write again but what was happening in the Ukraine spurred me on to write about something on almost a daily basis for close to two months from April to the start of June reporting the carnage the only way I could in short, sharp poems not taking sides, unless you call looking at the misery it has and still causing two separate countries.
I will be writing more about this in a few other blog pieces to follow, but to start with I just wanted to highlight the few first words of the introduction I structured on this book
“War is a funny business that goes without saying.”
You couldn’t make it sometimes that is for sure.
Europa 6: The Beginning of the End can be bought at:
(UK) links Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B5PNC7TR/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
(Smashwords)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1154339
(Kobo)
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/europa-6-1
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