Published: 10 June 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
SIDRA KRANZ MOSHINSKY travelled solo across the Nullarbor, drawn by country as distant as possible from the birthplace of her parents
As missiles pound towns and cities in Ukraine, a strange twisting goes on inside me.
I live conscious of the vagaries of time and place that mean that I was born safe and free, spared the agony of the Shoah - luck not granted to much of my family.
It also becomes apparent how quickly our sense of place and deep connection to land can shift. While I feel for the people of Ukraine and am horrified by what is going on, it is Australia to which I am rooted.
Now, as violence and destruction at the hands of another powerful tyrant sweeps those parts, I’m conscious that I’m safe and free because the Shoah means that I live here and not there ... but could have…if not for…
The desert is midbar in Hebrew, coming from the same letters that make up medaber, to speak. These distant places speak to me, giving voice to messages that get drowned out in our noisy city lives.
My grandparents honeymooned in Zakopane, a town in the Carpathian mountains, and spoke wistfully of pine forests, rivers and alps. There is no way that at the start of their lives in Warsaw, Radom, Boreslaw and Lvov they could ever have imagined that the forces of history would mean they would end their lives buried under swaying gum trees in Melbourne. Yet there they are.
And here am I, an Australian-raised Jewish woman with a strong desire to connect to this land. It moves me and calls to me in ever-deepening ways.
As a teenager, I went on a school trip up the Birdsville Track to the Simpson Desert, getting my first taste of the outback.
