What happens when a young woman is abducted by soldiers at 23, transported to a foreign labour camp, and after six years is not returned home, but forced to go to yet another foreign country? The mission of German writer and blogger Marcel Krueger is to try and find the answers to these questions. The woman in question is his grandmother, who was taken from her home in East Prussia by the Red Army
in 1945 and returned to West Germany after years of forced labour. 67 years later, in the summer of 2012, Marcel's aim is to retrace her steps from her hometown near Olzstyn in Poland to the Urals and back. The aim of this journey is not only to research and document the past, but also to explore contemporary Poland and Russia. This is Marcel's first ever sojourn in these countries, and as a web-savvy writer he is setting out to document his encounter with whatever customs and culture come his way. Like Marcel's successful predecessor project www.sonic-iceland.com, which documents a musical journey to Iceland, the website for 'In the Dark Night' will shine a spotlight on contemporary (Eastern) Europe via not only his own words and images, but those of German, Polish and Russian photographers, writers, blogger and artists. Exploring the influence the events of 67 years ago have had on young people today, 'In the Dark Night' will be a travel journal with plenty of space for photography, sounds and words; it will also be written in German and English to reach as wide an audience as possible. The author: Marcel Krueger is a (travel) writer and blogger. His essays and stories have been published in the Daily Telegraph, Reykjavik Grapevine, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Spotted by Locals, amongst others. He published his first book, an English short story collection named “Stop Coming to My House' last year, and after five years in Ireland currently divides his time between Berlin and Dublin. You can find more information on his personal blog King of Pain.
