A writer’s questions: What happens when more and more people simply look the other way?

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When I see how far my book *Weil Wegsehen keine Option ist* has come, it fills me with great gratitude and also a certain sense of wonder. It all actually began here in Leipzig, with my personal experiences, with encounters, with people who needed help, and with situations in which I decided for myself: looking the other way is not an option.

But the fact that my book is now being read not only in Leipzig or Germany, but has found its way to Erbil in Iraq, to Chicago and New York in the USA, to Hungary, as well as Kosovo and even as far as Thailand, moves me deeply. For in doing so, this book is crossing borders that I probably couldn’t even have imagined myself at the outset.

Naturally, I ask myself: why are people in such diverse countries interested in this story? What prompts someone in Erbil to read this book? What does a reader in Chicago or New York make of it? Why is it being ordered in Hungary or sent as far as Thailand?

Perhaps it really is the desire for more democracy. Perhaps people all over the world are searching for answers to similar questions: What can a single person achieve? When must one speak out? How far does our responsibility for others extend? And what happens to a society when more and more people simply look the other way?

Not simply accepting injustice

But perhaps it’s something quite different. Perhaps it’s simply the story itself that piques people’s curiosity. Perhaps they want to know what a single person went through, why he kept getting involved time and again, and why he wasn’t prepared to simply accept injustice or human suffering.

I don’t know.

Perhaps it’s also because the stories I tell in my book originate from very different places around the world – and because humanity, responsibility and people’s fates know no boundaries.

And perhaps it isn’t even important to know the exact reason. After all, everyone reads a book through the lens of their own experiences, their own questions and their own hopes. What is a story about humanity for one person may be a story about democracy for another. Yet another might recognise in it the courage that is sometimes needed not simply to stand by and do nothing.

Who is responsible?

For me, writing this book was also a way of passing something on. Not because I believe I have answers to all the questions. But because I have learnt that sometimes you simply have to act. That there are situations in which you shouldn’t spend ages wondering whether you’re responsible. Sometimes it’s enough just to be there. To look. To listen. To intervene. To help.

The fact that these thoughts are now reaching people in such diverse parts of the world means a great deal to me. Leipzig, Erbil, Chicago, New York, Hungary or Thailand – the distances are vast. But perhaps the questions that concern us are surprisingly similar everywhere.

How do we want to live together? What does humanity really mean? How much democracy do we want not only to demand, but also to practise ourselves? And what do we do when we see that something isn’t right?

Perhaps that is precisely where the real journey of this book lies. It doesn’t just travel from one country to another. It carries questions with it. Questions that every reader must answer for themselves.

Whether people read the book because they want more democracy, because they’re interested in humanity and responsibility, or simply because they’re expecting an exciting story, I can’t really know.

There’s only one way to find out: you have to read the book yourself.

And perhaps afterwards you’ll ask yourself the most important question of all: what would I do?

Because for me, one thing remains true: looking the other way is not an option.