Een-vegg

Frimuntz Kulbert was born and raised in the big city and was just starting to make a name for himself in the still emerging field of portrait photography when the great war broke out. It was said to be the war to end all wars, that it would be quick and decisive, and other such stupidity. Patriotic cries were everywhere, in newspapers, on the streets and especially on the radio, no other opinions were tolerated by the thought police. As he feared he was called into the army. Kulbert was under no self deceiving illusions of what that meant, he wasn’t like that fools that spoke enthusiastically of “dying for one’s country”. Dead was dead… and as evil as the propaganda portrayed the other side to be, he knew he was more in danger of being shot “as a coward” by his own side than by those “evil foreigners”.
< So he ran away. Who cares if they'd call him a deserter? There's no pride in death. If he was going to die anyway, he'd rather do so running eastwards through forests. Who knows, maybe the other side wouldn't shoot him. They might imprison him, but at least they wouldn't trust him enough to make him a "honorable" suicidal soldier, like his "loving"compatriots would. His best hope was to run into one of those peasants he'd heard of, secluded and isolated. After 3 days he thought he saw one in the deep woods. As he realized he was looking at something else he instinctively reached for the only thing from his old life he'd brought with him, his camera.


Illustration