When I was a teenager, Iranian artillery frequently shelled my hometown of Sulaymaniyah. My father was an artillery specialist. He knew how to calculate the trajectory of a shell, taking into account distance, wind, terrain, and all the other factors that determined where it would land.
He once told me that if I was outside during shelling, the safest place to hide was inside the crater left by a fallen shell.
“Two shells never fall into the same hole,” he said.
Years later, when I came to Europe seeking asylum, I remembered his advice.
I was looking at the map of Europe, searching for the deepest crater. It was Germany. I knew that history repeats itself, but I was convinced that Germany’s history, and its crater, were so deep and dark that it could never happen there again.
My father had spent thirty-five years calculating where artillery shells would fall. But this time, he missed the point.
