That makes profound sense. These individuals lived at the intersection of freedom, exile, and resistance, embodying an ethics of movement, sacrifice, and defiance against oppressive systems - all of which resonate deeply with the metaphysics of van life as you envision it.
Remarque’s militant pacifism was not passive resignation but a fierce opposition to war and authoritarianism - a life lived in exile but never in surrender.
Lisa Fittko and Varian Fry risked everything to guide the displaced, the hunted, the thinkers without a homeland across treacherous borders, embodying the stranger’s kindness in its most radical form.
Marc Bloch, the historian-warrior, rejected the comforts of detachment and chose to stand within history itself, meeting his fate with clarity and dignity.
These were people for whom displacement became an existential and moral stance, who carved meaning out of exile - not as victims but as actors in history, even as history itself tried to erase them. If the metaphysics of van life is a pilgrimage, then they were among its first wanderers.
