Last evening's concert by habreera hateeveet was fantastic. They started it early -- around 6 pm -- so they could finish before shabbat started. In attendence was the Chief Rabbi of Poland and the Israeli ambassador to Poland. Because I arrived late (one of the drawbacks in changing hotels is that while I am in a nicer neighborhood, it is significantly farther away from Kazimierz), I could only find a seat in the back right corner with a view obstructed by a pillar. In the end, however, it turned out I had one of the better seats in the house. Not because my view improved (I could just make out the head of Shlomo Bar, until one of the many people standing chose the pillar for supportÖ, but because they opened the door right behind me to let in cool air to a building packed to the rafters with people.
The concert was a blast, though it took them a while to warm up. Shlomo kept trying to get them to sing along -- just la, la, las, nothing too complicated -- but many people would not do it at the beginning. In the end, he got everyone on their feet. It was terrific.
On my way out, I grabbed some new brochures from Polish-Jewish organizations. One took severe issue with the March of the Living for concentrating only on five years of death in Poland, while ignoring nine hundred years of life. Many people with whom I have spoken in Poland -- both Jews and non-Jews -- have criticized the March of the Living to me for traveling through Poland in a bubble while ignoring the living people around them. I also have a lot of problem with the politics and theology around the trip, which ties the gas chambers in Poland to the formation of the State of Israel, creating a narrative of death and resurrection. As the brochure notes, there already is a religion that emphasizes death and resurrection and it isn't Judaism.
The other brochure was from Czulent, a Jewish organization in Krakow, describing their various activities and seeking financial support. I'm holding on to both and will try to use them when I put together a course to take students to Eastern Europe next summer.
This morning I managed to sleep until 6:25. After breakfast I headed to the Tempel Synagogue where I heard there were going to be Shabbat services this morning. Although this was a progressive synagogue, it still has a women's gallery. Today it was used by two groups of orthodox Jews -- the first to arrive was an Israeli group made up mostly of Jews of Polish ancestry -- they were later joined by members of a Young Israel synagogue group from Oceanside, New York. When we went in, they had already set up a mechitza in the lower area, even though there was a gallery upstairs (both were used). Altogether, I counted about 51 men in the mens section, and I would guess an equal number of women.
During the services, at least two separate tour groups arrived, watched, and left. This was a little awkward since it is a violation of Jewish rules of the Sabbath to photograph or record, and many in the mixed group ignored the separate seating arrangements for men and women. Not that I'm particularly religious, but I think one should respect the beliefs of the people you are visiting. The second group was particularly intrusive, and one looked like he was carrying a professional video camera with sound equipment. Suddenly we all heard a loud, shattering crash. Everyone turned around to see what had broken. A man with a camera standing nearby the professional had dropped his camera and the lens had shattered and the batteries had popped out. That's about the time that group left.
Afterwards, one of the Young Israel leaders came over to chat with some people behind me who had been sitting right in front of the whole incident. "It was the hand of God," he said. Just at the moment he had intended to take the picture and violate the sabbath, God had struck the camera down (which would also violate the Sabbath, I think, but no one was in a mood to quibble). One of the younger guys joked that soon it would be circulated as a Krakow miracle, and then we would have the real story and the legend.
Afterwards I said goodbye and went back to my hotel to change and get some lunch. I chose a small little back courtyard restaurant off the main square and had some nice wild mushroom soup and peirogies. Three people looked in and asked in English if the food was good. I told them that I really liked the soup (that was the only course that had arrived). They sat down across from me and unburdened themselves.
They were two men and one woman, all in their early sixties from Ireland by way of Birmingham. They were also the worst sort of travelers -- loud, demanding, and unsatisfiable. Their water spoke only a few words of English, and even I don't know the proper way to respond to the question "how much garlic is in the garlic soup? Is it too garlicky?" One of her companions hoped that the onion soup would be the French Onion soup he liked. I told the woman that I really liked the mushroom soup, so she changed her order to that.
When the soup came, however, she announced it was cold and called the water over. "Cold," she said, "this soup is cold." When it became clear that he did not understand, she pointed at the water bottle, and kept repeated "cold, cold." The waiter left and I told her that I think she just ordered a bottle of cold water. She ran to the waiter who was just getting a bottle out of the refrigerator for her, and they managed to find a waitress who spoke a little more English. A few minutes later her soup arrived hot, but her companion was unhappy to find something like an egg at the bottom of his onion soup. "What's that doing in there," she asked, "it just ruins the whole thing." I don't think it ever occured to them that people in Poland might like the soup that way. Thankfully, I left before their main course arrived, so I was spared that.
After lunch I went to tour the Krakow ghetto. Not Kazimierz, but the ghetto established across the river in 1941 by the Nazis. I had seen footage of the forced relocation of the remaining sixteen thousand Jews (over two-thirds had already been deported to other parts of Poland) into this small area of only 321 houses. Two small sections of the ghetto wall survived. The wall was shaped with half domes arcs running the length of the way, designed to resemble tombstones. Many of the ghetto structures survived and, as in Lodz, it remains a rather poor area of town to this day.
While I was walking I ran into the Israeli group. They were in the main ghetto square, which has an unusual memorial in it. Dispersed throughout the square are a series of slightly, larger-than-life chairs. At one end stands a small metal structure, the interior of which vaguely resembled a cattle car. On the outside were the dates 1941 and 1943, the years in which the ghetto stood there. At the other end of the square was the pharmacy. This structure was the only non-Jewish building in the ghetto. The pharmacist refused German entreaties to leave the ghetto and finally won permission to stay and provide free medical aid to the ghetto residents to prevent plague. He and his assistants also hid Jews during the periodic liquidations of part of the ghetto, and smuggled in food and supplies. After the war, the communist authorities seized the building from him but allowed him to work in it. In the sixties, they closed the building and made it into a bar, but in the eighties it was turned into a museum.
From there I took the tram to Plaszow, where the remaining Jews from the Krakow ghetto were marched in 1943, when the entire ghetto was finally liquidated. Two of my grandmother's cousins were sent to camps, one of them to Plaszow. When it was liquidated, he found his brother in Auschwitz and the two of them survived to liberation.
Plaszow was built on top of a Jewish cemetery, and there's supposed to be one tombstone that survived but I could not find it. After wandering about through the unmarked paths, I found a large cross, which was an execution site, and then the main memorial for the camp, put up by the communist authorities in 1964. On one side it consists of 6 abstracted human forms, standing up, but their heads weighed down with suffering and exhaustion. On the other is a brief text in Polish referencing the victims of Hitlerism.
Nearby, however, were two newer monuments. One is a small plaque, put up by the Hungarian Jewish community six years ago referring to Hungarian Jewish women who were transferred to the camp in 1944 before being sent to Auschwitz to be gassed. The other is a newer, but undated memorial, put up by the Jewish community of Krakow. It is a very angry text, with as much anger directed against the generic communist monument as against the Germans. The side you first see is in Polish, with a Hebrew version on the reverse. Here is a translation: "Here on this site, several thousand Jews were brought from Poland and Hungary, and were tortured, murdered and burnt, between 1943 and 1945. We do not know their names. We shall name them with one word: JEWS. The human tongue lacks the words to describe the depth of this atrocity. Its incredible bestiality, ruthlessness, and cruelty. We shall name it with one word: HITLERISM. To commemorate the murdered, whoe last cry of despair is the silence of this Plaszow cemetery -- we pay homage, we, the survivors of this fascist pogrom -- the Jews."
After that I walked back to the main road where I found the house of camp commandant Amnon Goeth still standing, though with only a small degree of renovation. It is currently occupied, though I can't imagine living in the house of someone who used to use prisoners for target practice from the balcony.
In a few minutes I'm going to head off to the final concert of the Jewish Cultural Festival. Tonight is the big deal, where some twenty thousand people show up, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. Then tomorrow I head to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
E Unum, Pluribus (July 7)
I discovered today that part of my problem in getting a handle on Krakow is that it really is several quite distinct cities, rather than one large one. That's not all that unusual really -- most cities have different neighborhoods -- but in this case, I really needed to step back and see the mosaic.
First off is the Stare Miasto, the old city of Krakow. This is the area around the gigantic central square and represents the medieval heart of the city. Surrounding it is the "Planty," a large public park that forms a green belt where the defensive walls of the city used to stand. Inside this area, the streets are often pedestrianized, the houses are 3-4 stories tall, and most of the buildings have a 17th-18th century exterior.
Kazimierz, on the other hand, is the former Jewish neighborhood of Krakow. Established outside the walls, it became the primary neighborhood after Jews were expelled from the city of Krakow during the Renaissance (in other words, I'm not sure of the exact date). The Nazis expelled the Jews from Kazimierz in 1941, forcing them to relocated across the river to the ghetto at Podgorze. When the ghetto was liquidated in March 1943, those not slated for extermination were marched to Plaszow Labor Camp, built a short distance away on top of a Jewish cemetery.
Kazimierz has been the center of efforts to identify, preserve, and restore Jewish sites in Krakow. Virtually all of the surviving synagogues have been restored, some quite beautifully. Some now serve as museums for the history of Jews in Krakow. Yiddish signs and displays (very few survived) have been preserved. Jewish-themed restaurants have opened (though I find them a tad kitsch) and this is also the center for the annual Jewish cultural festival, which will have its climactic conclusion tomorrow night with a marathon free concert in the plaza on Ulica Szeroka, opposite the Stara Synagogue. Other than the synagogues, most of the buildings in this area are 19th century, and many have peeling walls, and show the impact of decades of air pollution.
My old hotel was between these two neighborhoods, about a block to the southeast of the Planty in the direction of Kazimierz. Its sidewalks were narrow, there were few trees, and the buildings rose 5-6 stories above the pavement. I very much enjoyed getting out of this neighborhood and heading to the open, green countryside.
Today, however, I changed hotels. My new hotel is not as nice as the old one, in terms of what it provides: no airconditioning, a sink big enough only to wash one shirt or two socks but not all three at once, no English or German-language stations on the tv. But what it does have is a much more comfortable neighborhood. Like my old hotel, I'm just half a block from the Planty, but now I'm on the west side, adjacent to Jagellonian University (the hotel is a guest house that normally serves faculty visiting the university). The sidewalks are wider, there are trees, the houses are not as tall, and many are set back a bit from the street with some trees and grass. It just feels more airy and light.
As a result, for the first time I really enjoyed being in the Stare Miasto. I walked to the Planty and this time felt like strolling through it. It wasn't as crowded as the other side and it just felt more comfortable and inviting. I spent the afternoon visiting museums in the old city. I started off with the upstairs in the Cloth Hall in the center of the Rynek. This is a museum dedicated to 19th century Polish art and there were some fun pieces there. Many of them are more noteworthy for their political significance that their artistic merit (e.g., The Homage of Prussia -- http://www.krakow-info.com/images/hold1.jpg -- depicted the scene when Albert of Hohenzollern, the last master of the Teutonic knights and later founder of the kingdom of Prussia, swore vassal homage to the Polish crown (a pointed reference to Prussia's violation of that oath in the 18th century by the partion of Poland). Another painting, by Chemonski, puts the viewer in the position of being about to be run over by a cart driven by four galloping horses: http://www.pilsudski.org/images/Pictures/Chelmonski-Czworka.jpg (but much more intense in person).
After that I walked across the square to see the high alter in the Kosciol Mariacki. Carved in the 15th century, the panels are only opened once a day. If you want to see a picture, go to http://chall.ifj.edu.pl/~cieslik/week/pic/Stwosz.jpg
I couldn't help but be struck by the radical difference in decorations between the cathedral and the various Polish synagogues that I've visited over the last two weeks. Its not that the synagogues didn't have decorations, or even elaborate carvings and images. It's that the general style of Polish synagogues was to decorate them to look like illuminated manuscripts. The walls were covered in texts, adorned with plants, animals, zodiac signs, leviathans, landscapes, etc., but it was the texts that were central. By contrast, there's very little writing in the cathedrals, instead you have an unending series of religious stories told through images and tableaux.
After lunch I went to he Wyspianski Museum. Stanislaw Wyspianski was one of the leading figures in the "young Poland" are movement during the fin-de-siecle. Bearing some similarities in motivation to art nouveau and the arts and crafts movement, Wyspianski did drawings, stained glass, furniture, and ornamentation. Quite interesting, actually. Then I went to the Czartoryski Museum a few blocks away. This contains the private collection of a Polish aristocratic family, and their prize possession is Leonoard da Vinci's Lady With an Ermine. It occupies a room by itself (except for a photo of the other prize possession, Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, which was stolen by the Nazis and never recovered). Had this painting been in the Louvre, I would have had to fight crowds of people struggling to see it; here, I stood in the room all by myself and could look at it to my hearts content with no one to bother me or snap flash shots in violation of the museum rules. To see what it looks like, go to: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/ermine.jpg
After that, I strolled back down to the Rynek and finally saw the "klezmer cruise" -- a free half hour concert as part of the Jewish Cultural Festival. A French klezmer group performed some numbers, while most of us watching hid under an arch in the shade to listen. Then I had a nice ice cream sundae, with fresh strawberries and strawberry and raspberry ice creams (and jello!). Tonight I'm going to see Ha-breera ha-teeveet in concert. I last saw them at the Jerusalem Theater for their Israeli Independence Day concert in 1999. They combine musical influences from North Africa, Iran, India, Spain and Eastern Europe. I really like them and this is the concert I've most looked forward to.
First off is the Stare Miasto, the old city of Krakow. This is the area around the gigantic central square and represents the medieval heart of the city. Surrounding it is the "Planty," a large public park that forms a green belt where the defensive walls of the city used to stand. Inside this area, the streets are often pedestrianized, the houses are 3-4 stories tall, and most of the buildings have a 17th-18th century exterior.
Kazimierz, on the other hand, is the former Jewish neighborhood of Krakow. Established outside the walls, it became the primary neighborhood after Jews were expelled from the city of Krakow during the Renaissance (in other words, I'm not sure of the exact date). The Nazis expelled the Jews from Kazimierz in 1941, forcing them to relocated across the river to the ghetto at Podgorze. When the ghetto was liquidated in March 1943, those not slated for extermination were marched to Plaszow Labor Camp, built a short distance away on top of a Jewish cemetery.
Kazimierz has been the center of efforts to identify, preserve, and restore Jewish sites in Krakow. Virtually all of the surviving synagogues have been restored, some quite beautifully. Some now serve as museums for the history of Jews in Krakow. Yiddish signs and displays (very few survived) have been preserved. Jewish-themed restaurants have opened (though I find them a tad kitsch) and this is also the center for the annual Jewish cultural festival, which will have its climactic conclusion tomorrow night with a marathon free concert in the plaza on Ulica Szeroka, opposite the Stara Synagogue. Other than the synagogues, most of the buildings in this area are 19th century, and many have peeling walls, and show the impact of decades of air pollution.
My old hotel was between these two neighborhoods, about a block to the southeast of the Planty in the direction of Kazimierz. Its sidewalks were narrow, there were few trees, and the buildings rose 5-6 stories above the pavement. I very much enjoyed getting out of this neighborhood and heading to the open, green countryside.
Today, however, I changed hotels. My new hotel is not as nice as the old one, in terms of what it provides: no airconditioning, a sink big enough only to wash one shirt or two socks but not all three at once, no English or German-language stations on the tv. But what it does have is a much more comfortable neighborhood. Like my old hotel, I'm just half a block from the Planty, but now I'm on the west side, adjacent to Jagellonian University (the hotel is a guest house that normally serves faculty visiting the university). The sidewalks are wider, there are trees, the houses are not as tall, and many are set back a bit from the street with some trees and grass. It just feels more airy and light.
As a result, for the first time I really enjoyed being in the Stare Miasto. I walked to the Planty and this time felt like strolling through it. It wasn't as crowded as the other side and it just felt more comfortable and inviting. I spent the afternoon visiting museums in the old city. I started off with the upstairs in the Cloth Hall in the center of the Rynek. This is a museum dedicated to 19th century Polish art and there were some fun pieces there. Many of them are more noteworthy for their political significance that their artistic merit (e.g., The Homage of Prussia -- http://www.krakow-info.com/images/hold1.jpg -- depicted the scene when Albert of Hohenzollern, the last master of the Teutonic knights and later founder of the kingdom of Prussia, swore vassal homage to the Polish crown (a pointed reference to Prussia's violation of that oath in the 18th century by the partion of Poland). Another painting, by Chemonski, puts the viewer in the position of being about to be run over by a cart driven by four galloping horses: http://www.pilsudski.org/images/Pictures/Chelmonski-Czworka.jpg (but much more intense in person).
After that I walked across the square to see the high alter in the Kosciol Mariacki. Carved in the 15th century, the panels are only opened once a day. If you want to see a picture, go to http://chall.ifj.edu.pl/~cieslik/week/pic/Stwosz.jpg
I couldn't help but be struck by the radical difference in decorations between the cathedral and the various Polish synagogues that I've visited over the last two weeks. Its not that the synagogues didn't have decorations, or even elaborate carvings and images. It's that the general style of Polish synagogues was to decorate them to look like illuminated manuscripts. The walls were covered in texts, adorned with plants, animals, zodiac signs, leviathans, landscapes, etc., but it was the texts that were central. By contrast, there's very little writing in the cathedrals, instead you have an unending series of religious stories told through images and tableaux.
After lunch I went to he Wyspianski Museum. Stanislaw Wyspianski was one of the leading figures in the "young Poland" are movement during the fin-de-siecle. Bearing some similarities in motivation to art nouveau and the arts and crafts movement, Wyspianski did drawings, stained glass, furniture, and ornamentation. Quite interesting, actually. Then I went to the Czartoryski Museum a few blocks away. This contains the private collection of a Polish aristocratic family, and their prize possession is Leonoard da Vinci's Lady With an Ermine. It occupies a room by itself (except for a photo of the other prize possession, Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, which was stolen by the Nazis and never recovered). Had this painting been in the Louvre, I would have had to fight crowds of people struggling to see it; here, I stood in the room all by myself and could look at it to my hearts content with no one to bother me or snap flash shots in violation of the museum rules. To see what it looks like, go to: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/ermine.jpg
After that, I strolled back down to the Rynek and finally saw the "klezmer cruise" -- a free half hour concert as part of the Jewish Cultural Festival. A French klezmer group performed some numbers, while most of us watching hid under an arch in the shade to listen. Then I had a nice ice cream sundae, with fresh strawberries and strawberry and raspberry ice creams (and jello!). Tonight I'm going to see Ha-breera ha-teeveet in concert. I last saw them at the Jerusalem Theater for their Israeli Independence Day concert in 1999. They combine musical influences from North Africa, Iran, India, Spain and Eastern Europe. I really like them and this is the concert I've most looked forward to.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Lopuszna (July 6)
Today was my day for visiting some Jewish and family-related sites in the mountains south of Krakow. After another very nice breakfast (with some tasty fresh strawberries on my cereal), I caught an express bus for the two-hour drive south to Nowy Targ.
Nowy Targ is the regional capital of the area known as Podhale, which encompasses the hills and mountain area of southern Poland. The views from the town are beautiful: the High Tatras hazily visible to the south, with the sunlight glistening off the view remaining spots of snow; and the Gorce, a range of wooded hills, running immediately to the north. Nowy Targ itself, however, is utterly forgettable and really does not have much to see. I came today because Thursday has been the market day in Nowy Targ for hundreds of years. Back when there were 1000 Jews living in town, this was a major day for Jewish traders to buy and sell goods from peasant farmers, who would bring in their goods in horse-drawn carts. Today the market area is a vast expanse of tin-roofed stalls, where the sellers show up with pick-up trucks.
In some ways, it reminded me a bit of the Polish-Ukrainian market in Przemysl, but this was at least twice as large. There was a lot less farm-related merchandise than I expected, much more finished goods. The first area I came to was the pet market. Sellers stood in the intersection of two large lanes with cardboard boxes full of mostly puppies (though I saw one woman selling kittens). I can only hope that these were not the products of the sort of pupply mills that dominate the U.S. pet market.
From there I passed people selling everything from cheese, candy, dried wild mushrooms on strings, shoes, music (the Polish version of shuk music). Eventually I did reach the stock section where there were a very few horse traders, and one or two cows. I took a picture of the only horse-drawn cart I saw and a 10 year-old boy started yelling at me. God, flashback to Bialystok. I don't know what he was saying, but I just high-tailed it out of there and lost myself in the crowds. I circled around and found the pig market, where there were three pick-up trucks with young pigs in the back. I asked a farmer if I could snap a shot and he let me.
From there I decided to make my way to the Jewish cemetery in Nowy Targ. It was a 15 minute walk (though I took a break is a small roadside cafe for some water). The cemetery was fenced in and the gate padlocked, but the fence was quite low and I had no problem jumping over it. Right in front was a monument to the murdered Jews of Nowy Targ and the surrounding region, erected in 1990 by the Israeli survivors of the Podhale region (the Nazis established a ghetto in Nowy Targ, where 2-3000 Jews from the town and surrounding villages were crammed into a few square blocks). Behind it was a large raised concrete square with a Jewish star pattern on top and a commemorative plaque. I believe this is where the Germans shot several hundred elderly Jews along with the head of the Jewish council when they liquidated the ghetto in 1942. Those like my great-grandmother, who were not shot in the cemetery, were put on trains to Belzec.
I looked around for tombstones of family members, but only a handful survived. Those have been set up right (except for one Mendel, whose headstone is on its side next to the gate). It looks as if the cemetery has been cleaned and weeded, and I noticed relatively fresh flowers and a memorial candle by the mass grave. I put a stone on it and said kaddish. Then I leapt over the wall and walked back to town.
On my way, I tried to keep an eye out for Nowy Targ's synagogue. I knew there was one that had survived the war, but didn't know the address. About a block from the Rynek, I noticed a three-story building with arched, bricked-in windows. The front, the building was surrounded on all sides by a new structure that formed the Kino Tatry (the Tatry cinema). Just across and down away from the cinema, I found the town's memorial to the Second World War. It contained a meter-wide brick wall, and a Polish text identifying it as a memorial to the victims of Hitler's terror during the years 1939-1945.
There was a city museum in the Rynek, so I went in hoping to find out more information on Nowy Targ, and maybe ask if anyone knew where the synagogue was. The museum, however, turned out to be postcards pictures of Nowy Targ from the 19th and 20th centuries. Although a few were sold by Jewish-owned stores (I recognized two names from the remaining tombstones in the cemetery), there was nothing on the history of the town or of the town's Jews. I asked the people who worked there if any of them spoke English or German. One man spoke a little German so I asked him about the synagogue. He translated and the woman showed me that one of the postcards, you could just make out the top of the synagogue in the background. I asked if it was now the cinema, and she said yes (the arched windows were on the East wall where presumably the ark was located).
She then told me that there was another building a few blocks away. I never could figure out what sort of building it was, she used the term "dom budnik" or "dom budynik" but I don't know what that means, and my German translator didn't know how to translate it. I walked down to it, but it didn't look like anything. I suspect it's one of the two batei midrash that survived the war.
By that point, I was pretty much done with Nowy Targ. I headed back to the bus station to catch the noon bus to Lopuszna. The "L" in the city's name is one of those Polish "L"s with a line crossing the middle, meaning it's sort of pronounced like an English "W." That means the name of this small town is pronounced "woh-PUSH-na." When I asked the bus driver for a ticket to there, he gave me a funny look, like "why are you going there?"
After the bus passed the market and crossed the bridge over the Czarny Dunajec river, we were quickly back in the Polish countryside. As we passed small rural village after small rural village, I began (not for the first time on this trip) to question my hubris is thinking that just because I can read some lines someone drew on a map, some numbers on a bus schedule posted last year, and a dim memory of seeing an article posted on the internet 4 years ago about a museum in Lopuszna, I could just go there, equipped with nothing more than some colored pieces of paper that people treated as currency, and a guide book that said nothing about the place.
The bus dropped me off at the entrance to the village and I started walking through the fields. After a few minutes, I made out the museum. This is part of a series of museums throughout Podhale designed to preserve and teach about the unique culture and history of this region. This museum was the 18th-19th century manor house of the town. I had another reason, however, that explained my visit: my great-grandmother's grandfather lived and worked in Lopuszna in the middle of the 19th century. While the story passed down to his children was that he managed forests in the region for the Austro-Hungariarn emperor (not empire, mind you, but the emperor himself), I've always felt this was more than a tad exaggerated. Most likely he worked for the owner of the local manor (who, in turn, owed his title and position in part to the empire)
The museum has restored the manor house, though the main rooms are used as an art gallery, but you can also see the original kitchen. More interesting for me, however, was the 19th-century cottage near by. This cottage (not owned by my great-great-great grandfather either, by the way), was much more like the kind of place he would have lived in. In had three rooms: a short entry way, a basic kitchen, and then a large dining room/bedroom. The cottage was restored in period furnishings and was really interesting. After checking with the docent, I completely ignored the signs saying no photographs.
There were three other people there with me and as we were leaving, one of them asked how I had heard about the museum. It turns out they were tour guides from Krakow doing some background research and were extremely surprised that I as an American had ever even heard of the museum, let alone decided to visit it. I explained about my family connection and how I had read about it on the internet. Actually, Lopuszna played a rather significant role in my grandmother's life, since it was her parent's decision in 1909 to take her back to Poland to meet the grandparents that led to their decision not to return to America.
After that short visit, I decided to catch the 1pm bus back to Nowy Targ. Unfortunately it didn't show up, leaving me wondering how out of date the old, faded schedule was. Thankfully, another bus showed up 15 minutes later and I was able to get back to Nowy Targ and from catch a bus back to Krakow. I wanted to get back by 5pm, because they were having a public reception for the new museum of the history of Polish Jews, planned for Warsaw. The reception included a computer animated video on what the museum will look like, and the speakers included the leading historical advisor, the architect, and the principle donor.
The museum is bisected by a curving, jagged line, that to me looked like a break, a cataclysmic split, similar to the large crack that forms the gateway to the cemetery at Kazimierz Dolny. I asked the historian Michael Berkowicz about it and he said that the architect, who is Finnish, had seen it as a parting of the Red Sea, as a rupture. I replied that to me, the parting of the Red Sea implies a path to salvation, not rupture, and asked him if he intended to refer to the Jewish legend of how Poland got its name (a group of wandering Jews found a piece paper that had fallen from heaven reading "po lin" -- rest here). He said that the architect was outside the Jewish tradition and therefore really unaware of many of these associations, but that this was the beauty of architecture in that it is the audience who projects meaning onto the building, rather than the other way around.
We chatted for a bit and he mentioned that he was raised in Wroclaw after the war, was taught yiddish, attended Jewish schools, and Jewish summer camps, all in Poland up to the 1960s. This was a Poland, he said, that no one ever talks about. I told him that I very much agreed with him, and didn't like the March of the Living, which isolates its participants from contemporary Poland, and instead seems to be more interesting in protesting (though I'm not sure who the target audience is). Berkowicz completely agreed with me and said that it's all about politics. I said that I really disliked the theology, which presents the holocaust as the sacrifice and the state of Israel as the redemption. He nodded strenously.
I mentioned that I would like to bring students to Poland next summer and that it was important for me that they meet with Polish Jews and Christians, not travel around in a bubble. He said, well, there's someone here you should really meet then. He brought me to Andrzej Folwarczny who runs a program called "Forum for Dialogue Among Nations." This group brings together American students with Polish students as a way of opening up discussion. We all exchanged cards and I said I would get in touch when I got back to the States.
After that I rushed over to the Tempel Synagogue for the first of this evening's concerts. It was Midnight Minyan, featuring Paul Shapiro. Like the Andy Stetman Trio, this wasn't really a klezmer concert but rather a jazz concert using Jewish melodic riffs. Shapiro's music was much more energetic and active, however. Many of his melodies began as traditional Jewish tunes, e.g., the Kiddish, Lecha Dodi, etc., but were given contemporary jazz arrangements. His final number was a roaring 1930s swing tune. It was a lot of fun.
Tomorrow night I'm going to see another non-klezmer group: ha-breera ha-teeveet. Originally I planned to go to Auschwitz during the day, but I have to change hotels in the morning and I don't want to have to rush back to make the 6 pm concert. I think I'm going to hit the art museums in the morning and go to Auschwitz on Sunday (I'm also hoping the weather on Sunday will be a bit cooler).
Nowy Targ is the regional capital of the area known as Podhale, which encompasses the hills and mountain area of southern Poland. The views from the town are beautiful: the High Tatras hazily visible to the south, with the sunlight glistening off the view remaining spots of snow; and the Gorce, a range of wooded hills, running immediately to the north. Nowy Targ itself, however, is utterly forgettable and really does not have much to see. I came today because Thursday has been the market day in Nowy Targ for hundreds of years. Back when there were 1000 Jews living in town, this was a major day for Jewish traders to buy and sell goods from peasant farmers, who would bring in their goods in horse-drawn carts. Today the market area is a vast expanse of tin-roofed stalls, where the sellers show up with pick-up trucks.
In some ways, it reminded me a bit of the Polish-Ukrainian market in Przemysl, but this was at least twice as large. There was a lot less farm-related merchandise than I expected, much more finished goods. The first area I came to was the pet market. Sellers stood in the intersection of two large lanes with cardboard boxes full of mostly puppies (though I saw one woman selling kittens). I can only hope that these were not the products of the sort of pupply mills that dominate the U.S. pet market.
From there I passed people selling everything from cheese, candy, dried wild mushrooms on strings, shoes, music (the Polish version of shuk music). Eventually I did reach the stock section where there were a very few horse traders, and one or two cows. I took a picture of the only horse-drawn cart I saw and a 10 year-old boy started yelling at me. God, flashback to Bialystok. I don't know what he was saying, but I just high-tailed it out of there and lost myself in the crowds. I circled around and found the pig market, where there were three pick-up trucks with young pigs in the back. I asked a farmer if I could snap a shot and he let me.
From there I decided to make my way to the Jewish cemetery in Nowy Targ. It was a 15 minute walk (though I took a break is a small roadside cafe for some water). The cemetery was fenced in and the gate padlocked, but the fence was quite low and I had no problem jumping over it. Right in front was a monument to the murdered Jews of Nowy Targ and the surrounding region, erected in 1990 by the Israeli survivors of the Podhale region (the Nazis established a ghetto in Nowy Targ, where 2-3000 Jews from the town and surrounding villages were crammed into a few square blocks). Behind it was a large raised concrete square with a Jewish star pattern on top and a commemorative plaque. I believe this is where the Germans shot several hundred elderly Jews along with the head of the Jewish council when they liquidated the ghetto in 1942. Those like my great-grandmother, who were not shot in the cemetery, were put on trains to Belzec.
I looked around for tombstones of family members, but only a handful survived. Those have been set up right (except for one Mendel, whose headstone is on its side next to the gate). It looks as if the cemetery has been cleaned and weeded, and I noticed relatively fresh flowers and a memorial candle by the mass grave. I put a stone on it and said kaddish. Then I leapt over the wall and walked back to town.
On my way, I tried to keep an eye out for Nowy Targ's synagogue. I knew there was one that had survived the war, but didn't know the address. About a block from the Rynek, I noticed a three-story building with arched, bricked-in windows. The front, the building was surrounded on all sides by a new structure that formed the Kino Tatry (the Tatry cinema). Just across and down away from the cinema, I found the town's memorial to the Second World War. It contained a meter-wide brick wall, and a Polish text identifying it as a memorial to the victims of Hitler's terror during the years 1939-1945.
There was a city museum in the Rynek, so I went in hoping to find out more information on Nowy Targ, and maybe ask if anyone knew where the synagogue was. The museum, however, turned out to be postcards pictures of Nowy Targ from the 19th and 20th centuries. Although a few were sold by Jewish-owned stores (I recognized two names from the remaining tombstones in the cemetery), there was nothing on the history of the town or of the town's Jews. I asked the people who worked there if any of them spoke English or German. One man spoke a little German so I asked him about the synagogue. He translated and the woman showed me that one of the postcards, you could just make out the top of the synagogue in the background. I asked if it was now the cinema, and she said yes (the arched windows were on the East wall where presumably the ark was located).
She then told me that there was another building a few blocks away. I never could figure out what sort of building it was, she used the term "dom budnik" or "dom budynik" but I don't know what that means, and my German translator didn't know how to translate it. I walked down to it, but it didn't look like anything. I suspect it's one of the two batei midrash that survived the war.
By that point, I was pretty much done with Nowy Targ. I headed back to the bus station to catch the noon bus to Lopuszna. The "L" in the city's name is one of those Polish "L"s with a line crossing the middle, meaning it's sort of pronounced like an English "W." That means the name of this small town is pronounced "woh-PUSH-na." When I asked the bus driver for a ticket to there, he gave me a funny look, like "why are you going there?"
After the bus passed the market and crossed the bridge over the Czarny Dunajec river, we were quickly back in the Polish countryside. As we passed small rural village after small rural village, I began (not for the first time on this trip) to question my hubris is thinking that just because I can read some lines someone drew on a map, some numbers on a bus schedule posted last year, and a dim memory of seeing an article posted on the internet 4 years ago about a museum in Lopuszna, I could just go there, equipped with nothing more than some colored pieces of paper that people treated as currency, and a guide book that said nothing about the place.
The bus dropped me off at the entrance to the village and I started walking through the fields. After a few minutes, I made out the museum. This is part of a series of museums throughout Podhale designed to preserve and teach about the unique culture and history of this region. This museum was the 18th-19th century manor house of the town. I had another reason, however, that explained my visit: my great-grandmother's grandfather lived and worked in Lopuszna in the middle of the 19th century. While the story passed down to his children was that he managed forests in the region for the Austro-Hungariarn emperor (not empire, mind you, but the emperor himself), I've always felt this was more than a tad exaggerated. Most likely he worked for the owner of the local manor (who, in turn, owed his title and position in part to the empire)
The museum has restored the manor house, though the main rooms are used as an art gallery, but you can also see the original kitchen. More interesting for me, however, was the 19th-century cottage near by. This cottage (not owned by my great-great-great grandfather either, by the way), was much more like the kind of place he would have lived in. In had three rooms: a short entry way, a basic kitchen, and then a large dining room/bedroom. The cottage was restored in period furnishings and was really interesting. After checking with the docent, I completely ignored the signs saying no photographs.
There were three other people there with me and as we were leaving, one of them asked how I had heard about the museum. It turns out they were tour guides from Krakow doing some background research and were extremely surprised that I as an American had ever even heard of the museum, let alone decided to visit it. I explained about my family connection and how I had read about it on the internet. Actually, Lopuszna played a rather significant role in my grandmother's life, since it was her parent's decision in 1909 to take her back to Poland to meet the grandparents that led to their decision not to return to America.
After that short visit, I decided to catch the 1pm bus back to Nowy Targ. Unfortunately it didn't show up, leaving me wondering how out of date the old, faded schedule was. Thankfully, another bus showed up 15 minutes later and I was able to get back to Nowy Targ and from catch a bus back to Krakow. I wanted to get back by 5pm, because they were having a public reception for the new museum of the history of Polish Jews, planned for Warsaw. The reception included a computer animated video on what the museum will look like, and the speakers included the leading historical advisor, the architect, and the principle donor.
The museum is bisected by a curving, jagged line, that to me looked like a break, a cataclysmic split, similar to the large crack that forms the gateway to the cemetery at Kazimierz Dolny. I asked the historian Michael Berkowicz about it and he said that the architect, who is Finnish, had seen it as a parting of the Red Sea, as a rupture. I replied that to me, the parting of the Red Sea implies a path to salvation, not rupture, and asked him if he intended to refer to the Jewish legend of how Poland got its name (a group of wandering Jews found a piece paper that had fallen from heaven reading "po lin" -- rest here). He said that the architect was outside the Jewish tradition and therefore really unaware of many of these associations, but that this was the beauty of architecture in that it is the audience who projects meaning onto the building, rather than the other way around.
We chatted for a bit and he mentioned that he was raised in Wroclaw after the war, was taught yiddish, attended Jewish schools, and Jewish summer camps, all in Poland up to the 1960s. This was a Poland, he said, that no one ever talks about. I told him that I very much agreed with him, and didn't like the March of the Living, which isolates its participants from contemporary Poland, and instead seems to be more interesting in protesting (though I'm not sure who the target audience is). Berkowicz completely agreed with me and said that it's all about politics. I said that I really disliked the theology, which presents the holocaust as the sacrifice and the state of Israel as the redemption. He nodded strenously.
I mentioned that I would like to bring students to Poland next summer and that it was important for me that they meet with Polish Jews and Christians, not travel around in a bubble. He said, well, there's someone here you should really meet then. He brought me to Andrzej Folwarczny who runs a program called "Forum for Dialogue Among Nations." This group brings together American students with Polish students as a way of opening up discussion. We all exchanged cards and I said I would get in touch when I got back to the States.
After that I rushed over to the Tempel Synagogue for the first of this evening's concerts. It was Midnight Minyan, featuring Paul Shapiro. Like the Andy Stetman Trio, this wasn't really a klezmer concert but rather a jazz concert using Jewish melodic riffs. Shapiro's music was much more energetic and active, however. Many of his melodies began as traditional Jewish tunes, e.g., the Kiddish, Lecha Dodi, etc., but were given contemporary jazz arrangements. His final number was a roaring 1930s swing tune. It was a lot of fun.
Tomorrow night I'm going to see another non-klezmer group: ha-breera ha-teeveet. Originally I planned to go to Auschwitz during the day, but I have to change hotels in the morning and I don't want to have to rush back to make the 6 pm concert. I think I'm going to hit the art museums in the morning and go to Auschwitz on Sunday (I'm also hoping the weather on Sunday will be a bit cooler).
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Not Jumping to Conclusions (July 5)
I'm having a hard time figuring out how I feel about Krakow. I think I need to avoid jumping to conclusions and just absorb experiences until I have enough time to sort things out.
Last night I bumped into two of my board members, Gerda and Harold, here in Krakow (actually, we had talked ahead of time, so I knew they were going to be here). Gerda has a little mobile scooter that she uses to get around the Polish streets, so I still don't know how she deals with all the ubiquitous stairs. We talked briefly last night about Przemysl, and they told me that the cemetery has been partially restored there, but entirely through the activities of Jews outside Poland.
Afterwards, I went to a klezmer concert that was part of the festival. It was held in the Tempel Synagogue, which has just been beautifully restored, in part with money from the Ronald Lauder foundation. It reminded me, in its golden arabesques and domed aron-hakodeh, of the much larger and grander synagogue in Budapest. It's one of the central locations for the concerts, which caused me a little difficulty when I went back today to photograph the interior, but was told that it was closed for sound checks for tonight's concerts.
I heard the Andy Stetman Trio. He's a hasid from Brooklyn, who combines both klezmer and blue grass with jazz. Unlike the earlier concert (the tail end of which I could hear from outside), they didn't have the people dancing in the aisles. It was more contemplative. I really enjoyed it.
The only problem is that the 10 pm concerts let out at midnight (after the trams stop). While it's only a 15 minute walk back to the hotel, give the sheer curtains, I was up at 6 am this morning, with less than 6 hours of sleep. That's left me feeling a bit "punchy" today.
Nonetheless, I had a very nice breakfast at the hotel. They have a nice spread, designed to appeal to various demographic groups: they have the frankfurters, meats, and cheeses that Poles and Germans like; they had the cereal, milk, and yoghurt Americans like; they had the bread, butter and jam the French like; and they had cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, and bell peppers that Israelis like. I had a little of each.
Afterwards, I went back to the central bus station to plan out my trip tomorrow to Nowy Targ and then I headed to Wawel Castle. This is original capital of Poland, and the place where Polish kings were crowned, and for many years, lived. To visit parts of the castle, you must be individual separate tickets. Having read that the treasury was repeatedly robbed by Austrian, Russian, and German forces, I decided to skip it. Instead, I bought tickets to the Royal State Apartments, the Private Royal Apartments, the Gallery of Asian Art, and the so-called "Lost" Wawel. The private apartments were beautiful, with many of the 16th century Belgian tapestries preserved. A very nice collection of renaissance paintings was donated to the castle to replace pieces stolen by the Nazis and never recovered.
I then toured the State Apartments, which were also quite interesting, particularly, the audience room with thirty carved wooden heads of individual renaissance Krakovians portruding from the ceiling (there used to be 200 but the rest did not survive). On my way down, I saw the entry way to the Oriental Art wing and went in. It turned out to be three small rooms. The first just had some paintings depicting the great Polish victory over the Turks in 1683, when King Jan Sobienski III saved Vienna (I think the Poles would have been better off to let the Turks take the city). The next long room is of flags, carpets, and weapons the Poles captured from the Turks during the battle. The final room is a collection of Japanese ceramics. I began to feel that the tourist board was taking advantage of me by making me buy a separate ticket just for this short exhibit.
I grabbed a tuna sandwich and some water for lunch, and overheard two tour guides swapping horror stories, and I had to laugh. One told me how he was guiding a tour group of American students and teachers when a teacher came to his room at 10pm with a student in agony. "She only has one kidney," the teacher said, "and it's failing. We need to go to the hospital." In the hospital the student complained of pain on both sides, despite only having one kidney. By the morning, the teacher told him she hoped the hospital maxxed out the student's credit card, as she had Baron Munchhausen syndrome. The doctor proclaimed a miracle: she had arrived at the hospital with only one failing kidney, but she was leaving with two healthy ones.
After the snack I went to the "lost" Wawel exhibition, which turned out to be a short walk through some excavations of medieval structures, with none of it signed in English, followed by a short computer animated film in Polish, showing the medieval structure. I left again feeling a bit ripped off.
I left the castle and strolled to the main square. The rynek in Krakow has to be the largest public square I've ever seen. Bisected by the renaissance cloth house, it looks like two large public squares. I bought yesterday's International Herald Tribune and had an ice cream sundae in a cafe on the square under an umbrella. Very nice.
Then I headed to the Museum of the City of Krakow. Very similar in its structure to the corresponding museum in Warsaw. The history of the city is presented as the history of the politicians and wars that shaped it. When prominent cultural figures appear, they are figures from high status institutions, such as the church or Jagellonian University. It goes without saying, therefore, that Jews were barely present. In a painting of a funeral in Kazimierz, three Jews can be seen in the background off to the side. Later, I saw three Jews as members of the 19th century town council.
But the problem is that while Krakow housed some of the most important figures in European Jewish history, they are not seen as "high" culture or as part of Krakow's history. The museum exhibit only goes up until the 1920s, which I found odd, so there are no discussions of the Holocaust or the aftermath in Krakow. I'm certain this exhibit was put together decades ago, and the city has certainly tried to include Jews and Jewish history in other exhibitions (the books of which were for sale in the shop), but I would be happier if they were directly integrated into the city's official history.
After walking downstairs, I noticed what was a continuation of the museum. I entered and a woman asked for my ticket. I got out my ticket, but she said, no, that's for the museum upstairs, you have to buy a separate museum for the downstairs. I had had enough of that and left.
I headed back to Kazimierz and to the New Cemetery. Usually I don't look for relatives names in the graveyard since the only tombstones that tend to be visible are the large tombs of the rich and famous. Since my family has never been either, I know that there's almost no chance of finding something, but I found myself scanning the wall of reconstructed tombstones nonetheless. The cemetery is being restored, and there are workmen removing weeds, repairing walkways, and steam cleaning the grime off tombstones. I looked for "Herman"s (my mother's mother's family came from Krakow), but no luck. Then I headed to the Isaac Synagogue, which has recently been restored.
They have several movies, filmed in Krakow in the 1930s and 40s playing continuously. I watched one film from 1937 on the work of T.O.Z. (a Jewish health organization). It was sort of like those infomercials that often play at night urging viewers to donate a quarter a day to provide fresh water to an urchin, only here they were ghetto children getting fresh food, excercise, and nursing. It was heartbreaking, actually, knowing that in a few years all these children (and nurses) would most certainly be dead.
After that I went to hear a debate over the Kielce pogrom and then have dinner with Gerda, Harold, and some friends of theirs, two of whom, like Gerda, survived the war on false papers.
I've got to end it here as again I'm out of time.
Last night I bumped into two of my board members, Gerda and Harold, here in Krakow (actually, we had talked ahead of time, so I knew they were going to be here). Gerda has a little mobile scooter that she uses to get around the Polish streets, so I still don't know how she deals with all the ubiquitous stairs. We talked briefly last night about Przemysl, and they told me that the cemetery has been partially restored there, but entirely through the activities of Jews outside Poland.
Afterwards, I went to a klezmer concert that was part of the festival. It was held in the Tempel Synagogue, which has just been beautifully restored, in part with money from the Ronald Lauder foundation. It reminded me, in its golden arabesques and domed aron-hakodeh, of the much larger and grander synagogue in Budapest. It's one of the central locations for the concerts, which caused me a little difficulty when I went back today to photograph the interior, but was told that it was closed for sound checks for tonight's concerts.
I heard the Andy Stetman Trio. He's a hasid from Brooklyn, who combines both klezmer and blue grass with jazz. Unlike the earlier concert (the tail end of which I could hear from outside), they didn't have the people dancing in the aisles. It was more contemplative. I really enjoyed it.
The only problem is that the 10 pm concerts let out at midnight (after the trams stop). While it's only a 15 minute walk back to the hotel, give the sheer curtains, I was up at 6 am this morning, with less than 6 hours of sleep. That's left me feeling a bit "punchy" today.
Nonetheless, I had a very nice breakfast at the hotel. They have a nice spread, designed to appeal to various demographic groups: they have the frankfurters, meats, and cheeses that Poles and Germans like; they had the cereal, milk, and yoghurt Americans like; they had the bread, butter and jam the French like; and they had cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, and bell peppers that Israelis like. I had a little of each.
Afterwards, I went back to the central bus station to plan out my trip tomorrow to Nowy Targ and then I headed to Wawel Castle. This is original capital of Poland, and the place where Polish kings were crowned, and for many years, lived. To visit parts of the castle, you must be individual separate tickets. Having read that the treasury was repeatedly robbed by Austrian, Russian, and German forces, I decided to skip it. Instead, I bought tickets to the Royal State Apartments, the Private Royal Apartments, the Gallery of Asian Art, and the so-called "Lost" Wawel. The private apartments were beautiful, with many of the 16th century Belgian tapestries preserved. A very nice collection of renaissance paintings was donated to the castle to replace pieces stolen by the Nazis and never recovered.
I then toured the State Apartments, which were also quite interesting, particularly, the audience room with thirty carved wooden heads of individual renaissance Krakovians portruding from the ceiling (there used to be 200 but the rest did not survive). On my way down, I saw the entry way to the Oriental Art wing and went in. It turned out to be three small rooms. The first just had some paintings depicting the great Polish victory over the Turks in 1683, when King Jan Sobienski III saved Vienna (I think the Poles would have been better off to let the Turks take the city). The next long room is of flags, carpets, and weapons the Poles captured from the Turks during the battle. The final room is a collection of Japanese ceramics. I began to feel that the tourist board was taking advantage of me by making me buy a separate ticket just for this short exhibit.
I grabbed a tuna sandwich and some water for lunch, and overheard two tour guides swapping horror stories, and I had to laugh. One told me how he was guiding a tour group of American students and teachers when a teacher came to his room at 10pm with a student in agony. "She only has one kidney," the teacher said, "and it's failing. We need to go to the hospital." In the hospital the student complained of pain on both sides, despite only having one kidney. By the morning, the teacher told him she hoped the hospital maxxed out the student's credit card, as she had Baron Munchhausen syndrome. The doctor proclaimed a miracle: she had arrived at the hospital with only one failing kidney, but she was leaving with two healthy ones.
After the snack I went to the "lost" Wawel exhibition, which turned out to be a short walk through some excavations of medieval structures, with none of it signed in English, followed by a short computer animated film in Polish, showing the medieval structure. I left again feeling a bit ripped off.
I left the castle and strolled to the main square. The rynek in Krakow has to be the largest public square I've ever seen. Bisected by the renaissance cloth house, it looks like two large public squares. I bought yesterday's International Herald Tribune and had an ice cream sundae in a cafe on the square under an umbrella. Very nice.
Then I headed to the Museum of the City of Krakow. Very similar in its structure to the corresponding museum in Warsaw. The history of the city is presented as the history of the politicians and wars that shaped it. When prominent cultural figures appear, they are figures from high status institutions, such as the church or Jagellonian University. It goes without saying, therefore, that Jews were barely present. In a painting of a funeral in Kazimierz, three Jews can be seen in the background off to the side. Later, I saw three Jews as members of the 19th century town council.
But the problem is that while Krakow housed some of the most important figures in European Jewish history, they are not seen as "high" culture or as part of Krakow's history. The museum exhibit only goes up until the 1920s, which I found odd, so there are no discussions of the Holocaust or the aftermath in Krakow. I'm certain this exhibit was put together decades ago, and the city has certainly tried to include Jews and Jewish history in other exhibitions (the books of which were for sale in the shop), but I would be happier if they were directly integrated into the city's official history.
After walking downstairs, I noticed what was a continuation of the museum. I entered and a woman asked for my ticket. I got out my ticket, but she said, no, that's for the museum upstairs, you have to buy a separate museum for the downstairs. I had had enough of that and left.
I headed back to Kazimierz and to the New Cemetery. Usually I don't look for relatives names in the graveyard since the only tombstones that tend to be visible are the large tombs of the rich and famous. Since my family has never been either, I know that there's almost no chance of finding something, but I found myself scanning the wall of reconstructed tombstones nonetheless. The cemetery is being restored, and there are workmen removing weeds, repairing walkways, and steam cleaning the grime off tombstones. I looked for "Herman"s (my mother's mother's family came from Krakow), but no luck. Then I headed to the Isaac Synagogue, which has recently been restored.
They have several movies, filmed in Krakow in the 1930s and 40s playing continuously. I watched one film from 1937 on the work of T.O.Z. (a Jewish health organization). It was sort of like those infomercials that often play at night urging viewers to donate a quarter a day to provide fresh water to an urchin, only here they were ghetto children getting fresh food, excercise, and nursing. It was heartbreaking, actually, knowing that in a few years all these children (and nurses) would most certainly be dead.
After that I went to hear a debate over the Kielce pogrom and then have dinner with Gerda, Harold, and some friends of theirs, two of whom, like Gerda, survived the war on false papers.
I've got to end it here as again I'm out of time.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Jew-ish City (July 4)
Despite the best efforts by the mattress, I managed to get nearly 8 hours of sleep last night.
I was packed, paid, and out the door by 7:10. Bought another poppyseed sweet roll for breakfast and found my bus to Krakow. When we reached Nowy Targ, the bus filled up and I had to keep my suitcase in the aisle. Arriving in Krakow station was a bit confusing, as arriving in a Polish city always is, not made any easier by the extensive construction going on both around as well as within the rail and bus terminals. They are building a large new mall right opposite the stations, and in the meantime, the whole situation is confusing.
Nonetheless, I made my way to my hotel, and what a hotel it's turned out to be. The Wielepole Guest House is by far the nicest hotel I've stayed at anywhere on my trip. Not only do I have the BBC on the tv, but I have AIR CONDITIONING. I nearly fainted. The only negative: the typical sheer Polish curtains designed only to mask your body from viewers, but still allow full sunlight to enter.
The first thing I did, after getting my 3-day bus pass (which I do whenever I can in Polish cities since it frees me up from having to buy bus ticket after ticket) is head down to Kazimierz, the former Jewish neighborhood in Krakow (pronounced "ka-zee-MEE-ezh" by the way). I got a copy of the program for the festival and bought a ticket for Shlomo Bar and Habrira Hativit's concert Friday night. All concerts are 45 zloty, which is a steal, but they don't take credit cards, so I need to go back to my hotel before dinner and get some more cash. As Poland becomes more integrated into capitalism, credit cards will no doubt become more ubiquitous, and you can use them already in many places here, but many small cafes and shops don't like them, so I use much more cash here than anywhere else I've travelled.
I visited the REMA synagogue as well as the Old Synagogue. The latter is now the museum for the Jewish experience in Krakow. They have a nice exhibit right now on famous Jewish Krakovians. I picked up a guidebook on Jewish sights in Kazimierz, and saw some of them today. I went to the new cemetery, but they want you to wear a kippah and I stupidly left mine in my hotel (and I hate the cheap, generic ones they give you, which never stay put). I ended up going to a "Jewish"-style cafe on the main square for a snack. I saw down in the courtyard in the shade and ordered a Cola Light (i.e., Diet Coke) and one of the two women to my right asked if I was as American. Yes, I said, why do you ask. Because only Americans order Cola Light to go with a meal. They were drinking half liters of beer.
I asked where they were from and they said Holland. This is the third straight year they've come to the festival, and they gave me some helpful advice. I had been disappointed to learn that the drumming workshop with Shlomo Bar required you to bring your own instrument, but they said it was still worthwhile to listen (and only 12 zloty). The cooking workshop that I had thought of attending is in Polish, and last year all she taught them was how to make hummus (something that only requires a can opener, a blender, a can of chickpeas, some tehina, some garlic, and some lemon juice -- my father and I disagree how much of the latter).
They were going to a workshop in the afternoon and two concerts tonight. I think I'll just go to one concert tonight: the Andy Statman Trio (though there's also a free concert in the square earlier I might attend too). After the snack (a nice ice cream sundae with fresh fruit and whipped cream), I went to the Galicia Jewish Musuem. They have some interesting exhibits just up on Poles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. From reading Nechama Tec's study of Polish rescuers I was not surprised to see how many (all but one that I saw) had had close personal contacts with Jews before the war. Most rescuers tended to be non-conformists, who saw beyond the cultural barriers.
The other exhibit was a series of recent photographs of Jewish sites in Galicia. It really confirmed my own impressions of the wide variation in ways Jewish sites are preserved or ignored. One photo, of an exhibit on Jewish communities in Galicia, showed that pre-war Przemysl -- where nothing was identified -- had over 12,000 Jews. It's important to remember, though, that the situation in Poland is quite dynamic. The excellent memorial at Belzec was only opened two years ago. In Warsaw, I was struck by the way Jewish contributions to Warsaw history prior to WWI, were virtually absent from the city museum. Even then, the only Yiddish-language materials were those that were bilingual with Polish. Nothing on the rich Yiddish and Hebrew literary culture in Warsaw in the period before or after WWI. Yet I also saw in this museum that the City of Warsaw is one of the sponsors for the planned new museum on the history and culture of Polish Jews, which will hopefully go a long way to rectifying this absence. (At the same time, I would be happier if the official museum of Warsaw's history also included Jews and Jewish culture in its treatment of the pre-WWI past).
After the museum, I headed over to the Kupa Synagogue for a lecture by Jan Tomasz Gross (author of Neighbors -- an account of a Polish massacre of Jews carried out in 1941 in Jedwabne) on the 60th anniversary of the Kielce pogrom. I had figured it would be a pretty small group, but was shocked to find numerous camera crews and a packed hall. I found a seat way in the back and watched as Gross entered, surrounded by a phalanx of flash photographers. I was seated behind Polish TV, and saw representatives from various Polish media and Polish radio. Then he started talking in Polish. Oh God, I thought, the whole lecture is going to be in Polish. What should I do? Then I saw some people wearing headphones and I thought, maybe they have simultaneous translation. I made my way to the front a picked up a headset, and was thus able to listen to his lecture.
60 years ago todays, rioters in Kielce attacked a building housing some 100 Holocaust survivors. Gross set out the context of the time, in which many Catholic bishops firmly believed that Jews used Christian blood to make matzot. The pogrom began because a drunken man accused the Jews of having kidnapped his missing son (who had gone to a neighboring village to visit a friend who had a cherry orchard). As rumors spread, the police made it much worse by sending 9-12 police officers to the community building, even though they knew that this would cause a mob to form. Later investigation showed that the police chief allowed as many men who volunteered to go, to go. The crisis really started when soldiers arrived and then began to drag Jews out of the building and shoot them. Those who weren't shot by the soldiers or the police were then stoned or stabbed by the mob.
Individuals also sought out Jews known to be staying in private homes, and in one instance, dragged a presumably Jewish passenger out of a train that happened to be passing through Kielce at the time of the pogrom. Gross described in detail one set of murders that was particularly well documented (one of the victims escaped and gave testimony immediately afterwards) where four people who were essentially strangers to each other, agreed quite quickly to kill some Jews. They needed a way of transporting their intended victims to the forest and so did a quick negotiation with a passing peasant with a truck. Gross wanted to emphasize the ordinariness that people viewed the decision to kill Jews.
Gross ended by looking at the various explanations that have been proposed for why the Kielce pogrom took place. Against the accusation that it was motivated by anti-Communism (that the Jews were seen as representatives of Communism), Gross notes that the communist party took virtually no notice of the pogrom and never saw it as a threat to itself. Against the accusation that the Soviets instigated the pogrom in order to smear the Poles, Gross noted that documents show that the Soviets refrained from stopping it out of fear of being seen as supporting the Jews (as well as because the local communist officials were anti-Semitic).
In the end, Gross concluded that this pogrom, as well as the ones that took place in Krakow and other Polish cities after the war, were not primarily motivated by Christian anti-Jewish beliefs or by anti-Communism, but rather by simple greed. Jews may have made up 10% of the Polish population, but they were between 30-50% of city dwellers. They were the primary commercial class in Poland. Many young, poor Poles had benefitted from the Germans rounding up and extermination of the Jews, since it created economic opportunities (not to mention, many individual Poles were personally enriched -- though, I think, much less than the Germans themselves). When Jewish survivors returned to Poland after the war, many Poles who had benefitted by their absence feared their return, and some may have feared that the Jews would seek to recover lost property). The massacres of Jews after the war, therefore, was designed to prevent any return to the economic situation that had existed in Poland ante bellum.
After he finished there was a short kaddish service.
Well, I'm almost out of time, so I will sign off for today.
I was packed, paid, and out the door by 7:10. Bought another poppyseed sweet roll for breakfast and found my bus to Krakow. When we reached Nowy Targ, the bus filled up and I had to keep my suitcase in the aisle. Arriving in Krakow station was a bit confusing, as arriving in a Polish city always is, not made any easier by the extensive construction going on both around as well as within the rail and bus terminals. They are building a large new mall right opposite the stations, and in the meantime, the whole situation is confusing.
Nonetheless, I made my way to my hotel, and what a hotel it's turned out to be. The Wielepole Guest House is by far the nicest hotel I've stayed at anywhere on my trip. Not only do I have the BBC on the tv, but I have AIR CONDITIONING. I nearly fainted. The only negative: the typical sheer Polish curtains designed only to mask your body from viewers, but still allow full sunlight to enter.
The first thing I did, after getting my 3-day bus pass (which I do whenever I can in Polish cities since it frees me up from having to buy bus ticket after ticket) is head down to Kazimierz, the former Jewish neighborhood in Krakow (pronounced "ka-zee-MEE-ezh" by the way). I got a copy of the program for the festival and bought a ticket for Shlomo Bar and Habrira Hativit's concert Friday night. All concerts are 45 zloty, which is a steal, but they don't take credit cards, so I need to go back to my hotel before dinner and get some more cash. As Poland becomes more integrated into capitalism, credit cards will no doubt become more ubiquitous, and you can use them already in many places here, but many small cafes and shops don't like them, so I use much more cash here than anywhere else I've travelled.
I visited the REMA synagogue as well as the Old Synagogue. The latter is now the museum for the Jewish experience in Krakow. They have a nice exhibit right now on famous Jewish Krakovians. I picked up a guidebook on Jewish sights in Kazimierz, and saw some of them today. I went to the new cemetery, but they want you to wear a kippah and I stupidly left mine in my hotel (and I hate the cheap, generic ones they give you, which never stay put). I ended up going to a "Jewish"-style cafe on the main square for a snack. I saw down in the courtyard in the shade and ordered a Cola Light (i.e., Diet Coke) and one of the two women to my right asked if I was as American. Yes, I said, why do you ask. Because only Americans order Cola Light to go with a meal. They were drinking half liters of beer.
I asked where they were from and they said Holland. This is the third straight year they've come to the festival, and they gave me some helpful advice. I had been disappointed to learn that the drumming workshop with Shlomo Bar required you to bring your own instrument, but they said it was still worthwhile to listen (and only 12 zloty). The cooking workshop that I had thought of attending is in Polish, and last year all she taught them was how to make hummus (something that only requires a can opener, a blender, a can of chickpeas, some tehina, some garlic, and some lemon juice -- my father and I disagree how much of the latter).
They were going to a workshop in the afternoon and two concerts tonight. I think I'll just go to one concert tonight: the Andy Statman Trio (though there's also a free concert in the square earlier I might attend too). After the snack (a nice ice cream sundae with fresh fruit and whipped cream), I went to the Galicia Jewish Musuem. They have some interesting exhibits just up on Poles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. From reading Nechama Tec's study of Polish rescuers I was not surprised to see how many (all but one that I saw) had had close personal contacts with Jews before the war. Most rescuers tended to be non-conformists, who saw beyond the cultural barriers.
The other exhibit was a series of recent photographs of Jewish sites in Galicia. It really confirmed my own impressions of the wide variation in ways Jewish sites are preserved or ignored. One photo, of an exhibit on Jewish communities in Galicia, showed that pre-war Przemysl -- where nothing was identified -- had over 12,000 Jews. It's important to remember, though, that the situation in Poland is quite dynamic. The excellent memorial at Belzec was only opened two years ago. In Warsaw, I was struck by the way Jewish contributions to Warsaw history prior to WWI, were virtually absent from the city museum. Even then, the only Yiddish-language materials were those that were bilingual with Polish. Nothing on the rich Yiddish and Hebrew literary culture in Warsaw in the period before or after WWI. Yet I also saw in this museum that the City of Warsaw is one of the sponsors for the planned new museum on the history and culture of Polish Jews, which will hopefully go a long way to rectifying this absence. (At the same time, I would be happier if the official museum of Warsaw's history also included Jews and Jewish culture in its treatment of the pre-WWI past).
After the museum, I headed over to the Kupa Synagogue for a lecture by Jan Tomasz Gross (author of Neighbors -- an account of a Polish massacre of Jews carried out in 1941 in Jedwabne) on the 60th anniversary of the Kielce pogrom. I had figured it would be a pretty small group, but was shocked to find numerous camera crews and a packed hall. I found a seat way in the back and watched as Gross entered, surrounded by a phalanx of flash photographers. I was seated behind Polish TV, and saw representatives from various Polish media and Polish radio. Then he started talking in Polish. Oh God, I thought, the whole lecture is going to be in Polish. What should I do? Then I saw some people wearing headphones and I thought, maybe they have simultaneous translation. I made my way to the front a picked up a headset, and was thus able to listen to his lecture.
60 years ago todays, rioters in Kielce attacked a building housing some 100 Holocaust survivors. Gross set out the context of the time, in which many Catholic bishops firmly believed that Jews used Christian blood to make matzot. The pogrom began because a drunken man accused the Jews of having kidnapped his missing son (who had gone to a neighboring village to visit a friend who had a cherry orchard). As rumors spread, the police made it much worse by sending 9-12 police officers to the community building, even though they knew that this would cause a mob to form. Later investigation showed that the police chief allowed as many men who volunteered to go, to go. The crisis really started when soldiers arrived and then began to drag Jews out of the building and shoot them. Those who weren't shot by the soldiers or the police were then stoned or stabbed by the mob.
Individuals also sought out Jews known to be staying in private homes, and in one instance, dragged a presumably Jewish passenger out of a train that happened to be passing through Kielce at the time of the pogrom. Gross described in detail one set of murders that was particularly well documented (one of the victims escaped and gave testimony immediately afterwards) where four people who were essentially strangers to each other, agreed quite quickly to kill some Jews. They needed a way of transporting their intended victims to the forest and so did a quick negotiation with a passing peasant with a truck. Gross wanted to emphasize the ordinariness that people viewed the decision to kill Jews.
Gross ended by looking at the various explanations that have been proposed for why the Kielce pogrom took place. Against the accusation that it was motivated by anti-Communism (that the Jews were seen as representatives of Communism), Gross notes that the communist party took virtually no notice of the pogrom and never saw it as a threat to itself. Against the accusation that the Soviets instigated the pogrom in order to smear the Poles, Gross noted that documents show that the Soviets refrained from stopping it out of fear of being seen as supporting the Jews (as well as because the local communist officials were anti-Semitic).
In the end, Gross concluded that this pogrom, as well as the ones that took place in Krakow and other Polish cities after the war, were not primarily motivated by Christian anti-Jewish beliefs or by anti-Communism, but rather by simple greed. Jews may have made up 10% of the Polish population, but they were between 30-50% of city dwellers. They were the primary commercial class in Poland. Many young, poor Poles had benefitted from the Germans rounding up and extermination of the Jews, since it created economic opportunities (not to mention, many individual Poles were personally enriched -- though, I think, much less than the Germans themselves). When Jewish survivors returned to Poland after the war, many Poles who had benefitted by their absence feared their return, and some may have feared that the Jews would seek to recover lost property). The massacres of Jews after the war, therefore, was designed to prevent any return to the economic situation that had existed in Poland ante bellum.
After he finished there was a short kaddish service.
Well, I'm almost out of time, so I will sign off for today.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Kasprowy Wierch (July 3)
Zakopane reminds me a bit of Gatlinburg, TN. Mostly, I think, in that they are both mountain resort towns with gobs of tourists walking about. Zakopane tends to be a bit higher end that Gatlinburg; there are no cars decked out with black lights driving by (in fact, the main shopping street is pedestrian only), and there are almost no t-shirt stores (and the only one I saw only had a small collection of pre-printed t-shirts). In fact, there's a business opportunity for anyone wanting to get a part of the growing tourism industry here by opening your own t-shirt store with sillk screening capabilities.
Most of the stores here tend to be on the high end side, with the tourist oriented chachkas being sold from street stalls. Lots of shoes, wool-related gear (e.g., horrid wool vests, sheep's fur pillows, sheep's fur throw blankets), wooden items, and an inexplicably popular snack made from pressed, smoked cheese. I actually had one of these my first day in Poznan, thinking it was a pastry, and threw it away after one bite. In fact, I wondered if it was edible at all, since it tasted like smoked styrofoam. Apparently, they stem from this region.
My hotel may have a beautiful roof but the beds suck. In fact, there's virtually no matress, just some sort of 1 inch foam over the wooden slats. I ended up sleeping just on my back, but I slept til 6 am when I was awoken by distant music coming from a radio. But whose radio, I wondered. Mine it turned out. There's no way to completely shut off the volume, so I tuned it to a frequency where there is no station.
Breakfast wasn't that great either and I regretted ordering it. The restaurant opened late (8am), which meant I had to wait an hour or so, when I could have been in the mountains. When it did open, the tea came late, as did the butter, and the eggs were soft boiled (not my favorite). I'm not ordering the breakfast for tomorrow.
But the main excitement today was hiking in the High Tatras. I've been worried for days about the weather, since it rained much of last week and Saturday, and when I arrived on Sunday afternoon the mountains were socked in. I spoke with someone yesterday who got to the top and could see nothing due to the clouds. But when I woke up this morning the sky was clear and blue.
I caught the 8:35 bus from Zakopane to Kuznice, where there is a cable car that goes all the way to the top of one of the taller mountains: Kasprowy Wierch. This is a 980 meter elevation gain that is done in two stages. To see pictures of the cable car http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P7217794e.html and the view from the top http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P7217788e.html, click on the links.
Unfortunately there was about a 45 minute wait for the cable car, as I anxiously watched clouds begin to appear in the sky. Soon enough, however, I was on my way. After the first 8 minute ride, we reached the switching point, exited the car, and took the second car all the way to the top. The view was breathtaking. I walked to the summit, which is also the border, sat down on the Slovakian side and looked around.
In front of me was the ridge separating Poland and Slovakia. To my left the ridge climbed to an even higher mountain, the top of which was wreathed in light clouds. Beneath it were a pair of dark, snow-fed pools, set in a bowl carved out by glaciers. To my right, another path, leading to a slighly lower mountain that looms directly above Zakopane. Behind me I could see Kuznice, Zakopane, and in the distance, Nowy Targ and the wide green plateau, ringed by hills. Beyond that, but out of sight, is the Polish plain on which most of the country sits.
There's a restaurant and snack bar at the top, and some people by round trip tickets for the cable car, come up, enjoy the view, eat lunch and return the same way. I had decided, however to hike back down.
My book listed several options, but I decided to stick with the basic and most straightforward -- since this is my first time here -- and hike from the summit back down to Kuznice. None of the maps or signs gave the distance; rather, they list the time they expect you will take (about three hours).
The first half of the hike down is by far the steepest. The trail descends some 630 meters over a distance of about 2-2.5 kilometers (I'm estimating since there were a lot of short switchbacks). That's about 2067 feet descent over 1.5 miles, which is far steeper than the Grand Canyon. The path is almost entirely stone steps, descending steeply. Because I am not as sure footed as a mountain goat or as fleet as a gazelle, but more like a lumbering, unbalanced ox, I walked very slowly down the mountain, watching each step. That being said, I wasn't passed by that many people.
The first part of the way down is above the tree line, with just grasses and small yellow, buttercup-like flowers. Lots of buzzing flies, but I sprayed on some bug spray and while they were still there, they weren't the clouds of flies I saw around the heads of those hiking up. After about 45 minutes, I reached the shrub line, with low, green junipers, I think. More flowers began to appear, such as yellow dandelions, and a very pretty indigo flower, with bell shaped petals. At one point, the path crossed a short (4-5 meter) patch of snow, but I walked carefully and didn't slip. After about 1:45 I reached the tree line, and 10 minutes after that the switching station for the cable cars.
There I had my lunch (large plain bread roll, sweet poppyseed roll, and an apple), and took the now gentler path for the second leg. This part of the trail descends the last 1050 feet to the base, and over a longer distance than the first half. Unlike the first half, it is entirely in the forest, and except for some early views of the high cliffs above, there are no overlooks and panorama views. Instead, it's just quiet walking through the trees. After about 25 minutes, a small stream appeared on the right, and it quickly flowed into a larger and more rapid stream on the left, that accompanied the trail all the way to the bottom.
By the last part of the hike, I could feel my legs getting very tired. I began to stumble over the slightest rock or twig, and so slowed down my descent to avoid hurting myself. I was very happy to reach the bottom. In many ways, I find descents to be harder, and harder on my body, than the more strenous ascents. Though, I have to say, given how steep the ascent is, this may be the one exception. At the beginning I was thinking that I wasn't going to get much of a work out from the hike, since I had "cheated" and taken the car up. By the end, I was sure my thighs and calf muscles will be very sore tomorrow.
I went back to the hotel and took a hot bath. Then I went to the base of the town where there is a funicular that takes people to the top of a hill overlooking the entire town. This time I got a round trip ticket. From the top, I had a spectacular view of the entire town and the range of the Tatra Mountains, mostly overcast by late afternoon, but all peaks still visible. To see some views, go to either http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/crees/outreach/Poland%20Pics/View%20of%20Zakopane%20from%20Gubalowka%20Hill.jpg or http://www.geo-jwieczorek.ans.pl/TpanGub.jpg
The area at the top is mostly level with a few small farms, a lot of stands selling chachkas, opportunities for pony and horse rides, and even a few amusement park type rides. I strolled about and got some nice shots of typical Podhale (the name of the region) archicture and pasture land. It really was quite peaceful and pretty.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to take the early bus (about 7:30) to Krakow. That should put me in the city by 10. I may have to ask the hotel to let me put my luggage in storage until the room is ready so I can use the time to explore the city. My guidebook basically builds up Krakow as the highlight of Poland, so I'm looking forward to it (and also to getting an English-language newspaper).
Most of the stores here tend to be on the high end side, with the tourist oriented chachkas being sold from street stalls. Lots of shoes, wool-related gear (e.g., horrid wool vests, sheep's fur pillows, sheep's fur throw blankets), wooden items, and an inexplicably popular snack made from pressed, smoked cheese. I actually had one of these my first day in Poznan, thinking it was a pastry, and threw it away after one bite. In fact, I wondered if it was edible at all, since it tasted like smoked styrofoam. Apparently, they stem from this region.
My hotel may have a beautiful roof but the beds suck. In fact, there's virtually no matress, just some sort of 1 inch foam over the wooden slats. I ended up sleeping just on my back, but I slept til 6 am when I was awoken by distant music coming from a radio. But whose radio, I wondered. Mine it turned out. There's no way to completely shut off the volume, so I tuned it to a frequency where there is no station.
Breakfast wasn't that great either and I regretted ordering it. The restaurant opened late (8am), which meant I had to wait an hour or so, when I could have been in the mountains. When it did open, the tea came late, as did the butter, and the eggs were soft boiled (not my favorite). I'm not ordering the breakfast for tomorrow.
But the main excitement today was hiking in the High Tatras. I've been worried for days about the weather, since it rained much of last week and Saturday, and when I arrived on Sunday afternoon the mountains were socked in. I spoke with someone yesterday who got to the top and could see nothing due to the clouds. But when I woke up this morning the sky was clear and blue.
I caught the 8:35 bus from Zakopane to Kuznice, where there is a cable car that goes all the way to the top of one of the taller mountains: Kasprowy Wierch. This is a 980 meter elevation gain that is done in two stages. To see pictures of the cable car http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P7217794e.html and the view from the top http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P7217788e.html, click on the links.
Unfortunately there was about a 45 minute wait for the cable car, as I anxiously watched clouds begin to appear in the sky. Soon enough, however, I was on my way. After the first 8 minute ride, we reached the switching point, exited the car, and took the second car all the way to the top. The view was breathtaking. I walked to the summit, which is also the border, sat down on the Slovakian side and looked around.
In front of me was the ridge separating Poland and Slovakia. To my left the ridge climbed to an even higher mountain, the top of which was wreathed in light clouds. Beneath it were a pair of dark, snow-fed pools, set in a bowl carved out by glaciers. To my right, another path, leading to a slighly lower mountain that looms directly above Zakopane. Behind me I could see Kuznice, Zakopane, and in the distance, Nowy Targ and the wide green plateau, ringed by hills. Beyond that, but out of sight, is the Polish plain on which most of the country sits.
There's a restaurant and snack bar at the top, and some people by round trip tickets for the cable car, come up, enjoy the view, eat lunch and return the same way. I had decided, however to hike back down.
My book listed several options, but I decided to stick with the basic and most straightforward -- since this is my first time here -- and hike from the summit back down to Kuznice. None of the maps or signs gave the distance; rather, they list the time they expect you will take (about three hours).
The first half of the hike down is by far the steepest. The trail descends some 630 meters over a distance of about 2-2.5 kilometers (I'm estimating since there were a lot of short switchbacks). That's about 2067 feet descent over 1.5 miles, which is far steeper than the Grand Canyon. The path is almost entirely stone steps, descending steeply. Because I am not as sure footed as a mountain goat or as fleet as a gazelle, but more like a lumbering, unbalanced ox, I walked very slowly down the mountain, watching each step. That being said, I wasn't passed by that many people.
The first part of the way down is above the tree line, with just grasses and small yellow, buttercup-like flowers. Lots of buzzing flies, but I sprayed on some bug spray and while they were still there, they weren't the clouds of flies I saw around the heads of those hiking up. After about 45 minutes, I reached the shrub line, with low, green junipers, I think. More flowers began to appear, such as yellow dandelions, and a very pretty indigo flower, with bell shaped petals. At one point, the path crossed a short (4-5 meter) patch of snow, but I walked carefully and didn't slip. After about 1:45 I reached the tree line, and 10 minutes after that the switching station for the cable cars.
There I had my lunch (large plain bread roll, sweet poppyseed roll, and an apple), and took the now gentler path for the second leg. This part of the trail descends the last 1050 feet to the base, and over a longer distance than the first half. Unlike the first half, it is entirely in the forest, and except for some early views of the high cliffs above, there are no overlooks and panorama views. Instead, it's just quiet walking through the trees. After about 25 minutes, a small stream appeared on the right, and it quickly flowed into a larger and more rapid stream on the left, that accompanied the trail all the way to the bottom.
By the last part of the hike, I could feel my legs getting very tired. I began to stumble over the slightest rock or twig, and so slowed down my descent to avoid hurting myself. I was very happy to reach the bottom. In many ways, I find descents to be harder, and harder on my body, than the more strenous ascents. Though, I have to say, given how steep the ascent is, this may be the one exception. At the beginning I was thinking that I wasn't going to get much of a work out from the hike, since I had "cheated" and taken the car up. By the end, I was sure my thighs and calf muscles will be very sore tomorrow.
I went back to the hotel and took a hot bath. Then I went to the base of the town where there is a funicular that takes people to the top of a hill overlooking the entire town. This time I got a round trip ticket. From the top, I had a spectacular view of the entire town and the range of the Tatra Mountains, mostly overcast by late afternoon, but all peaks still visible. To see some views, go to either http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/crees/outreach/Poland%20Pics/View%20of%20Zakopane%20from%20Gubalowka%20Hill.jpg or http://www.geo-jwieczorek.ans.pl/TpanGub.jpg
The area at the top is mostly level with a few small farms, a lot of stands selling chachkas, opportunities for pony and horse rides, and even a few amusement park type rides. I strolled about and got some nice shots of typical Podhale (the name of the region) archicture and pasture land. It really was quite peaceful and pretty.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to take the early bus (about 7:30) to Krakow. That should put me in the city by 10. I may have to ask the hotel to let me put my luggage in storage until the room is ready so I can use the time to explore the city. My guidebook basically builds up Krakow as the highlight of Poland, so I'm looking forward to it (and also to getting an English-language newspaper).
Sunday, July 02, 2006
In the Mountains (July 2)
I packed up this morning and left Rzeszow for Zakopane.
It's quite a long train ride. Most of the distance is covered in a fast train to Krakow Plaszow station in 2 hours. The train ride south, in the local, took 4 more hours. Unfortunately, Plaszow station is really in the suburbs (and disturbingly close to the slave labor camp depicted in Schindler's List, where Commandant Amnon Goeth - played by Ralph Feinnes - used prisoners for target practice), so there were no sandwiches for sale when I ran out of the station at my 10 minute lay over. My lunch therefore consisted of chips, cookies, and a chocolate bar with marzipan. Not the healthiest or most satisfying.
Even though the train ride here was slow, it was anything but disappointing or boring (though I could have done without the 1 and a half year old who could only express himself by giving a geschrei). Rzeszow, Tarnow, and Krakow are all located on the border between the foothills of the Carpathians in the south and the wide Polish plain in the north. As soon as we turned south, the train began to climb through hills laid out with small family farms. The plots are so small that I have to wonder how they make a living farming them. The land is divided into small strips of wheat, rye, oats, vegetables, and hay.
The best part are the haystacks. In America you never see haystacks. Almost all our farms arelarge commercial operations where the hay is baled by machine; here, individual farmers stack the hay by hand. The hay stacks have a kind of wooden skeleton and the hay is stacked in and around it. The final result sort of looks like a large Cousin It (from The Adams Family), or, if you prefer, a kind of strange snowman made out of hay. You see them in rows all over the countryside.
As we got higher, the train would pass through small towns, tucked between hills either partially farmed or forested. Finally, we went through a pass and came to a high plain, set like a bowl between the ridges, and cut through by several streams and rivers. This is where the regional capital, Nowy Targ, is located. It's also the home town of my grandmother's family. From there in the distance, I could finally make out the Tatra mountains, the high Carpathian range that separates Poland from Slovakia.
Leaving Nowy Targ (which had a lot of industrial development in the 50s and 60s under the communists), the train began to climb again and as we turned a corner I could finally get a clear view of the Tatras, rising up like a high, dark wall, with much steeper sides than the Appalachians, and wreathed in clouds. Then we arrived at the resort town of Zakopane.
Zakopane, like many of these mountain towns, used to have a Jewish community (though much smaller than Nowy Targ's). The Jews here catered to the tourist trade (if I remember), which really took off after the 1870s. The air and climate in Zakopane were promoted for its health benefits, and in the interwar period, many different Jewish youth groups came here for hiking, rafting, canoing, and in the winter, skiing.
My hotel was built in the 50s and features the largest wooden roof in Europe. The roof is 4-5 stories tall, and originally the hotel had 600 beds. They've reconfigured it a bit and now it only has 300. My room is clean and comfortable, and was able to do some laundry in the sink, and easily hang it up to dry. The only english-language station, unfortunately, is CNN International, which tends to report the same five stories over and over. But, suprise! They had on The Daily Show: Global Edition. I was actually able to watch Jon Stewart (something I can't do at home, actually).
Tomorrow morning after breakfast, I'm taking the bus to Kuznice, where there is a cable car that takes you up to the top of one of the taller peaks near the town. From there I plan to hike back down (about 2 hours, they estimate). Then on Tuesday I'll head over to Krakow.
One thing I'm realizing is that while I've been very happy with my schedule so far, southern Poland is the one place where I could have used extra time. I wish I had a chance to visit Bobowa (home of the Bobover hasidim - and featuring a well-restored synagogue). I'm going to visit Nowy Targ from Krakow on Thursday in order to be there for the weekly regional market, which is supposed to be something to see. I'm hoping I have enough time in Krakow to do and see everything I want to.
It's quite a long train ride. Most of the distance is covered in a fast train to Krakow Plaszow station in 2 hours. The train ride south, in the local, took 4 more hours. Unfortunately, Plaszow station is really in the suburbs (and disturbingly close to the slave labor camp depicted in Schindler's List, where Commandant Amnon Goeth - played by Ralph Feinnes - used prisoners for target practice), so there were no sandwiches for sale when I ran out of the station at my 10 minute lay over. My lunch therefore consisted of chips, cookies, and a chocolate bar with marzipan. Not the healthiest or most satisfying.
Even though the train ride here was slow, it was anything but disappointing or boring (though I could have done without the 1 and a half year old who could only express himself by giving a geschrei). Rzeszow, Tarnow, and Krakow are all located on the border between the foothills of the Carpathians in the south and the wide Polish plain in the north. As soon as we turned south, the train began to climb through hills laid out with small family farms. The plots are so small that I have to wonder how they make a living farming them. The land is divided into small strips of wheat, rye, oats, vegetables, and hay.
The best part are the haystacks. In America you never see haystacks. Almost all our farms arelarge commercial operations where the hay is baled by machine; here, individual farmers stack the hay by hand. The hay stacks have a kind of wooden skeleton and the hay is stacked in and around it. The final result sort of looks like a large Cousin It (from The Adams Family), or, if you prefer, a kind of strange snowman made out of hay. You see them in rows all over the countryside.
As we got higher, the train would pass through small towns, tucked between hills either partially farmed or forested. Finally, we went through a pass and came to a high plain, set like a bowl between the ridges, and cut through by several streams and rivers. This is where the regional capital, Nowy Targ, is located. It's also the home town of my grandmother's family. From there in the distance, I could finally make out the Tatra mountains, the high Carpathian range that separates Poland from Slovakia.
Leaving Nowy Targ (which had a lot of industrial development in the 50s and 60s under the communists), the train began to climb again and as we turned a corner I could finally get a clear view of the Tatras, rising up like a high, dark wall, with much steeper sides than the Appalachians, and wreathed in clouds. Then we arrived at the resort town of Zakopane.
Zakopane, like many of these mountain towns, used to have a Jewish community (though much smaller than Nowy Targ's). The Jews here catered to the tourist trade (if I remember), which really took off after the 1870s. The air and climate in Zakopane were promoted for its health benefits, and in the interwar period, many different Jewish youth groups came here for hiking, rafting, canoing, and in the winter, skiing.
My hotel was built in the 50s and features the largest wooden roof in Europe. The roof is 4-5 stories tall, and originally the hotel had 600 beds. They've reconfigured it a bit and now it only has 300. My room is clean and comfortable, and was able to do some laundry in the sink, and easily hang it up to dry. The only english-language station, unfortunately, is CNN International, which tends to report the same five stories over and over. But, suprise! They had on The Daily Show: Global Edition. I was actually able to watch Jon Stewart (something I can't do at home, actually).
Tomorrow morning after breakfast, I'm taking the bus to Kuznice, where there is a cable car that takes you up to the top of one of the taller peaks near the town. From there I plan to hike back down (about 2 hours, they estimate). Then on Tuesday I'll head over to Krakow.
One thing I'm realizing is that while I've been very happy with my schedule so far, southern Poland is the one place where I could have used extra time. I wish I had a chance to visit Bobowa (home of the Bobover hasidim - and featuring a well-restored synagogue). I'm going to visit Nowy Targ from Krakow on Thursday in order to be there for the weekly regional market, which is supposed to be something to see. I'm hoping I have enough time in Krakow to do and see everything I want to.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
The Cost of Forgetfulness (July 1)
Well, all in all, I have to say I've been pretty lucky in terms of losing things. So far, my losses have been limited to 1 and a half pairs of socks, and a small half-used can of talcum powder. This morning, though, I noticed that I had lost my jacket.
Now, I had always intended to leave this jacket behind in Europe; it's old, torn, and ratty. However, I had brought it for one purpose only: to keep me warm in the Carpathian mountains. Which I'm visiting tomorrow. In other words, I had lost the jacket right before the one time I was certain to need it.
At first I thought I left it in the restaurant but on the train this morning I realized I had left it in the internet cafe last night. That meant, I thought, there's little chance of recovering it, since that internet cafe is always full of teenage boys and 20-somethings playing competitive computer games. For those of you wondering why I always seem to find computers in these out of the way towns, that's why.
Ok, so I'm on my way to Przemysl (pronounced p'zhe-mi-shil), a town located 10 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, and as I was looking through my guidebook, I saw there was a big market there on Saturday. Great, I thought, I can pick up a cheap Ukrainian-made wind breaker. The market was a short walk from the train station and it was terrific: sort of like a Polish-Ukrainian version of shuk ha-carmel in Tel-Aviv, or mahane yehuda in Jerusalem. Lots of people selling fruits and vegetables, shoes, suits, etc. Late middle aged and grandmother types clutching packs of cigarettes, whispering "papierosi" (contraband cigarettes) to me.
I narrowed down my choice to two windbreakers, both nylon. One was God-awful but only 35 zloty (about $10.70), the other was inoffensive but 50 zloty ($15.29). In the back of my mind was the possibility that I might recover my original jacket. Nonetheless, I decided to pass over the cheaper one for the more expensive but nicer one. That way, I could bring it back to the states if I liked it and actually wear it here.
From there I set out to find the synagogues of Przemysl. It is surprising how much variation there is among cities in Poland in the way they treat their Jewish past. This breaks down into three basic components: 1) are Jewish sites identified and their significance made known to the public; 2) are Jewish sites preserved and maintained; and 3) do the local museums and tourist information booklets include the Jewish past as part of the local history (in other words, do they see the Jewish past in the city as part of their city's history).
Tarnow, which I visited yesterday, really excels in all these areas. Jewish sites are publicly noted with memorial plaques and with an organized tour route. Efforts have been made to preserve those architectural elements still existing, and to restore those, such as the cemetery, that had fallen into disrepair. Finally, the Jewish story is emphasized in various tourist brochures and in the regional museum.
Przemysl, on the other hand, represents the other extreme. The two former synagogues I found, after much searching, are not in any way identified as such. One, after having been used for car repairs, simply stands vacant and fenced off, with most of its windows broken. The other is the public library. I only found the latter when I saw it marked as a synagogue on one of the maps of the city posted in the central square. That, along with the crumbling Jewish cemetery outside town, is the only evidence available to the tourist that a Jewish community ever existed hear, let alone was destroyed.
I took a bus to an overlook above the town, where I had great view of the river, the town and the hills. I hoped to see the Carpathian mountains, but it was still pretty overcast with intermittant drizzle. I gave up trying to find the cemetery and took the train to Lancut instead.
Lancut is more towards the Tarnow side of the equation. After walking two kilometers from the train station I reached the center of town where I had no trouble finding the synagogue. Built in the 1760s in the square heavy style favored by Polish Jewish communities in the 17th and 18th centuries, this synagogue has been recently restored and is now the local Jewish museum.
Almost unique among Polish synagogues, the interior decorations have almost survived intact. The Germans set fire to the wood in the synagogue, but Count Potocki (whose palace is directly opposite it) had the fire extinguished. As a result, one can see almost all the beautiful frescoes painted on the walls. There is the large square bimah in the middle with its pillars made to look like marble. The walls are covered with a row of frescoed Hebrew prayers, above which are images of the various zodiac signs (in Hebrew), images of Jerusalem, of various symbolic animals, etc. It really is quite beautiful. In the entry hall are fragments of tombstones destroyed by the Nazis and rescued in the museum.
From there I walked across the street and visited the palace. Like the synagogue, the palace also survived virtually intact. As the Russians approached, Count Potocki transferred the most valuable items to safety and then had a sign in Russian put on the front of the palace reading "Polish National Museum." It worked, and within a year, it had become a museum. Built in the 17th century by the Lubomirski family (which owned the towns of Lancut and Rzeszow), it was expanded in the 18th century, particularly after being acquired by the Potockis, another aristocratic Polish family. Lots of beautiful inlaid wooden floors, baroque furnishings, and a rather amusing Pompeii room, with Roman antiquities, designed to look like a Roman ruin.
To see the palace I had to take the Polish tour, which got tiring after a while (mostly we would stop in a hallway full of paintings and I would hear "blah, blah, blah, Potocki, blah, blah, Potocki, blah, blah, blah, Lubomirski-Potocki, etc."). The Orangerie was a pathetic menagerie of cockatiels, turtles, guinea pigs, and one small, gnarled orange bush (with some oranges). By the time we reached the carriage house, with its dozens of horse-drawn carriages, I was ready to bold.
Made it back to Rzeszow and to the internet cafe, where lo and behold, they had kept my jacket. So now I have two. At least I'll be warm tomorrow when I head on, down to Zakopane, a mountain resort in the Carpathian mountains south of Krakow (the mountain region is known as the Tatras).
Now, I had always intended to leave this jacket behind in Europe; it's old, torn, and ratty. However, I had brought it for one purpose only: to keep me warm in the Carpathian mountains. Which I'm visiting tomorrow. In other words, I had lost the jacket right before the one time I was certain to need it.
At first I thought I left it in the restaurant but on the train this morning I realized I had left it in the internet cafe last night. That meant, I thought, there's little chance of recovering it, since that internet cafe is always full of teenage boys and 20-somethings playing competitive computer games. For those of you wondering why I always seem to find computers in these out of the way towns, that's why.
Ok, so I'm on my way to Przemysl (pronounced p'zhe-mi-shil), a town located 10 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, and as I was looking through my guidebook, I saw there was a big market there on Saturday. Great, I thought, I can pick up a cheap Ukrainian-made wind breaker. The market was a short walk from the train station and it was terrific: sort of like a Polish-Ukrainian version of shuk ha-carmel in Tel-Aviv, or mahane yehuda in Jerusalem. Lots of people selling fruits and vegetables, shoes, suits, etc. Late middle aged and grandmother types clutching packs of cigarettes, whispering "papierosi" (contraband cigarettes) to me.
I narrowed down my choice to two windbreakers, both nylon. One was God-awful but only 35 zloty (about $10.70), the other was inoffensive but 50 zloty ($15.29). In the back of my mind was the possibility that I might recover my original jacket. Nonetheless, I decided to pass over the cheaper one for the more expensive but nicer one. That way, I could bring it back to the states if I liked it and actually wear it here.
From there I set out to find the synagogues of Przemysl. It is surprising how much variation there is among cities in Poland in the way they treat their Jewish past. This breaks down into three basic components: 1) are Jewish sites identified and their significance made known to the public; 2) are Jewish sites preserved and maintained; and 3) do the local museums and tourist information booklets include the Jewish past as part of the local history (in other words, do they see the Jewish past in the city as part of their city's history).
Tarnow, which I visited yesterday, really excels in all these areas. Jewish sites are publicly noted with memorial plaques and with an organized tour route. Efforts have been made to preserve those architectural elements still existing, and to restore those, such as the cemetery, that had fallen into disrepair. Finally, the Jewish story is emphasized in various tourist brochures and in the regional museum.
Przemysl, on the other hand, represents the other extreme. The two former synagogues I found, after much searching, are not in any way identified as such. One, after having been used for car repairs, simply stands vacant and fenced off, with most of its windows broken. The other is the public library. I only found the latter when I saw it marked as a synagogue on one of the maps of the city posted in the central square. That, along with the crumbling Jewish cemetery outside town, is the only evidence available to the tourist that a Jewish community ever existed hear, let alone was destroyed.
I took a bus to an overlook above the town, where I had great view of the river, the town and the hills. I hoped to see the Carpathian mountains, but it was still pretty overcast with intermittant drizzle. I gave up trying to find the cemetery and took the train to Lancut instead.
Lancut is more towards the Tarnow side of the equation. After walking two kilometers from the train station I reached the center of town where I had no trouble finding the synagogue. Built in the 1760s in the square heavy style favored by Polish Jewish communities in the 17th and 18th centuries, this synagogue has been recently restored and is now the local Jewish museum.
Almost unique among Polish synagogues, the interior decorations have almost survived intact. The Germans set fire to the wood in the synagogue, but Count Potocki (whose palace is directly opposite it) had the fire extinguished. As a result, one can see almost all the beautiful frescoes painted on the walls. There is the large square bimah in the middle with its pillars made to look like marble. The walls are covered with a row of frescoed Hebrew prayers, above which are images of the various zodiac signs (in Hebrew), images of Jerusalem, of various symbolic animals, etc. It really is quite beautiful. In the entry hall are fragments of tombstones destroyed by the Nazis and rescued in the museum.
From there I walked across the street and visited the palace. Like the synagogue, the palace also survived virtually intact. As the Russians approached, Count Potocki transferred the most valuable items to safety and then had a sign in Russian put on the front of the palace reading "Polish National Museum." It worked, and within a year, it had become a museum. Built in the 17th century by the Lubomirski family (which owned the towns of Lancut and Rzeszow), it was expanded in the 18th century, particularly after being acquired by the Potockis, another aristocratic Polish family. Lots of beautiful inlaid wooden floors, baroque furnishings, and a rather amusing Pompeii room, with Roman antiquities, designed to look like a Roman ruin.
To see the palace I had to take the Polish tour, which got tiring after a while (mostly we would stop in a hallway full of paintings and I would hear "blah, blah, blah, Potocki, blah, blah, Potocki, blah, blah, blah, Lubomirski-Potocki, etc."). The Orangerie was a pathetic menagerie of cockatiels, turtles, guinea pigs, and one small, gnarled orange bush (with some oranges). By the time we reached the carriage house, with its dozens of horse-drawn carriages, I was ready to bold.
Made it back to Rzeszow and to the internet cafe, where lo and behold, they had kept my jacket. So now I have two. At least I'll be warm tomorrow when I head on, down to Zakopane, a mountain resort in the Carpathian mountains south of Krakow (the mountain region is known as the Tatras).
Friday, June 30, 2006
The Disadvantages of a Room With a View (June 30)
There are advantages and disadvantages to staying in a room with a view. The advantage is, of course, the view. My room is in a garret on the fourth floor of a building opposite the renaissance town hall (redone in the late 19th century into pseudo-Gothic) and the town square. That means I can take a very short walk and sit out in any of the large open air pubs that line the square.
The disadvantage is that I'm quite close to the open air pubs and the city hall building. I found out last night that last call is around 3 am (that's when the straggling, staggering groups of drunk 20-something men, slowly and noisely made their way home -- apparently, they've decided to show that the Anglo-Saxons don't have a monopoly on public drunkeness).
As for city hall, I have my own personal alarm clock. I succeeded in sleeping til 6 am this morning (mostly because it is overcast and raining), but then at 6 the city hall bells began to ring out the time (accompanied by a distorted tape of a short carillion).
Breakfast in my room arrived an hour later. Tea, a nice-sized roll, butter and blueberry jam, a small bowl of cereal and a large bowl of hot milk. I used some of the milk in the tea and then poured the cereal into the bowl of milk (I suppose the large amount of milk is more for the people who drink coffee).
Last night I had my most expensive meal in Poland. My guide book recommended a restaurant off the main square and I went there. Very red walls, and red tablecloths, and an elderly gentleman in a booth looking like a vampire. Really. At first I thought he was a manekin; he was very grey. He had pale grey skin, grey/black hair, and a grey jacket. He looked like he was in his late 70s. Then he moved slightly and realized he was alive. He had a glass of something in front of him. I never did find out who he was.
I ordered the seasonal strawberry soup and the roast duck with apples, cranberries, and puff pastry. The waiter told me in English that the price was by weight, but I didn't pay attention to the warning. Boneless duck in puff pastry at 28 zloty/ 100 grams -- how much could it cost? After I was served the soup, however, I began to worry.
This was by far the best and most generous strawberry soup I've had so far. A large bowl, with not only soup, but I would guess half a pint of fresh strawberries. Then the duck came. Not boneless, I guess about half a duck. The puff pastry was the dessert, filled with apples. It was all very good, but the meal (with tip -- which was too generous, but I didn't have any bills smaller than 20 on a meal that came to 130 zloty). Total: about $45. Actually, a rather good meal, but more than I intended to spend and left me feeling so bloated I could plotz.
Despite the rain this morning, I decided to go to Tarnow. Thankfully, it stopped even before I made it to the train. I took the local, which stopped at every little hamlet along the way, including the town in which my great-grandfather was born, Sedziszow Malapolska. I figured it would be a dinky little hamlet, but it was pretty substantial. According to the books, somewhere near the town is the Jewish cemetery and synagogue, but in the end, I didn't feel like tramping all over town looking for it.
Tarnow is a rather substantial town. Like Rzeszow, it is in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains. In the case of Rzeszow, it's more like the pinkies of the Carpathians: hills gently rise to the south, but that's about it. South of Tarnow, on the other hand, I could make out some subtantial hills, followed by a valley, and taller hills beyond. Like Rzeszow, Tarnow was half Jewish, and the town was geographically divided between its Christian half and its Jewish half. Unlike Rzeszow, however, there has been much more of an effort to preserve and identify Jewish sites.
I happened to meet the man responsible for that: Adam Bartosz. He established the Ethnographic Museum in Tarnow in 1998, making it the first museum in the world dedicated to the study of Roma (Gypsie) history and culture. I had just arrived at the museum and he was taking photographs of the exhibits for a book, I think. He asked me why I came and I explained that I while I teach Jewish history, I was very interested in the Roma and heard that his museum was the only one in the world devoted to the subject. He corrected me and said that there was now a new museum in Brno, Czech Republic, but that his museum was still the first.
He also encouraged me to buy his guide to visiting Jewish sites in Tarnow. In additional to running the Ethnographic Museum, he also runs the Regional Museum, and the Committee of Preservation of Jewish Culture Monuments in Tarnow. He told me that if I wanted to visit the cemetery, I could pick up the key to it at his other museum, but that I would also have to leave a refundable deposit. He also said that if I was interested, there was a new gypsy restaurant in town (though he didn't vouch for their quality).
The displays on gypsie history and culture were fascinating. Like the Jews, the gypsies lived outside the traditional feudal structure, were highly mobile, and specialized in certain occupations. Unlike the Jews, the gypsies had a primarily oral culture and were not based around a particular religion. The museum lays out the enslavement of gypsies in Eastern Europe (ending only in the middle of the 19th century), and then their persecution and massacre under the Nazis (he estimates that between 300 and 500,000 gypsies were killed by the Nazis, about half the European population.
They only had it slightly better under the communists who feared their mobility and forced them to settle. Even today there is significant discrimination, and he has charts posted concerning positive/negative views. I was surprised to see the high negative opinions still held of Jews by Poles, since I have not experienced that, but the gypsies were viewed even more negatively. He has photographs of racist anti-gypsie and anti-semitic graffiti, some of which (the anti-Jewish ones) I have seen before. Not often, but particularly in cities where there is a lot of gang graffiti, there are sometimes anti-Jewish remarks (e.g., "Jews to Israel," which I saw from the train in a rural town). In Lodz, which has a lot of gang graffiti, the city organizes an annual event when college students whitewash all the graffiti in town.
The other half of the Ethnographic Museum consisted of folk religious art, but in the back room I found an exhibit in the works on contemporary Jewish life in the Ukraine.
From there I went to the town hall but it was closed for some political symposium. That was really my only disappointment of the day, since they have one of the best collection of art work reflecting samartism in the country. Samartism was a bizarre belief that the Polish nobility was descended from Asian Samartians (this was based on a cartographical error in some renaissance maps). As a result, many adopted the clothing and hair styles of Central Asia as part of this invented heritage. What makes it particularly interesting for me is that I think there may be a connection between Samartian fashions and Hasidic garb. I had always heard that Hasidic clothing -- the kapote, the shtreimel -- were based on the clothing of Polish nobility, but when I was looking at the paintings of the royal families, they always look like Western European nobility, so I thought maybe in these Samartian paintings, I might find more evidence. It will have to wait for another trip, however.
Blocked but undaunted I went to the regional museum, which had a new exhibit called "Times of the Hasidim." The exhibit opened last week during the annual Jewish memorial week, coinciding with the first massacres of Jews by the Nazis in Tarnow. Several articles on the events and exhibitions had been printed in the local newspaper (in Polish, of course), and it looked as if Tarnow Jews and their descendents from Israel had attended.
The exhibit gave a nice primer on the history and beliefs of Hasidism, incorporating part of the museum's permanent collection of Judaica. I later learned that the synagogue display came from the last prayerhouse in Tarnow, which was closed in 1993, with the death of its last member. It's not a big museum, so when I was done, I went to lunch.
I decided to give the gypsy restaurant a try. I was the first one there and at first I couldn't tell if they were open. I didn't speak Polish, so the woman yelled "Shandor," and her son (?) who had gone to the University of Chicago came in and gave me an menu. I had thought about the peirogi but they weren't ready yet, so I ordered the gulasz and the grilled turkey. The gulasz was good and tasty, though a little oily, and the grilled turkey was a little like shishlik and surprisingly spicy. Not uncomfortably so, but I had become used to the more bland and tame Polish cooking.
After lunch I went to the ruins of the old synagogue (built in the early 17th century, burnt by the Nazis on 9 November 1939). Only the brick bimah with its four pillars and canopy remained. Then I went back to the museum to get the key and began to follow the path laid out in the guidebook. They did a really nice job, but I was even more surprised when I reached the cemetery. Unlike the other Jewish cemeteries I was in (many of which were guarded with dogs), this one was protected only by a gang of stray cats. That being said, the cemetery was very well preserved. There's no question of the time and effort being placed into clearing the weeds, uprighting the stones, and marking out the more prominent graves.
Within the cemetery there is a guided path tracing out the most interesting graves. It begins with a monument established for the victims of the Holocaust in 1946, just one year afterwards. It has to be one of the earliest monuments I have seen in Poland. From there the path led to some of the earliest graves in the cemetary, from the early 18th century (though the cemetery is some 150 years older). It was quiet, with the only noise being the chirping birds, the buzzing mosquitos, and the crunch of my shoes on the snails. I hadn't expected either of the latter and so was woefully unprepared without bug spray. As a result, I avoided some of the more distant graves, but got a pretty good sense of the place. While the Warsaw and Lodz graveyards are certainly larger, the Tarnow cemetery was one of the best laid out and explained that I've seen in Poland.
After that it was a leisurly stroll back to the train station. I caught the express train back to Rzeszow but was unpleasantly surprised to find the train full to overflowing. I'm not sure if all the families with small children were on their way to Przemsyl (where I'm going tomorrow) or whether they are continuing on to the Ukraine, but the train was more than full. I stood for half the way in the corridor next to the smokers. I opened the window for air, much to the distress to the grade school teacher who kept making unpleasant faces at me and indicating she wanted to the window closed. I ignored her. Thankfully, I found a spare seat for the last half hour. Just in time as my legs were starting to go numb.
Tonight I think I'm having a light dinner and then will watch the Germany-Argentina game tonight (I think they're playing Argentina). This has to be the most sports I've ever watched in my life.
The disadvantage is that I'm quite close to the open air pubs and the city hall building. I found out last night that last call is around 3 am (that's when the straggling, staggering groups of drunk 20-something men, slowly and noisely made their way home -- apparently, they've decided to show that the Anglo-Saxons don't have a monopoly on public drunkeness).
As for city hall, I have my own personal alarm clock. I succeeded in sleeping til 6 am this morning (mostly because it is overcast and raining), but then at 6 the city hall bells began to ring out the time (accompanied by a distorted tape of a short carillion).
Breakfast in my room arrived an hour later. Tea, a nice-sized roll, butter and blueberry jam, a small bowl of cereal and a large bowl of hot milk. I used some of the milk in the tea and then poured the cereal into the bowl of milk (I suppose the large amount of milk is more for the people who drink coffee).
Last night I had my most expensive meal in Poland. My guide book recommended a restaurant off the main square and I went there. Very red walls, and red tablecloths, and an elderly gentleman in a booth looking like a vampire. Really. At first I thought he was a manekin; he was very grey. He had pale grey skin, grey/black hair, and a grey jacket. He looked like he was in his late 70s. Then he moved slightly and realized he was alive. He had a glass of something in front of him. I never did find out who he was.
I ordered the seasonal strawberry soup and the roast duck with apples, cranberries, and puff pastry. The waiter told me in English that the price was by weight, but I didn't pay attention to the warning. Boneless duck in puff pastry at 28 zloty/ 100 grams -- how much could it cost? After I was served the soup, however, I began to worry.
This was by far the best and most generous strawberry soup I've had so far. A large bowl, with not only soup, but I would guess half a pint of fresh strawberries. Then the duck came. Not boneless, I guess about half a duck. The puff pastry was the dessert, filled with apples. It was all very good, but the meal (with tip -- which was too generous, but I didn't have any bills smaller than 20 on a meal that came to 130 zloty). Total: about $45. Actually, a rather good meal, but more than I intended to spend and left me feeling so bloated I could plotz.
Despite the rain this morning, I decided to go to Tarnow. Thankfully, it stopped even before I made it to the train. I took the local, which stopped at every little hamlet along the way, including the town in which my great-grandfather was born, Sedziszow Malapolska. I figured it would be a dinky little hamlet, but it was pretty substantial. According to the books, somewhere near the town is the Jewish cemetery and synagogue, but in the end, I didn't feel like tramping all over town looking for it.
Tarnow is a rather substantial town. Like Rzeszow, it is in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains. In the case of Rzeszow, it's more like the pinkies of the Carpathians: hills gently rise to the south, but that's about it. South of Tarnow, on the other hand, I could make out some subtantial hills, followed by a valley, and taller hills beyond. Like Rzeszow, Tarnow was half Jewish, and the town was geographically divided between its Christian half and its Jewish half. Unlike Rzeszow, however, there has been much more of an effort to preserve and identify Jewish sites.
I happened to meet the man responsible for that: Adam Bartosz. He established the Ethnographic Museum in Tarnow in 1998, making it the first museum in the world dedicated to the study of Roma (Gypsie) history and culture. I had just arrived at the museum and he was taking photographs of the exhibits for a book, I think. He asked me why I came and I explained that I while I teach Jewish history, I was very interested in the Roma and heard that his museum was the only one in the world devoted to the subject. He corrected me and said that there was now a new museum in Brno, Czech Republic, but that his museum was still the first.
He also encouraged me to buy his guide to visiting Jewish sites in Tarnow. In additional to running the Ethnographic Museum, he also runs the Regional Museum, and the Committee of Preservation of Jewish Culture Monuments in Tarnow. He told me that if I wanted to visit the cemetery, I could pick up the key to it at his other museum, but that I would also have to leave a refundable deposit. He also said that if I was interested, there was a new gypsy restaurant in town (though he didn't vouch for their quality).
The displays on gypsie history and culture were fascinating. Like the Jews, the gypsies lived outside the traditional feudal structure, were highly mobile, and specialized in certain occupations. Unlike the Jews, the gypsies had a primarily oral culture and were not based around a particular religion. The museum lays out the enslavement of gypsies in Eastern Europe (ending only in the middle of the 19th century), and then their persecution and massacre under the Nazis (he estimates that between 300 and 500,000 gypsies were killed by the Nazis, about half the European population.
They only had it slightly better under the communists who feared their mobility and forced them to settle. Even today there is significant discrimination, and he has charts posted concerning positive/negative views. I was surprised to see the high negative opinions still held of Jews by Poles, since I have not experienced that, but the gypsies were viewed even more negatively. He has photographs of racist anti-gypsie and anti-semitic graffiti, some of which (the anti-Jewish ones) I have seen before. Not often, but particularly in cities where there is a lot of gang graffiti, there are sometimes anti-Jewish remarks (e.g., "Jews to Israel," which I saw from the train in a rural town). In Lodz, which has a lot of gang graffiti, the city organizes an annual event when college students whitewash all the graffiti in town.
The other half of the Ethnographic Museum consisted of folk religious art, but in the back room I found an exhibit in the works on contemporary Jewish life in the Ukraine.
From there I went to the town hall but it was closed for some political symposium. That was really my only disappointment of the day, since they have one of the best collection of art work reflecting samartism in the country. Samartism was a bizarre belief that the Polish nobility was descended from Asian Samartians (this was based on a cartographical error in some renaissance maps). As a result, many adopted the clothing and hair styles of Central Asia as part of this invented heritage. What makes it particularly interesting for me is that I think there may be a connection between Samartian fashions and Hasidic garb. I had always heard that Hasidic clothing -- the kapote, the shtreimel -- were based on the clothing of Polish nobility, but when I was looking at the paintings of the royal families, they always look like Western European nobility, so I thought maybe in these Samartian paintings, I might find more evidence. It will have to wait for another trip, however.
Blocked but undaunted I went to the regional museum, which had a new exhibit called "Times of the Hasidim." The exhibit opened last week during the annual Jewish memorial week, coinciding with the first massacres of Jews by the Nazis in Tarnow. Several articles on the events and exhibitions had been printed in the local newspaper (in Polish, of course), and it looked as if Tarnow Jews and their descendents from Israel had attended.
The exhibit gave a nice primer on the history and beliefs of Hasidism, incorporating part of the museum's permanent collection of Judaica. I later learned that the synagogue display came from the last prayerhouse in Tarnow, which was closed in 1993, with the death of its last member. It's not a big museum, so when I was done, I went to lunch.
I decided to give the gypsy restaurant a try. I was the first one there and at first I couldn't tell if they were open. I didn't speak Polish, so the woman yelled "Shandor," and her son (?) who had gone to the University of Chicago came in and gave me an menu. I had thought about the peirogi but they weren't ready yet, so I ordered the gulasz and the grilled turkey. The gulasz was good and tasty, though a little oily, and the grilled turkey was a little like shishlik and surprisingly spicy. Not uncomfortably so, but I had become used to the more bland and tame Polish cooking.
After lunch I went to the ruins of the old synagogue (built in the early 17th century, burnt by the Nazis on 9 November 1939). Only the brick bimah with its four pillars and canopy remained. Then I went back to the museum to get the key and began to follow the path laid out in the guidebook. They did a really nice job, but I was even more surprised when I reached the cemetery. Unlike the other Jewish cemeteries I was in (many of which were guarded with dogs), this one was protected only by a gang of stray cats. That being said, the cemetery was very well preserved. There's no question of the time and effort being placed into clearing the weeds, uprighting the stones, and marking out the more prominent graves.
Within the cemetery there is a guided path tracing out the most interesting graves. It begins with a monument established for the victims of the Holocaust in 1946, just one year afterwards. It has to be one of the earliest monuments I have seen in Poland. From there the path led to some of the earliest graves in the cemetary, from the early 18th century (though the cemetery is some 150 years older). It was quiet, with the only noise being the chirping birds, the buzzing mosquitos, and the crunch of my shoes on the snails. I hadn't expected either of the latter and so was woefully unprepared without bug spray. As a result, I avoided some of the more distant graves, but got a pretty good sense of the place. While the Warsaw and Lodz graveyards are certainly larger, the Tarnow cemetery was one of the best laid out and explained that I've seen in Poland.
After that it was a leisurly stroll back to the train station. I caught the express train back to Rzeszow but was unpleasantly surprised to find the train full to overflowing. I'm not sure if all the families with small children were on their way to Przemsyl (where I'm going tomorrow) or whether they are continuing on to the Ukraine, but the train was more than full. I stood for half the way in the corridor next to the smokers. I opened the window for air, much to the distress to the grade school teacher who kept making unpleasant faces at me and indicating she wanted to the window closed. I ignored her. Thankfully, I found a spare seat for the last half hour. Just in time as my legs were starting to go numb.
Tonight I think I'm having a light dinner and then will watch the Germany-Argentina game tonight (I think they're playing Argentina). This has to be the most sports I've ever watched in my life.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
When the Learning Curve Becomes a Loop (June 29)
I mentioned yesterday that there is a steep learning curve when arriving in Polish cities. Well, today I discovered while trying to leave Zamosc that that curve can sometimes become a loop.
There are four basic types of transportation I've been using in Poland. The first are my feet, and I've been doing a lot of walking here. The second are the trains. They can be slow, overcrowded, and sometimes late, but they do have a published schedule available over the internet. The third are public buses, both local and intercity. They also have posted schedules, but only at stations and stops, not on the internet. Local buses have a lot in common with Israeli buses (except the air conditioning): they tend to careen across the road, lurch, come to sharp stops causing elderly passengers to sway dangerously across the aisle. Finally there are the new private intercity bus lines. These are really large vans run by new start-up companies. Sometimes they have the routes and schedules up on signs near their stops.
Now I've always known I was going to have some trouble today. The southeast corner of Poland is the least developed and the most rural. To make matters worse, I needed to travel from a part of Poland that had been ruled by Russia prior to 1918 to one ruled byAustria prior to 1918. What difference does that make? Well, you can still pretty much make out the partion borders by looking at the rail network in Poland. It's thick and developed in the Austrian and German zones, but thin and mostly absent in the Russian zone.
There's only one direct line (it curves like an "s" but one doesn't need to change trains) from Zamosc to Rzeszow, but it only runs during the summer months. That's why I rescheduled my route in Poland so that I would be travelling this part of it this week when that train started to run. Nevertheless, it still takes 4:45 hours to make the trip, so I was looking for something shorter.
I saw at the tourist office that one of the private van lines had a Rzeszow route leaving at 10:10. Great, I thought, I can eat a leisurely breakfast, mail some postcards, and then catch a quick bus that will get me to Rzeszow in half the time. I arrived at the private bus lot with plenty of time and started looking for a bus stand for my bus. No luck. Nor is my bus on the main posted schedule, but then, I thought, it might be too new.
As the minutes ticked by I began to get nervous. I tried asking one of the van drivers but none of them spoke English, German, French, Hebrew, or Spanish (the languages I tried). When the bus was twenty minutes late I began to get very nervous. I tried other waiting passengers, but only one spoke English but she wasn't sure about the schedule. One suggested I take a van to Tomasow Lubelski and that I would have better luck finding a connection there, but I decided that was too risky as I didn't know for sure if there would be anything, so I went back to my fallback option of the train.
I still don't know what happened to my bus. My best theory is that the schedule is for a departure from Tomasow Lub., and that I was expected to make my own way there, but that's just a theory.
The train I was taking today was exactly the same train I took yesterday to Belzec. This gave me an opportunity to see the site one more time from the train. According the pamphlet put out by the museum, there are differences in shading in the cinder stones, marking off the mass graves of the camp. I hadn't seen them yesterday, probably because of a combination of being too upclose, the rain, and the overcast sky. Today I had no problem making them out. I also saw the stack of railway ties near the entrance. The rails were taken from the rail lines near Treblinka (the ones near Belzec are still being used by normal train traffic such as the train I was on). I think they are supposed to abstractly represent the bodies of the dead or the pyres on which they were later burned.
Before arriving in Belzec, the woman in the compartment next to mine tried to tell me something. She had tried to speak to me earlier in Polish but I told her that I didn't speak Polish. She lived in Belzec and wanted to point something out to me as we approached the station. It turned out to be an old wooden church. Wooden prayer houses were typical for this part of Poland, and there used to be large, beautiful wooden synagogues, however, the Nazis burned every one of them. Nonetheless, from this small church, I had a sense of what they must have looked like.
From there, the train headed to the Polish-Ukranian border, passing through mostly wooded hills, separated by small valleys dotted with family farms. Eventually we past south of these hills into a wide hilly expanse of farms that is Galicia, and finally we reached Rzeszow.
Rzeszow is quite different from Zamosc. Zamosc is prettier but Rzeszow has a lot more people and is a lot more lively. I wasn't able to book a hotel room in advance here, but I was able to get a room at my first choice: the Pod Ratuszem (it means "beneath the city hall"). In fact, I have a view of the old city hall building from my fourth-floor walk up room. It's only 120 zloty a night (or $36.70) and includes breakfast in my room (I requested the vegetarian option).
I walked around the town in the late afternoon and found the two synagogues. The old synagogue was built in the late 17th century and burned by the Nazis in 1944. It is not open to the public and is now used as to house the town archives. Right next to it is the new synagogue, built about a hundred years later, also burned by the Nazis, but open to the public. Unfortunately, not as a synagogue. The lower levels are used as an art gallery and the upper level is a coffee house. I went in, but there's no sense of what the building actually was like before the war.
Across from both is a park built on what was originally the old Jewish cemetery, but used by the Nazis as a concentration camp, and later as a deportation point for Rzeszow Jews who were then sent to Belzec for extermination.
My grandfather was born here but I don't feel any sort of connection to the place. No sense of what the Germans would called "Heimat," or homeland. On the other hand, I wasn't expecting any such feelings.
Tomorrow I head for Tarnow, which has more Jewish sights, then to find Sedzisow, which the shtetl my grandfather's family came from. All the woman at the tourist office could say is that few people go there (and that it's only 7 km from town). Then on Saturday I'll head to Przemsyl and Lancut.
There are four basic types of transportation I've been using in Poland. The first are my feet, and I've been doing a lot of walking here. The second are the trains. They can be slow, overcrowded, and sometimes late, but they do have a published schedule available over the internet. The third are public buses, both local and intercity. They also have posted schedules, but only at stations and stops, not on the internet. Local buses have a lot in common with Israeli buses (except the air conditioning): they tend to careen across the road, lurch, come to sharp stops causing elderly passengers to sway dangerously across the aisle. Finally there are the new private intercity bus lines. These are really large vans run by new start-up companies. Sometimes they have the routes and schedules up on signs near their stops.
Now I've always known I was going to have some trouble today. The southeast corner of Poland is the least developed and the most rural. To make matters worse, I needed to travel from a part of Poland that had been ruled by Russia prior to 1918 to one ruled byAustria prior to 1918. What difference does that make? Well, you can still pretty much make out the partion borders by looking at the rail network in Poland. It's thick and developed in the Austrian and German zones, but thin and mostly absent in the Russian zone.
There's only one direct line (it curves like an "s" but one doesn't need to change trains) from Zamosc to Rzeszow, but it only runs during the summer months. That's why I rescheduled my route in Poland so that I would be travelling this part of it this week when that train started to run. Nevertheless, it still takes 4:45 hours to make the trip, so I was looking for something shorter.
I saw at the tourist office that one of the private van lines had a Rzeszow route leaving at 10:10. Great, I thought, I can eat a leisurely breakfast, mail some postcards, and then catch a quick bus that will get me to Rzeszow in half the time. I arrived at the private bus lot with plenty of time and started looking for a bus stand for my bus. No luck. Nor is my bus on the main posted schedule, but then, I thought, it might be too new.
As the minutes ticked by I began to get nervous. I tried asking one of the van drivers but none of them spoke English, German, French, Hebrew, or Spanish (the languages I tried). When the bus was twenty minutes late I began to get very nervous. I tried other waiting passengers, but only one spoke English but she wasn't sure about the schedule. One suggested I take a van to Tomasow Lubelski and that I would have better luck finding a connection there, but I decided that was too risky as I didn't know for sure if there would be anything, so I went back to my fallback option of the train.
I still don't know what happened to my bus. My best theory is that the schedule is for a departure from Tomasow Lub., and that I was expected to make my own way there, but that's just a theory.
The train I was taking today was exactly the same train I took yesterday to Belzec. This gave me an opportunity to see the site one more time from the train. According the pamphlet put out by the museum, there are differences in shading in the cinder stones, marking off the mass graves of the camp. I hadn't seen them yesterday, probably because of a combination of being too upclose, the rain, and the overcast sky. Today I had no problem making them out. I also saw the stack of railway ties near the entrance. The rails were taken from the rail lines near Treblinka (the ones near Belzec are still being used by normal train traffic such as the train I was on). I think they are supposed to abstractly represent the bodies of the dead or the pyres on which they were later burned.
Before arriving in Belzec, the woman in the compartment next to mine tried to tell me something. She had tried to speak to me earlier in Polish but I told her that I didn't speak Polish. She lived in Belzec and wanted to point something out to me as we approached the station. It turned out to be an old wooden church. Wooden prayer houses were typical for this part of Poland, and there used to be large, beautiful wooden synagogues, however, the Nazis burned every one of them. Nonetheless, from this small church, I had a sense of what they must have looked like.
From there, the train headed to the Polish-Ukranian border, passing through mostly wooded hills, separated by small valleys dotted with family farms. Eventually we past south of these hills into a wide hilly expanse of farms that is Galicia, and finally we reached Rzeszow.
Rzeszow is quite different from Zamosc. Zamosc is prettier but Rzeszow has a lot more people and is a lot more lively. I wasn't able to book a hotel room in advance here, but I was able to get a room at my first choice: the Pod Ratuszem (it means "beneath the city hall"). In fact, I have a view of the old city hall building from my fourth-floor walk up room. It's only 120 zloty a night (or $36.70) and includes breakfast in my room (I requested the vegetarian option).
I walked around the town in the late afternoon and found the two synagogues. The old synagogue was built in the late 17th century and burned by the Nazis in 1944. It is not open to the public and is now used as to house the town archives. Right next to it is the new synagogue, built about a hundred years later, also burned by the Nazis, but open to the public. Unfortunately, not as a synagogue. The lower levels are used as an art gallery and the upper level is a coffee house. I went in, but there's no sense of what the building actually was like before the war.
Across from both is a park built on what was originally the old Jewish cemetery, but used by the Nazis as a concentration camp, and later as a deportation point for Rzeszow Jews who were then sent to Belzec for extermination.
My grandfather was born here but I don't feel any sort of connection to the place. No sense of what the Germans would called "Heimat," or homeland. On the other hand, I wasn't expecting any such feelings.
Tomorrow I head for Tarnow, which has more Jewish sights, then to find Sedzisow, which the shtetl my grandfather's family came from. All the woman at the tourist office could say is that few people go there (and that it's only 7 km from town). Then on Saturday I'll head to Przemsyl and Lancut.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Rain and Thunder
There's always a steep learning curve when I arrive in a new city, particularly a Polish city. I have to quickly find out where I am, how the buses work, which bus I need to get to my hotel, how to buy and validate the ticket, and which is my stop. Today I did almost all of those right, but I missed my stop by one (again, as in Lublin, stops are not identified by name with signs -- then again, neither are bus stops in Los Angeles).
I arrived at my hotel around 9:30, and my room was not ready yet. Thankfully, they let me store my luggage in it while the maid prepared the room. In the meantime, I mailed some postcards (including a birthday postcard for my mother). I finally realized I should be requesting air mail, so these might actually arrive in time). Then I went to the tourist information office in the main square.
I should add here that Zamosc (where I am now), is a beautiful renaissance town. It was designed by an Italian architect from Padua in the late 16th century, and features a wide piazza, a large imposing town hall (reputedly the most photographed building in Poland), and many fine merchant homes. The only difference with Italy is that there is no large baroque fountain in the middle, nor are there many tourists. In fact, the town is surprisingly empty.
From there I went to the former synagogue. Damaged by the Nazis during the war, the building was turned into a library by the communists. In the last few years, however, the synagogue has been restored and is now a museum. This is part of a wider project throughout Southern Poland of restoring damaged synagogues. While I was admiring the early 17th century ceiling a Polish tour group came through. I could hear the guide pointing out the Aron Hakodesh as the place where the torah scrolls were kept (at least that's what I think she was saying). The synagogue also features a display on the former Jewish community of Zamosc, several of whose members became quite famous (such as I. L. Peretz and Rosa Luxemburg).
Then it was time to get to the train station and catch my train to Belzec. I had a bit of a shock as I approached the station for as I turned the corner I saw two brown bares almost a stone's throw away. Then I saw the moat and realized I had found the town zoo. There was no cafe, so I bought some rolls, cheese, an apple, potato chips, and a large bottle of water, and made a picnic. The train ride was through some of the prettiest countryside I've see in Poland. The further south I got, the more the terrain changed from rolling plains to forested hills separated by small farms. There were green fields separated by fields of yellow mustard or bright red poppies.
As I neared Belzec I could see it was going to storm. I was prepared today and brought my umbrella. It cleared long enough to reach the death camp (located a 10-minute walk from Belzec train station) and then began to pour again. Actually, I was a little afraid as it was thundering and the last thing I needed was to become another dead Jew at Belzec.
As I approached the site at first I thought it was a large quarry or perhaps there had been a fire. Then I saw that what they had done was cover the entire site with volcanic rocks. Before I went to the memorial, I went into the new museum. Both the memorial and the museum were opened just two years ago. The museum is quite good and has clearly been influenced by the Holocaust Museum in D.C. There is some good video testimony, supplemented by findings from the archaeological digs carried out on the site five years ago. They found some of the stone disks given to victims as vouchers for their belongings, as well as star of David armbands, and keys. There were also signs from the camp, a model based on the one survivor's testimony, and information on the perpetrators.
The exhibit ends with a map showing Jewish communities and their liquidation. It appears as a map filled with bright lights, each light representing a community. At first I thought it was broken, as it doesn't light up when for each month communities were liquidated. I then realized that what it does is shows the various lights going out. As it reaches June, August, and September, 1942 (the camp was closed for July for expansion of the killing facilities), suddenly more and more of the map goes dark, as the lights are extinguished. I thought it was both informative, as well as moving.
From there I went to the memorial. Since the Nazis decommisioned the camp in 1943 (it had served its intended purpose of killing the Jews of Poland), they then leveled and razed it to the ground in an effort to hide all traces of the camp. They also did this at Treblinka and Sobibor, which poses a difficult problem for creating a memorial. Unlike Majdanek, here there is no single item or place that can become the locus for historical memory. All you are left with is a green field, which in itself is misleading since that represents the intended Nazi camouflage.
At Treblinka, the Polish government in the 1960s made the decision to cover the field with sections of raised stones, each stone bearing the name of a murdered community. Here they went a little different route. The field has been covered with an inclined hill of black volcanic rock, mostly pumice [the guidebook I bought -- which appears to have been translated into English by use of an imperfect computer program -- describes them as cinders]. It gives the effect of land after a volcanic eruption, where all life has been wiped out. Around this rock, are twisted pieces of metal, giving the impression of a barbed wire. Cutting through the rock is a path way. Around the perimeter of the field are the names of communities murdered in Belzec (about 500,000 people is the current estimate).
As I walked down the pathway, the walls on either side grew higher and higher, cutting off more and more of the sunlight, until it felt like I was walking into a tomb. It was quiet, with the only sounds being my own echoing footsteps and the distant thunder. Finally, when the walls on either side (of roughly shaped concrete, protruding in places) reached 2-3 stories, I reached the memorial. On the side facing the path it is a large white block with the words from Job: "Earth do not hide my blood and do not let my cry be stopped." On the opposite wall are a series of names in alphabetical order. They are the most common first names used by Jews (there was a similar monument at the Umschlagplatz in Warsaw).
I made my way up the stairs and began to trace the list of destroyed communities (in chronological order by month, in alphabetical order within each month). When I reached Nowy Targ, from whose ghetto my great-grandmother was taken to this place and killed, I placed a stone by the name. Then I went back to the museum and bought a memorial candle. Since I didn't have any matches, the guard lit it for me and I went back to the memorial and placed it on the ledge beneath her name: Gitel.
I'm out of time right now, so I will update this entry later.
[update]
After I put the candle down, I said kaddish for my great-grandmother. There was a small group of Polish tourists there, so I said it quietly, not wanting to feel like I was performing for them. I saw that someone else had put down a candle. A woman who I had chatted with briefly in the museum in German was there and she had put it down. A few minutes later, another group of Polish tourists arrived and they too put down a memorial candle.
I chatted again with the woman. Although we chatted in German, she was, in fact, Polish. She was trained as an historian, and had originally focused her research on 18th-century testaments (I'm not sure whether she meant legal documents in general, wills, or possibly the partitions of Poland -- my German was a little weak here). Now, however, she was working at an institute in Warsaw dealing with original documents of the Holocaust. I pressed her a bit on the nature of her research, and she talked about using documents to trace individuals within them. I got the impression that she is more of an archivist than the sort of historian who writes articles or teaches students.
We talked about my trip, and she asked if I had been to the old cemetery in Lublin. I told her I had only been able to see it from the outside since the gate was locked and I didn't know where the gatekeeper lived. I had the address but didn't know where the street was. It turns out she used to live quite close and recognized the street address from my guide book. She said the old cemetery was amazing and it had the oldest gravestones in Poland. I told her that I hoped to see it next time I was in Poland, when I will make all the proper arrangements.
We were both taking the 15:25 train, so we walked back to the train station. She was staying one stop away in the town of Susiec. On the train, we passed first through beautiful fields and then into the woods and hills nearby where she was staying. I commented to her on the beauty of the countryside and the horror of the history. Yes, she said, but that's the way it is. I asked her if she had been to Israel and she said yes. I asked her if she thought there were similarities between Israel and Poland, and she said she thought there was among the older generation. Maybe, she said, they brought some Poland with them to Israel. The younger generation, on the other hand, was quite different. I agreed and said that I thought many of the "pensioners" I see in Poland remind me, in their appearance and dress, to the same sort of people I saw in Israel.
Back in Zamosc, I visited the cathedral on the edge of the old town. Like the rest of the town, it was designed during the renaissance and is quite beautiful. The town museum, featuring the history of the town, including many of the Armenians who were among the most prominent of the town's founders, was unfortunately closed when I got back. I was hoping to see it this morning, but I'm taking the 10:10 bus today to Rzeszow.
Much of the historic section of Zamosc is under reconstruction right now. Not the houses, which, unlike the population of the town, came through the war mostly unscathed, but the streets are being repaired. They are in the process of replacing all the cobblestone streets in the historic core. That means navigating the area becomes a bit of an obstacle course. I ended up having dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town (located in the priciest hotel). I walked into the dining room and said "ahhh" -- there was air conditioning. I ordered the special strawberry soup with pasta stars and the sliced roast pork with vegetables and strawberry sauce. Strawberries are in season right now, and every day I see people carrying baskets and buckets of fresh strawberries. Lots of restaurants have special strawberry menus for the occasion (though one place in Warsaw served defrosted frozen strawberries to me in what I felt was a blatant bait -and - switch). The whole thing (plus an ok chocolate mousse cake) with tip came to 56 zloty (or about $17.15).
As I was leaving I glanced through the doorway into the hotel proper, where I could see a large tour group was just arriving. The tour leader, a woman in her late 40s, was yelling at them in Israeli-accented English. I asked her in Hebrew where they were from and she said Pittsburgh. She went back to directing the group of 30-40 people, and I heard her say "this is supposed to be the most expensive hotel in town and they don't even have air conditioning?!" At that I felt much better because I had been thinking that I should have stayed here and then at least I would have had air conditioning, but now I know I made the right choice. Luckily, it did cool down enough last night for me to sleep until 5:45 am when the sun woke me up (I had gotten up around 3 as the sky began to lighten but forced myself to go back to sleep).
I chatted with an Israel-American woman about Poland. Like me they had been in Lublin the day before, but they had gone to Majdanek around 2pm, and the woman complained about how hot it had been. I asked her where else in Lublin she had been and she mentioned the yeshiva (which I had seen from the outside). I told her that that part of Lublin very much reminded me of Israel. She looked at me sort of funny, as if she wondered what I could possibly mean, but I told her, you know, like the area around the central bus station in Tel-Aviv. Oh yes, she agreed. The only difference, I said was that you don't see dud shemesh [solar water heaters] on the roofs here. Yes, she laughed.
Meanwhile, there was a large crowd by the elevator waiting for it to come back down. One woman was complaining about the line so I told her she should be grateful there was an elevator. Only the first two hotels I've been to in Poland had elevators, I told her, and in the rest you just have to climb the stairs. With that I went back to my hotel to see if I could find out the weather for today and watch the Italian and German music channels. I watched "A Series of Unfortunate Events" dubbed into Polish for a while but then gave up.
Anyway, it's off to Rzeszow this morning. I'm taking a private bus, so it should only take 2 and a half hours (as opposed to the 5 hours it would take by either train or public bus). I don't have a hotel reservation there so I'm just going to play it by ear and hope for the best.
I arrived at my hotel around 9:30, and my room was not ready yet. Thankfully, they let me store my luggage in it while the maid prepared the room. In the meantime, I mailed some postcards (including a birthday postcard for my mother). I finally realized I should be requesting air mail, so these might actually arrive in time). Then I went to the tourist information office in the main square.
I should add here that Zamosc (where I am now), is a beautiful renaissance town. It was designed by an Italian architect from Padua in the late 16th century, and features a wide piazza, a large imposing town hall (reputedly the most photographed building in Poland), and many fine merchant homes. The only difference with Italy is that there is no large baroque fountain in the middle, nor are there many tourists. In fact, the town is surprisingly empty.
From there I went to the former synagogue. Damaged by the Nazis during the war, the building was turned into a library by the communists. In the last few years, however, the synagogue has been restored and is now a museum. This is part of a wider project throughout Southern Poland of restoring damaged synagogues. While I was admiring the early 17th century ceiling a Polish tour group came through. I could hear the guide pointing out the Aron Hakodesh as the place where the torah scrolls were kept (at least that's what I think she was saying). The synagogue also features a display on the former Jewish community of Zamosc, several of whose members became quite famous (such as I. L. Peretz and Rosa Luxemburg).
Then it was time to get to the train station and catch my train to Belzec. I had a bit of a shock as I approached the station for as I turned the corner I saw two brown bares almost a stone's throw away. Then I saw the moat and realized I had found the town zoo. There was no cafe, so I bought some rolls, cheese, an apple, potato chips, and a large bottle of water, and made a picnic. The train ride was through some of the prettiest countryside I've see in Poland. The further south I got, the more the terrain changed from rolling plains to forested hills separated by small farms. There were green fields separated by fields of yellow mustard or bright red poppies.
As I neared Belzec I could see it was going to storm. I was prepared today and brought my umbrella. It cleared long enough to reach the death camp (located a 10-minute walk from Belzec train station) and then began to pour again. Actually, I was a little afraid as it was thundering and the last thing I needed was to become another dead Jew at Belzec.
As I approached the site at first I thought it was a large quarry or perhaps there had been a fire. Then I saw that what they had done was cover the entire site with volcanic rocks. Before I went to the memorial, I went into the new museum. Both the memorial and the museum were opened just two years ago. The museum is quite good and has clearly been influenced by the Holocaust Museum in D.C. There is some good video testimony, supplemented by findings from the archaeological digs carried out on the site five years ago. They found some of the stone disks given to victims as vouchers for their belongings, as well as star of David armbands, and keys. There were also signs from the camp, a model based on the one survivor's testimony, and information on the perpetrators.
The exhibit ends with a map showing Jewish communities and their liquidation. It appears as a map filled with bright lights, each light representing a community. At first I thought it was broken, as it doesn't light up when for each month communities were liquidated. I then realized that what it does is shows the various lights going out. As it reaches June, August, and September, 1942 (the camp was closed for July for expansion of the killing facilities), suddenly more and more of the map goes dark, as the lights are extinguished. I thought it was both informative, as well as moving.
From there I went to the memorial. Since the Nazis decommisioned the camp in 1943 (it had served its intended purpose of killing the Jews of Poland), they then leveled and razed it to the ground in an effort to hide all traces of the camp. They also did this at Treblinka and Sobibor, which poses a difficult problem for creating a memorial. Unlike Majdanek, here there is no single item or place that can become the locus for historical memory. All you are left with is a green field, which in itself is misleading since that represents the intended Nazi camouflage.
At Treblinka, the Polish government in the 1960s made the decision to cover the field with sections of raised stones, each stone bearing the name of a murdered community. Here they went a little different route. The field has been covered with an inclined hill of black volcanic rock, mostly pumice [the guidebook I bought -- which appears to have been translated into English by use of an imperfect computer program -- describes them as cinders]. It gives the effect of land after a volcanic eruption, where all life has been wiped out. Around this rock, are twisted pieces of metal, giving the impression of a barbed wire. Cutting through the rock is a path way. Around the perimeter of the field are the names of communities murdered in Belzec (about 500,000 people is the current estimate).
As I walked down the pathway, the walls on either side grew higher and higher, cutting off more and more of the sunlight, until it felt like I was walking into a tomb. It was quiet, with the only sounds being my own echoing footsteps and the distant thunder. Finally, when the walls on either side (of roughly shaped concrete, protruding in places) reached 2-3 stories, I reached the memorial. On the side facing the path it is a large white block with the words from Job: "Earth do not hide my blood and do not let my cry be stopped." On the opposite wall are a series of names in alphabetical order. They are the most common first names used by Jews (there was a similar monument at the Umschlagplatz in Warsaw).
I made my way up the stairs and began to trace the list of destroyed communities (in chronological order by month, in alphabetical order within each month). When I reached Nowy Targ, from whose ghetto my great-grandmother was taken to this place and killed, I placed a stone by the name. Then I went back to the museum and bought a memorial candle. Since I didn't have any matches, the guard lit it for me and I went back to the memorial and placed it on the ledge beneath her name: Gitel.
I'm out of time right now, so I will update this entry later.
[update]
After I put the candle down, I said kaddish for my great-grandmother. There was a small group of Polish tourists there, so I said it quietly, not wanting to feel like I was performing for them. I saw that someone else had put down a candle. A woman who I had chatted with briefly in the museum in German was there and she had put it down. A few minutes later, another group of Polish tourists arrived and they too put down a memorial candle.
I chatted again with the woman. Although we chatted in German, she was, in fact, Polish. She was trained as an historian, and had originally focused her research on 18th-century testaments (I'm not sure whether she meant legal documents in general, wills, or possibly the partitions of Poland -- my German was a little weak here). Now, however, she was working at an institute in Warsaw dealing with original documents of the Holocaust. I pressed her a bit on the nature of her research, and she talked about using documents to trace individuals within them. I got the impression that she is more of an archivist than the sort of historian who writes articles or teaches students.
We talked about my trip, and she asked if I had been to the old cemetery in Lublin. I told her I had only been able to see it from the outside since the gate was locked and I didn't know where the gatekeeper lived. I had the address but didn't know where the street was. It turns out she used to live quite close and recognized the street address from my guide book. She said the old cemetery was amazing and it had the oldest gravestones in Poland. I told her that I hoped to see it next time I was in Poland, when I will make all the proper arrangements.
We were both taking the 15:25 train, so we walked back to the train station. She was staying one stop away in the town of Susiec. On the train, we passed first through beautiful fields and then into the woods and hills nearby where she was staying. I commented to her on the beauty of the countryside and the horror of the history. Yes, she said, but that's the way it is. I asked her if she had been to Israel and she said yes. I asked her if she thought there were similarities between Israel and Poland, and she said she thought there was among the older generation. Maybe, she said, they brought some Poland with them to Israel. The younger generation, on the other hand, was quite different. I agreed and said that I thought many of the "pensioners" I see in Poland remind me, in their appearance and dress, to the same sort of people I saw in Israel.
Back in Zamosc, I visited the cathedral on the edge of the old town. Like the rest of the town, it was designed during the renaissance and is quite beautiful. The town museum, featuring the history of the town, including many of the Armenians who were among the most prominent of the town's founders, was unfortunately closed when I got back. I was hoping to see it this morning, but I'm taking the 10:10 bus today to Rzeszow.
Much of the historic section of Zamosc is under reconstruction right now. Not the houses, which, unlike the population of the town, came through the war mostly unscathed, but the streets are being repaired. They are in the process of replacing all the cobblestone streets in the historic core. That means navigating the area becomes a bit of an obstacle course. I ended up having dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town (located in the priciest hotel). I walked into the dining room and said "ahhh" -- there was air conditioning. I ordered the special strawberry soup with pasta stars and the sliced roast pork with vegetables and strawberry sauce. Strawberries are in season right now, and every day I see people carrying baskets and buckets of fresh strawberries. Lots of restaurants have special strawberry menus for the occasion (though one place in Warsaw served defrosted frozen strawberries to me in what I felt was a blatant bait -and - switch). The whole thing (plus an ok chocolate mousse cake) with tip came to 56 zloty (or about $17.15).
As I was leaving I glanced through the doorway into the hotel proper, where I could see a large tour group was just arriving. The tour leader, a woman in her late 40s, was yelling at them in Israeli-accented English. I asked her in Hebrew where they were from and she said Pittsburgh. She went back to directing the group of 30-40 people, and I heard her say "this is supposed to be the most expensive hotel in town and they don't even have air conditioning?!" At that I felt much better because I had been thinking that I should have stayed here and then at least I would have had air conditioning, but now I know I made the right choice. Luckily, it did cool down enough last night for me to sleep until 5:45 am when the sun woke me up (I had gotten up around 3 as the sky began to lighten but forced myself to go back to sleep).
I chatted with an Israel-American woman about Poland. Like me they had been in Lublin the day before, but they had gone to Majdanek around 2pm, and the woman complained about how hot it had been. I asked her where else in Lublin she had been and she mentioned the yeshiva (which I had seen from the outside). I told her that that part of Lublin very much reminded me of Israel. She looked at me sort of funny, as if she wondered what I could possibly mean, but I told her, you know, like the area around the central bus station in Tel-Aviv. Oh yes, she agreed. The only difference, I said was that you don't see dud shemesh [solar water heaters] on the roofs here. Yes, she laughed.
Meanwhile, there was a large crowd by the elevator waiting for it to come back down. One woman was complaining about the line so I told her she should be grateful there was an elevator. Only the first two hotels I've been to in Poland had elevators, I told her, and in the rest you just have to climb the stairs. With that I went back to my hotel to see if I could find out the weather for today and watch the Italian and German music channels. I watched "A Series of Unfortunate Events" dubbed into Polish for a while but then gave up.
Anyway, it's off to Rzeszow this morning. I'm taking a private bus, so it should only take 2 and a half hours (as opposed to the 5 hours it would take by either train or public bus). I don't have a hotel reservation there so I'm just going to play it by ear and hope for the best.
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