Giant Dwarf: Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part IV: The Trip

And we're off.....

I'm not even sure how to write this. Was this a life-changing trip? I'm still not sure. Was it worth it? Yes, but that wasn't clear at first and my agreement with the trip's worth has been taking shape over the last few months since our return. Poland is indeed full of ghosts, and, by extension, a bit creepy wherever you go.

When you visit Poland (if you are not there just for cheap tourism, and by cheap, I mean, WTF how can something cost this little?) you cannot not learn the history. Poles are proud, but they've had a tumultuous history. In the last few centuries, they've rarely had extensive periods of independence from neighboring countries, and when they have had it, it didn't go that well. (Disclaimer: In no way am I an accurate historian; if you want to learn more about Polish history, please do your own research. Much of this is my take-home from touring the eastern part of the country and from the bits of history I gleaned along the way.) In recent history, they went from being occupied by the Nazis, with large cities being razed by the Nazis, only to be replaced by Soviet occupation and the Soviet-designed buildings replacing the razed old world charm of their cities. They had the largest number of concentration and death camps during the Holocaust, with Polish citizens practically living next door to them. There were many Poles who helped save Jews and there were many Poles who perished at the hands of the Nazis; but the history of Jews in Poland was complicated. You can feel that.

I don't want to completely appropriate the idea of The Trail of Tears, but I don't have a better description at this point. By the 16th century, Poland was home to 3/4 of the world's Jews. For those first several centuries, Jews were welcomed and sometimes invited to cities or villages to boost the economic prospects for those areas. The town of Tykocin, where my family lived prior to moving to Bialystok, had boasted a large Jewish population. This synagogue was built in 1642:

Tykocin Synagogue

We went to Treblinka, Auschwitz, saw remnants of the Bialystok and Warsaw ghetto uprisings, Schindler's Factory, saw plazas and train depots where Jews were rounded up and deported to camps, saw Jewish cemeteries trashed and desecrated, with new houses built over some of the gravesites, saw Jewish headstones used as paving by the Nazis, saw the site of a synagogue where 2,000 Jews were trapped inside while it was set afire and burned to the ground: everyone inside perished. This cannot be described as "fun" sightseeing.

Treblinka Memorial

Memorial to the synagogue in Bialystok where the Nazis trapped 2,000 people inside and burned them alive, 1941.

Auschwitz

Jewish Cemetery in Bialystok; in disrepair and valiantly but slowly being tended to by a small group of volunteers.

After being forced into a ghetto in Krakow, this was the plaza from which thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps.

Remah Cemetery in Krakow; these were the stones that the Nazis used to pave their roads. The fragments that were found were built into this wall circling the cemetery after the war.

But we had moments of hope and retribution throughout the trip: Bialystok, whose Jewish population is now a whopping 10 people, commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising, the second largest ghetto uprising in Poland after Warsaw. The main square of this small town had a large display, with photos taken by those meticulous Nazis as proof of the occurrence.

Then there were museums dedicated to Polish Jewry and the atrocities of the Holocaust, visited by people from all over the world. Revivals of Jewish culture in Krakow and Warsaw were apparent, and we had the good fortune of being in Warsaw during their yearly Jewish cultural festival, the Singera Festival.

Polin Museum (History of the Jewish People in Poland), Warsaw.

See....everybody thinks it's cold in Eastern Europe (from an exhibit in the Polin Museum)

Wonderful festival of music, art and letters.....we missed the Japanese klezmer band, though....

For a more comprehensive photo journal, please see my edited photos of the trip: https://www.instagram.com/greensweater27/?hl=en

I at first thought I wouldn’t go back. And I’m still not sure I will, but I would if I had the chance. I want to see Bialystok again and go to the Bialowieza Forest to see the bison. I want to learn more about Zamenhof, who created Esperanto and was born in Bialystok. (Esperanto is a universal language, created in the utopian hope of bringing the world together. It is still spoken all over the world today but clearly never took root as a universal language.) I would visit Krakow again and spend some more time just hanging out there instead of chasing down tourist spots. I’d like to see Gdańsk. And I’d like to bring home more Zubrowka Wodka (the Zubrowka sold in the U.S. are different, given that the coumarin in the Polish-made vodka is verboten in the good ol' U.S. of A.).

So, yes, despite my misgivings, I did enjoy this trip. There were emotional and spiritual challenges, as well as physical ones (95 steps up to our apartment in Krakow!....my parents, you may remember, are in their 70s), but Poland's rich history and our rich history in Poland gave me a better understanding of our roots and our place in this world. Also, there was chlodnik and sledz, so I survived the cuisine as well: