Since I am in Poland, when I do a Google search the results come up in Polish. Just today when I write an email I have started getting English words underlined as if they are spelled wrong like used to happen with other languages. Seems that Gmail is expecting Polish or something.
Thanksgiving
It’s Thanksgiving, but here in Poland it’s just a normal day. I would not even realize it but I go on Facebook and everyone is saying what they are grateful for, and I listen to Boston Public Radio and they are not broadcasting live today or tomorrow.
Today is also 55 years since the JFK assassination. I asked my Polish friend and visionary preserver/guardian/keeper/protector (am trying to figure out the right word) of Jewish memory what his first historical memory was (he was born in the 1950s) and he said the JFK assassination. He said his second was the moon landing. Even more than the expulsion of the Jews from Poland in 1968. This is something I was recently discussing with my older son. Mine is Robert Kennedy’s assassination. His was Clinton’s second election.
I lived in Israel for eleven years (twelve really, but eleven in a row) and Thanksgiving was usually just another day there as well though I think maybe once or twice the expats did something.
So what am I thankful for? Of course my wonderful children. R. with his glorious sense of humor and his boundless generosity of spirit. He is the world’s best hugger. A great writer, a great creator of metaphors. A sensitive and uproariously funny soul. He does not just take things as they are but asks why.
L. who always tries to help people, who, when he was little and someone left a jacket at a soccer game wouldn’t rest until we got it back to the person. He has the patience of a saint and always explains every little technology thing to me and to other family members. He does great accents. Being with him and R. is like being in a constant improv show. L. knows so much about so much: wine, coffee, credit cards, cell phones, plane tickets. And if he doesn’t know he’ll find out. And he’s a sharp dresser. And they both have quirky, unique takes on the world. Oh, and both those boys can cook!
I am grateful for K. and M., the loving girlfriends of R. and L. and I am grateful that the four of them get along so well. I am grateful for Melvin and Linus and that R. and K. gave them a home.
I am grateful for my brother and my parents and for all the generations who came before. I am sorry that so many were cut short too early but I am honored to be here to represent you.
I am grateful and thankful for my friends in the States and elsewhere and particularly right now in Poland, particularly my friends here who are doing the work of Jewish remembrance, who are driven to do it. In talking with my friend today he said that so much of what he does and what drives him cannot be explained by logic or rationally. It isn’t rational. And I think that’s the beauty in so much of this work. It requires a leap of faith. It has an element of love or magic or faith. If that scares you or makes you roll your eyes then maybe some what I love won’t resonate with you. But I am so thankful to those willing to take that leap of faith. My friend P., after coming on one of my Bridge To Poland trips in 2017 said one of her big take aways was the power of art to convey things that words cannot. I just listened (today) to an interview that I did with Brama Grodzka back in 2008. I only had a vague recollection of even doing the interview but in it I said that I could not yet put into words all that I had experienced in Lublin. It was too big and too deep. I said that I was not sure I would ever be able to put it into words, perhaps I would in the future, but for now I did not have the words, I just knew that returning to the city of my ancestors was a powerful experience.
In these months, in Lublin, surrounded by people dedicated to remembering those whose voices were silenced too early, and surrounded by traces and intangible memory of my forebears, I will try to find the words as I work on my book about my experience discovering Poland and discovering the beauty and the magic that was waiting here for me.
Happy Thanksgiving.
No Expats, Everyone's My Teacher, Buses and Poles Speaking English
I realized that for the first time I am living abroad without an expat community, which is pretty cool. Every other time, whether I was studying (Spain, France, Italy, Israel, Poland) or living my life (Spain and Israel) there were always expats around. This time in Poland I am flying solo and happy to be doing it. Thanks again to the Fellowship Committee at Wellesley College for awarding me the Mary Elvira Stevens Traveling Fellowship and providing me with this fabulous opportunity.
Being immersed in Polish society means more opportunities to practice my Polish. Everyone here is my Polish teacher, whether a close friend or someone in a shop. If I grit my teeth and plunge in with my less-than-perfect Polish I have the opportunity to learn something. Many are gracious, willing teachers. Some are not. Some get that I really want to speak in Polish, as hard as that is at times (And I really appreciate those that wait patiently while I look for the right words). Some don’t have the patience and switch to English.. Some don’t have the patience or the English. Yesterday I went to the PLAY store. PLAY is the company that I have my phone plan with. So I went into the store to ask some questions (why was I using so much cellular data, why did some texts go through while others did not, etc…). First the woman said she did not understand what the phone said because it was in English. Then I wanted to ask her a question about the SMSs and why only some went through. I know that the iPhone messages are blue and the others green and it was hard for me to explain in Polish without just saying, “the blue ones and the green ones.” She started rolling her eyes and practically mimicking me and said she did not understand. I said, “I don’t think Pani (formal form in Polish) wants to understand.” To my American ear it’s so funny that you can use this formal form to a young woman who is half your age and be complaining, but still be technically polite!
My real teacher, Magda, is great. Turns out she was my teacher 11 years ago when I was here and through happenstance we reconnected. She is a great teacher. I take the bus a half hour to her place. Two of the stops on the way to her place are Sympatyczna and Fantastyczna—nice, or likeable and fantastic! A lot of people got off at Fantastic tonight. I am proud of having mastered public transportation, as that is not my forté. I went to a kiosk buy the bus tickets and bought 20 at one fell swoop (this was before I learned there’s an app that allows you to buy the tickets online), and the woman at the store was incredulous: “You want 20?!” I guess no one had ever bought 20 tickets at once before, though I don’t know why. If you use paper tickets why would you want to have to buy them each time?
I am doing an Polish-English exchange with a woman at Brama Grodzka and also doing English conversation with a friend of mine. I am also paying attention to the kind of mistakes Poles make in English*. Here are some common ones:
Pronouncing letters that should not be pronounced. Examples: AnsWer; BomBing; CasTle.
Saying “we” when it should be “I” if the speaker did something with one other person. Let’s say Adam went to the movies with Dorota. Instead of saying, “I went to the movies with Dorota,” Adam will say, “We went to the movies with Dorota.” I imagine I make the opposite mistake in Polish!
Overuse of the present progressive/using it where the simple present should be used, like when there is a habitual actual. Instead of, “Some people visit Auschwitz every year,” they say, “Some people are visiting Auschwitz every year.”
Academical for Academic. (Not recognizing that Academic is both a noun and an adjective). And Economical for Economic.
If you are still here you are a word nerd just like me!!! Yay us!
*Please note that whatever mistakes they make, all my friends’ English is way better than my Polish, though I am working to close the gap!
Poland Today. Line 23.
The same bus goes to Ikea and to Majdanek.
Trains, B&Bs and relatives
I took a train from Warsaw to Lublin yesterday. It took 4 hours and 40 minutes instead of 3 hours. They are still working on the tracks but also there was an accident. Rumor had it that there was a body on the track. I don’t know if that was true. They did come on board and give all of us a bottle of water. When I saw that I said to the other woman in my cabin, “Uh oh, it’s never a good sign when they start passing out supplies.” “At least it’s just water,” she said, “Not food.” She was a biologist from Kraków on her way to a 4 hour sea shanty concert in Polish in Lublin! And she was reading a text book about sailing.
I was the only one in my Kraków B&B the other night! Weird but kindof cool too.
I love the B&B I stay in in Warsaw. Each room is different, mostly named for Polish painters. I met a couple from Colombia at breakfast and we were having a nice conversation when the wife said the B&B reminded her of a ghetto (we were speaking Spanish). I said that for me a ghetto means a place that Jews were forced to live during WWII. She corrected herself, “I meant a kibbutz.” (Oh you know, one of those places Jews live in groups!).
I met my newly discovered relative Mietek the other day. (thanks to Anna at the Jewish Historical Institute for finding out about him). He lives in Katowice but came to Kraków to meet me. His mother was my grandmother’s first cousin. She, like my mother and my aunt and grandmother were saved by non-Jewish Poles. It’s so cool to discover these new relatives who are very warm and friendly. Both of Mietek’s parents were Jewish and he has always identified as Jewish. He said it has never been a problem everyone at work knows he is Jewish. But when I asked about Polish anti-Semitism both he and his wife said of course there is anti-Semitism in Poland. I look forward to meeting other members of the family.
Parczew, where my grandfather’s brother and sister were born, from the train window.
Bathroom door (from the inside) in the B&B.
Bathroom at the B&B.
Bathroom at the B&B.
My Poland Bookshelf
When you have limited space it’s interesting to see what books you bring.
Four books by fellow Lubliners (one who is my mother and one who is my aunt!).
It's Official!
I have a Pesel Number! This means that I am officially registered in Lublin. It feels monumental. More than seventy years after my mother and her family were forced to leave this city and this country because of death threats against my grandfather and a generally inhospitable atmosphere for Jews, I am back. Not all descendants of Polish Jews would want to set foot here and I understand that. Even I have had thoughts about it being weird to be here when my mother’s family were forced out and when so many were murdered. But I also feel like I belong. It feels like home. The language belongs in my mouth, some people seem like old friends, some, like annoying acquaintances, but not strangers. I’ve got a bank account too.
Today a friend’s husband and daughter took me to another supermarket; it was so great of them but I have got to figure out how to order online—I cannot keep asking people to take me. It was a godsend though because all stores are closed tomorrow (Independence Day—100 years!) and Monday. I stocked my larder (larder, along with pantry—one of those words that was just not in my first generation vocabulary growing up, along with: divan, settee, doily, sconce…) and got lots of essentials like a colander, an apron and a broom and dust pan. Some other weird observations about stuff in (or not in) Polish stores: aluminum foil come in a roll but not in a box! They don’t seem to have index cards (if someone reads this and I am wrong please let me know). Spices come in packets, not jars.
I observed my first Brama Grodzka tour today. Of course I have been on lots of tours with Bridge To Poland groups but this was the first time I watched and took notes with the idea that I will be a tour guide. It was a group of Israelis. So when I got home I practiced giving a tour in Hebrew. It was fun. It will be fun if I can get them to listen to me—the groups are big and they tend to be rowdy. I am psyched to learn to give tours though. I loved doing it at Yad Vashem and the JFK Library.
Public Speaking in Polish
Every Tuesday morning there’s a staff meeting at Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN (the organization where I am based in Lublin, Poland). My friend said I should introduce myself.
I said, “Yes, in Polish!”
He said, “Well, maybe start in Polish…”
That did it. I was determined to do the whole thing in Polish—who am I, what’s my background (my mother is a Holocaust survivor who was born in Lublin and survived the War by passing as a Catholic girl) what I am here to do (various projects related to Jewish memory).
It was only my third time doing public speaking in Polish. First was in my class last summer when we had to do a five minute presentation. Second was at a conference, also last summer when I thanked a panel of rescuers for saving Jews and said my mother was saved as well, and third was this opportunity— and I did it!
Some Things That Are Different in Poland
The washing machine takes 3 hours (at least in my apt).
The dishwasher takes 20 minutes (at least in my apt).
The washing machine has a dryer within it. (I have not yet availed myself of its services).
They don’t monetize everything. Am participating in a three day conference on Operation Reinhardt at Brama Grodzka. It’s free and there are refreshments.
A very large part of the small convenience store near my apt. is devoted to alcohol. I am comparing this to the “makolet” or little grocery story across the street from us in Tel Aviv where I cannot even remember alcohol but I suppose they had it. Yesterday two drunk men (not young men) were commenting in a jeering way on my yoga mat. Mostly I understood, “her” and “yoga.”
Grocery Stores and Racism
Since I have not yet set up grocery store delivery I recruited my Nigerian friend M., who is studying to be a priest and a social worker, to go with me to Tesco, the big supermarket. First of all he knows how to get there by bus, and second of all he can carry heavy stuff, unlike me!
I was upset to learn from M. that he has experienced racism here in Poland. He says sometimes people laugh at him. He noticed some people in a car doing it while were on the bus. And he told me that one time when he was riding his bike some young men starting kicking it and calling him black and telling him to go home. Sounds upsettingly familiar to an American ear. I thought (not an original thought, but still, I thought it) about how I can be incognito as a Jew and sometimes be privy to what people really think, while he can never pretend not to be black. I thought about how just being with him on the bus or in a store people might be judging me, and how awful that was. After mentioning the taunting he said, “It’s ok.” And I said, “No, it’s not ok.” And I started to tell him what I had been thinking, but in French so people would not understand, and he said, “Don’t speak Polish, speak English.” And I said, ““I was not speaking Polish. I was speaking French. You may have been hearing in Polish but I was speaking French!”
The grocery store: They had only one bottle of organic milk and I got it. The had zero decaf coffee. They did have gluten free bread but I did not see any gluten free crackers but I probably did not know where to look.
It’s going to take getting used to not having the products I am used to for a long time. I am used to my Schär Sourdough Deli bread with Teddy’s Chunky Peanut Butter and Trader Joe’s no sugar jam. I will also miss my Hu Kitchen Coconut Sugar chocolate bars when they run out (care package anyone?) but I assume there are many great Polish delicacies waiting to be discovered.
About ten years ago I met my friend Hyesung in the office in the high school the summer she moved to our town and offered to take her around because she was a newcomer. I showed her supermarkets, gave her the name of my hairdresser and doctor, and showed her where to park to take the T (subway) into Boston. When I was a newcomer my friend Jodi (whom I had known growing up) had done that for me. I wish someone would do that for me here. In fact, there should be a brigade of people worldwide who do that for each other!
How I Spent the Day of the Dead in Lublin
Old Town, Lublin, Day of the Dead, 2018
Brama Grodzka, Day of the Dead, 2018
Just after publishing the blog post below I got an email from Monika at Brama Grodzka asking if I wanted to join a cemetery tour of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Polish on the Day of the Dead. I did. I had wanted to be with dead Jews on that day. What I did not realize or perhaps had forgotten (or perhaps understood incorrectly because it was in Polish—but I am checking and will correct this post if wrong*), was that during the Holocaust not only were Jews murdered on that hallowed ground where the Seer of Lublin among others is buried, but so were non-Jewish members of the Polish intelligentsia. That was the second time I got tears in my eyes today—when I thought about that idea of shared suffering. The first time was when we started the tour and I wondered, “Who were these other nine Polish people who had decided to use part of their holiday, their day off work when most of the country was with family, to visit a Jewish cemetery?” I was a bit shy about asking but I did ask one young woman who lingered after everyone had left. “I grew up in Lublin, she said, “The Jewish history is part of my history.”
As you can see from the pictures above, the streets of the Old Town were quite deserted on my way to the cemetery. The quiet reminded me of Israel on Yom Kippur. On the way back I walked through the empty space of what was once the Jewish quarter, past the eternal lamp that burns 24/7 in memory of the Jews of Lublin.
Later in the day traffic picked up and some cafés were open. I went to the Catholic University to meet my Nigerian friend who was in my Polish class last summer. He is on the road to becoming a priest and a social worker. We like to get together to practice our Polish. No doubt we are reinforcing each other’s errors, but it’s great to be with someone who knows and loves languages as much as I do. I was telling him (in Polish!) how Spanish (unlike French and Italian) only uses “to have” and never “to be” to form the present perfect. He was all excited and ready to start learning (Sorry, I am sure some of you non-language people have dozed off by this point).
I found out there’s a Yiddish class at the University I can join, though I fear the advanced class will be too hard and the beginner too easy (they are doing the alphabet). Exciting prospect though—learning Yiddish in Lublin!
All-in-all it was a great day. I walked 90 minutes, spent two hours in the cemetery and did a bunch of writing at night.
*After checking it seems that it’s unclear where any Jews were murdered on this site during the Holocaust. Of course all of Jewish Lublin, all around this area was destroyed. A whole culture that had thrived for centuries was wiped out. The Polish intelligentsia was shot near the cemetery in 1939, so in that sense there was Jewish and non-Jewish death associated with this place.
The Eternal Lamp stands guard over the non-existent Jewish Town
The Old Jewish Cemetery, Lublin, 2018.
The Day of the Dead in Poland
Tomorrow is the Day of the Dead in Poland. People go to visit the places where their loved ones and their ancestors are buried. I have no tombstone to visit. My grandfather’s sister Elka and her children were shot in the forest outside Lublin. We don’t know where my grandmother’s sister Chana and her children or my grandfather’s brother Gerszon’s first wife Cyla and his son Eljusz were murdered. We don’t know where red-headed Zelda who sang so beautifully was taken to after my grandmother saw her driven away in the back of truck. Syma and Hersz Pejsach Finkielsztajan, my great-grandparents, cannot tell us where they were murdered.
While all my friends make their way to the cemeteries tomorrow night, where do I go ? Where do I go to shed my tears, and the tears for those who don’t even have someone like me to remember their names?
First Full Day in Poland
Well, I made it. It’s the end of my first full day in Poland for my fellowship* the goals of which are: to interview people preserving Jewish memory, to go into my ancestral towns and see what is left of Jewish memory, to create a safe space for those wrestling with their own identities, to work on my book and my Polish. A tall order. My friend from whom I am renting an apartment very kindly prepared everything— he was hanging new curtains when I arrived and had stocked the fridge. I have a desk at the Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN Center, the organization which was my inspiration to start Bridge To Poland. I look forward to getting to know their work even better by actually being on site for several months. Today I insisted on speaking Polish most of the day which must be painful for my conversation partners but I don’t know how else I will learn. I already managed to learn from my friend Agnieszka that you say Idę do Bramy but, Jestem w Bramie (I’m going to Brama but, I am in Brama—the endings in Polish change depending on what the noun is doing in the sentence). I had learned this with a teacher this summer but there’s no substitute for learning it on the ground. Next week there’s a conference in commemoration of seventy-five years since the largest massacre of Jews during Operation Reinhardt. Lots of top Holocaust scholars will be here. It’s hosted by Brama Grodzka. It will be in Polish so I won’t get it all but it was important for me to arrive in time for this momentous anniversary.
The week of November 11th I have my first set of interviews with guardians of memory. I am starting in my comfort zone, that is, with people I know and have a good rapport with: Tomek Pietrasiewicz and Witek Dąbrowski, Director and Deputy Director of Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN in Lublin; Krzysiek Banach, historian and head of exhibitions at the death camp and concentration camp Majdanek; Tomek Cebulski, scholar, author and tour guide at Auschwitz-Birkenau among other places; Anna Wencel, Director of Education at the Galicja Jewish Museum in Kraków and Dariusz Stola the Director of Polin, Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
On November 24th a Slovakian (I think I have that right) theater troupe is coming to Brama perform an interpretation of Gone with the Wind. Of course I won’t understand that but I know the story so well I am planning to go. My friend says the Poles won’t understand it either so I will be in good company!
It’s really fun starting a new life in a new country. I am sure there will be ups and downs and lonely times (like the weekends—what ever will I do on the weekends?) but for now I am looking forward to this new adventure! Thanks to all who helped me get ready for this, those who are getting my mail, staying in my house, etc… To all the people back home I will miss you and look forward to seeing you soon!
*I received the Mary Elvira Stevens Traveling Fellowship from Wellesley College. Thank you, Wellesley!
This guy was waiting for me in my new digs. A good omen, I believe.
An Old Photo Rediscovered
“Isn’t that Henio’s father?”
My friend Witek was visiting from Poland and I got out my grandmother’s photo album. I am about to embark on a journey of several months to Poland and wanted to make sure that I had a scan of one particular photo—the only photo of one of my grandmother’s sisters, all three of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. This sister—Golde— had 4 boys and had moved to Kovel during the war, I believe. When my grandmother saw saw the photo in the album in the 80s when I was visiting her in her Ramat Gan apartment with a friend, she had quickly stopped chatting, gasped and slammed the album shut. I now opened up the album to scan this precious photo and Witek spotted another photo on the same page—one of six men seated in a sortof official meeting with a caption that said, “Po’alei Zion” (http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Poale_Tsiyon).
Witek pointed to the man pictured second from left and said,
“Isn’t that Henio’s father?”
“I don’t know.” I answered, not being as familiar with the images of Henio Zytomirski’s’s family as Witek.
He looked online and found another photo and it sure looked like the same guy.
My dear friend Witek was visiting me in America from Lublin, Poland. It was his first time here and we had a great time—doing two presentation/performances about the work of Jewish remembrance in Poland and our own stories as well. The visit had a nice bookending to it since I met him on my first visit to Poland thirteen years ago and he introduced me to Lublin, the city where my mother was born. Over the years our friendship has grown as has our cooperation in doing the work of Jewish remembrance, which he—one of the wonderful non-Jews on the staff of Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN was already doing long before I met him. As a matter of fact he is the Deputy Director there and that means he knows the stories that they tell very well. One of those stories is about a little boy named Henio Zytomirski. Henio was born in 1933 (two years after my mother). His father took a photo of him every year and sent it to their cousins in Israel. In 1939 the last photo was taken. Henio was happy that day because he had learned to ride a two-wheeler. We believe that Henio was eventually taken to the death camp Majdanek where he was murdered. We know about Henio because his cousin Neta Avidars in Israel shared the photos with Brama Grodzka. So Witek has seen many pictures of Henio and his family.
Henio Zytomirski
Today, five days after Witek left, I finally got around to emailing Neta the photo and asking, “Is this your uncle?”
“Y e s ! ! !”
Neta replied back via email.
“This man is absolutely Shmuel Zytomirski, my uncle, Henio’s father!!!
He was the chairman of Poale Zion (Z.S.) party in Lublin.
This picture is all new to me. I am so happy to have it.
Thank you Leora and Witek!”
I am blown away that my non-Jewish, Polish friend is the one who recognized a Jewish guy in a photo from 1930s Lublin in my grandmother’s photo album. In doing so he built new bridges between me, Neta, Witek, Shmuel Zytomirski, Brama Grodzka and Lublin of so long ago.
Kol ha olam kulo b’emet gesher tsar meod. The world really is a very narrow bridge.
Shmuel Zytomirski, second from left.
My Grandfather's Legacy
I feel very connected to my grandfather--my mother's father, Roman "Rachmil" Bawnik. Saba* Roman was a wise man and it was his brilliance and creative thinking that likely kept my mother and her immediate family from perishing during the Holocaust. Of course it was more than that--it was luck too and help from many people: non-Jewish Poles, fellow Jews and a German in Lublin, my mother's birthplace. My grandfather might say he was a fool not to have taken the family to the Soviet Union. He likely cursed himself for not saving his beloved sister Elka and her three children who were shot in the forest outside Lublin, his brother Gerzon's wife Cyla and son Eljusz and my grandmother's siblings and their children. Those losses probably weighed heavily on him, and yet his quick thinking and understanding of human nature before and during the War helped save his own nuclear family.
When my mother was little she and her sister were not allowed to speak Yiddish, only Polish. He felt that they would thrive better speaking Polish. Though he and my grandmother spoke an imperfect version of the language, that was what the family communicated in.
I was just listening to my mother's testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation and she tells the following story: Once when my mother was little she went to church with a governess. Some friends or neighbors saw this and reported it to her parents. "So, she went to church," my grandfather reportedly said. "So she will see how other people do things. When she grows up she can decide."
I recently wrote about a similar experience: "In 10th grade my parents let me go with my friend Jean on her church youth group's weekend retreat. They did not admonish me or tell me to be careful or warn me that I was Jewish and these were not my teachings. They just said yes. I remember learning, and really liking the song, 'Dance, then, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, said he, and I'll lead you all wherever you may be, and I'll lead you all in the dance said he.' But more than that I remember kissing a boy on the lips."
Going on the retreat because it was Christian was not a big deal. It was not forbidden. The exciting part of the weekend was the boy, not the cross!
Other people's religions were never portrayed as something waiting to swallow us up. Being Jewish was never presented as something we were in danger of losing. In fact, history had shown it was not something you could easily shake off even if you wanted to! I embrace this link between my mother's upbringing and my own and see in it the seeds of what I do now, introducing people to the work non-Jews are doing to commemorate Jewish life, working to break down stereotypes. Thank you, Saba Roman.
*Saba means grandfather in Hebrew.
Leaps and Boundaries in Language Learning
I just returned from six weeks in Poland. The first four I spent studying Polish at the summer school at KUL—the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. I’ve been trying to learn Polish on and off for years but must admit I have not worked at it systematically. This time I was quite motivated as I will be spending a good chunk of time in Poland soon (more on that in another blog post or in a BTP newsletter or on Facebook). I love learning languages and speak a bunch of them—Hebrew and Spanish fluently, French very well and I get by in Italian. And I have taken courses in many others: Yiddish, Portuguese, Arabic, ASL, German, Russian—and that list does not include the ones I have fiddled around with on Duolingo. But Polish is really tough. There have been times in the past few years when I wondered if I would ever master all the cases—nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, vocative and instrumental. If you don’t know what cases are the easy way to explain it is that nouns take on different endings depending on what they are doing in the sentence. For example Polska is Poland. But Bridge to Poland is Most Do Polski. But if you want to say, “I am in Poland,” you say, Jestem w Polsce. Polska, Polski, Polsce. All the same word, but different cases. And that’s an easy example! Suffice it to say Polish grammar is a bear, but the combination of determination, having an amazingly wonderful teacher in Małgosia Prześniak Bolechowska, and being there for an extended period of time, helped propel me off the Polish plateau I had been lingering on for several years. For me language learning is like weight loss—you plug along doing exercises (in the grammar book or maybe just talking to native speaking humans) and one day you turn around and you’re far above—as opposed to below when it comes to weight!—where you had been for so long. How can I tell I’ve made progress? Here’s how 1). I can have a sustained social interaction with someone in Polish even about serious topics. We might have to consult dictionaries a few times, but we manage. A couple of years ago when I met the parents of a Polish friend who did not know English there were a whole list of topics were unable to delve into due to my limitations; 2). Strangers are actually willing to maintain a conversation with me in Polish even if they know English. I’m talking about clerks and waitresses, et al. and 3). Several times I have been asked how long I have been away from Poland, the implication being that I was born here and left, and that my Polish kindof sucks because of it. I take that as a great compliment!
Statement on What's Happening in Poland Now
The other day I was on a panel for the Jewish Genealogical Society for Greater Boston and I was asked to make a brief statement clarifying the legislation that was recently signed into law by Polish President Andrzej Duda. I thought I would share it here:
On February 6, 2018 Poland’s president Andrzej Duda signed into law an Amendment to the Act on National Remembrance which reads in part : Whoever claims, publicly and contrary to the facts, that the Polish Nation or the Republic of Poland is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich, … or for other felonies that constitute crimes against peace, crimes against humanity or war crimes, or whoever otherwise grossly diminishes the responsibility of the true perpetrators of said crimes – shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to 3 years.
There are exceptions if the offence is committed in the course of the one’s artistic or academic activity.
The Act shall apply to Polish and foreign citizens.
This action on behalf of the Polish government has unleashed barely buried anti-Semitism, anti-Polish sentiment and attacks within Poland on those doing the important work of Holocaust scholarship and memorialization of Jewish life and Jewish death in Poland.
It is therefore now more important than ever to visit Poland to show our support for the small but vibrant Jewish community there as well as for those non-Jewish Poles who are engaged in commemoration and remembrance of Jewish life in museums, universities, death camps and cultural institutions.
Our Shared History
It’s not only Jewish history or Polish history, no, it’s for us together.
My friend Grzegorz Jędrek who works at Brama Grodzka* in Lublin said this, paraphrasing the Brama Grodzka credo, in the Mission Video that some of you received in my last newsletter. How timely this sentiment is given the recent uproar regarding the proposed amendment to the Act of National Remembrance in Poland that would ban speech implying the Polish nation is complicit in crimes committed during World War II.
Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN, and all the other wonderful partners I have in Poland are dedicated to opening up lines of communication, not shutting them down. It is through education, dialogue and sometimes difficult conversations that understanding is built.
This has been a hard week. People have dug deeper into their trenches populated by like-minded associates. On Facebook groups I see many expressions of hatred towards Poland. Luckily there are defenders too; those who see that no country’s people can possible be just one thing. Anti-Polish stereotypes are not true across the board any more than anti-Jewish stereotypes were or are.
Sometimes, when I bring up the good work that my friends in Poland are doing to try and show that things are not black and white, people remind me of anti-Semitism, of szmalcowniks**, and of Jedwabne, the town where non-Jews rounded the Jews up into a barn and burned them alive during World War II. Yes, I know about these things. I am not a Pollyanna who thinks that all non-Jewish Poles were rescuers. Though Bridge To Poland chooses to focus on the light, I see the shadow and do not shy away from it. It is after all part of the conversation in the Jewish Polish landscape. And I am aware of the problem of the pendulum swinging in the direction of Nationalism. I live in America after all.
But I don’t believe that the answer to these truths is to close myself off in a little world surrounded by people who have had my experiences. Nor do I think that making laws limiting speech is the answer. Only by looking into each other’s eyes and respectfully discussing the hard questions will bridges be built. So let us remember:
It’s not only Jewish history or Polish history, no, it’s for us together.
*Brama Grodzka Teatr-NN is an organization in Lublin, Poland with whom Bridge To Poland works very closely. It’s Founder and Director, Tomek Pietrasiewicz and Deputy Director Witek Dąbrowski are partners and close personal friends. Brama Grodzka is an integral part of every Bridge To Poland trip. It’s where the hope and the healing lie.
**Szmalcowniks (pronounced Shmaltzovniks)—Those who denounced or blackmailed Jews during World War II.
Witness
This is testimony from a woman who heard and saw some of the 28,000 Jews who were marched to the gathering point in Lublin (now called the Umschlagplatz) from which they would be taken to be gassed at the death camp, Bełżec in 1942. It's part of a memorial created by my friends at Brama Grodzka in Lublin, Poland marking the likely path of that march.
This summer, during the Lubliner Reunion, a gathering of 200 descendants of Lublin Jews we walked along the path that many of those Jews likely took. I knew that my relatives had been among them. Probably my grandfather's sister Elka and her husband and children. Probably my cousins B. and G.'s father's first wife Cyla and his child Eljusz. My friend Tomek Pietrasiewicz, one of the Polish "Guardians of Memory," held the microphone for this woman, this witness, Wiesława Majczak, who told her story with passion and compassion. She talked about the horrible sounds she heard. About seeing the body of a girl her age—a Jewish girl—being trampled, and warned us that we must not let such things happen again. She was holding onto Tomek for support. Tomek, a non-Jew who devotes his life to preserving Jewish memory—the memory of those with names and those without them. As I watched her lean on him I thought of the many who were leaning on him at that moment, countless unseen souls, counting on him to tell their stories, and not to forget.
Valuing Value
A friend of mine read a blog post about choosing three words to be guideposts for 2018. I have chosen Nourish, Write and Value. I want to speak to Value here.
It’s important to me to be valued and to bring value to the world. I have found my calling in bringing people to Poland and showing them the different ways that Jewish History is being taught, remembered and commemorated. I bring value by serving as a bridge between countries, generations, religions, identities and world views. I see the value that I bring and people tell me about it too. When a student on a Bridge To Poland trip sees the work of remembrance being done at Brama Grodzka in Lublin, Poland and says, “We have to do something about Muslim refugees!” I feel the trip I have put together has value. When an adult trip participant says that before she came on the trip she wondered why “the Poles” did not do more to help the Jews, but after the trip she saw how demoralized the population was and started to put herself in the other person’s shoes, I feel like I have crafted something of value.
When a Polish woman talks to me about her ambivalence about a newly discovered Jewish past and says somehow I am the only one she can talk to about it, I feel I have value.
And yet despite all these moments of knowing my value, of feeling deeply that I am doing the work I was meant to do of healing historical wounds, fighting stereotypes, working on the border of identity with an open mind and heart, I still doubt myself. I am hard on myself. I have a fierce inner critic. She is ruthless and mean and she knows how to tear me down and tell me I am not worthy.
So, I have started (today!) keeping a value journal. I am writing in it how I am intrinsically valuable, the value I bring to others and the nice things others say about me. If you know me, whether personally or professionally and have something nice to say, either small or big, please let me know! I’m going to collect the nice things people say and read them when that inner critic rears her ugly head. And I encourage you to do the same with the others in your life. Life’s too short not to express our appreciation for each other.
Here are some of my appreciations:
My mother taught me to always include people. When women became widows or got divorced she still invited them to dinner parties. She brought soup to people who were sick. I think she learned that from my grandmother who was known for her good works.
What I loved in my father was his curiosity about EVERYTHING, his love for languages and his desire and ability to talk to everyone. Also, he was a great storyteller.
My parents both taught me never to break a promise.
My brother is a real mensch–visits people in the hospital and he is brilliant and creative.
I value my sons first and foremost for being decent human beings who treat others with kindness, especially old people. And they are hysterically funny to boot.
I was going to try to write about my friends too but that was too much for a blog post. Let’s just say I am lucky to have great ones in the U.S., Israel, the UK, Spain, Lithuania, a few scattered elsewhere and of course my dear ones in Poland. It is these friends who make it possible to withstand the harsh critics, both inner and outer; it is these friends who, with compassion, wisdom and humor, prop me up when I am low. I encourage all of us to reach out to those whom we value and tell them so.