Jack Goes to Europe

NOTE:  I wrote this on Thursday Sept. 30th, but couldn’t post it until now.

It was the same in this town and all across Europe.


It is not just the horribly brutal
and, later on, mechanized way that the Jews were killed.  It’s not
just the hurt and betrayal of the participation of local Poles (not all
of them, of course).  It’s the loss of a people and a culture,
hundreds of years’ worth.  Lives unlived.  Holidays not
celebrated. Gefilte fish not prepared.  Jokes not told.  What
would have happened if the Holocaust had not occurred?  Might a
steady stream of Jews still be going back and forth between New York
and Europe and feeding the once-vibrant Yiddish culture there? 
For that matter, might Yiddish still be widely spoken?  “The sum of books
unwritten,” as someone once said.  That’s the saddest part of all
to me:  lives unlived; a culture nearly erased.

I’m about to leave this place and I’m sad — but this time not because of the past, but because I’ll miss the present!  This place is great and its past is its past. 

I will post concluding thoughts from America, as promised. 

Czescz!

I just got back from
the “New” Cemetery in the Kazimierz district of Krakow.  (New
meaning newer than the “old” cemetery.)  It was huge, and
completely filled with Jewish tombstones.  Some were old, a few
were new.  Some were in good shape, others were weathered or
knocked over.  Some were glued together.  Some had been moved
during the war and now are part of a mosaic-like “memory wall.”  

Okay,
I just wrote all my thoughts about Notte Bianca in Rome and those lame
Italians, but meanwhile, my head is swimming with thoughts about
Judaism, my Jewish grandparents who were both born in Poland, the
atrocities of the concentration camps and the Jewish ghettos and mass
murders in small town all over Poland, and the Jews still living here
today, the American or Israeli Jewish tourists who’s ancestors were
from Poland just like mine, and the number of small towns in Poland
once filled with Jews and now without a single trace, like my
grandfather’s town: Mogenlica.

Krakow
is a Jewish tourist destination. It’s weird. We’ve made comparisons to
Native Americans in some ways, but that doesn’t always hold up, of
course. Still, though, here in Krakow, they sell little wooden Jewish
figures. They are about 6 inches tall, black, and they are bearded
Jewish men wearing the tallis and kippah.  I like to joke about
getting one and bringing it home to put on my mantle. And if I did,
that wouldn’t be so bad, but really it’s just not my style.  But
when you do think about the native Americans, well, first let me tell
you my favorite line from one of those Addams Family
movies.   Christina Ricci plays Wednesday and she’s at summer
camp and she’s supposed to do a nice little Thanksgiving play and
instead of being the sweet and cute silent little Indian girl, she says
on stage some line like, “I was once part of a flourishing culturally
rich society but my people were slaughtered and now those of us who are
left sell beads on the side of the highway….” 

And
if you really want to get further into Sara history, and cycles of
cultural ignorance, I’ll tell you another sad memory of mine. I was
into beading for awhile and one stitch is called “peyote stitch.” I was
just getting into it and was excited about it. Well at the Madison,
Wisconsin airport, there was a little store with Native American goods.
There was a peyote stitch beaded necklace just like the kind I had been
working on. So, like a beginning photographer to a professional, or a
newbie beader to the master, I asked about it. “What do you call that
stitch? Peyote stitch? I’m making something like that”….The woman was
disgusted, it was clear, and really, I don’t blame her. I forgive
myself because I was only 18 or 19, but that’s a little dense. It was
innocent enough. I understood the plight of the native Americans. But
still, I had taken a fragment of that woman’s culture and played with
it without even realizing it. I’m sure there are parallels here. 
In a flea market, we saw a menorah, a silver pointer you use to read
from the Torah, and some silver Havdalah spice boxes. That just fits
right into the Jewish tourism here.

There
are Jewish museums, there are Jewish synagogues, and people go to
Auschwitz. I saw a girl at Auschwitz stand in front of the entrance
building at Birkenau and her friend snapped a photo. One where the
girl’s face was in the front and the building in the back. To us, that
is simply bizarre. Not only the picture, of course. Jack and  I
took tons of those in Krakow yesterday. I’m standing there and cool old
buildings are in the background.  But to do it at Birkenau?

Well,
listen.  I’m going to close this up for now, but there is a lot to
think about.  I’ve always thought of the Holocaust and old
synagogues and Jewish history in Poland as this vague, distant, foggy
area far away.  It’s clear now. I’ve gotten to the bottom of it.
And it’s not doting on the past and it’s not victimizing myself and
Jews, it’s just exploring the history, seeing the history, and seeing
the present. Things are different now. Jews aren’t in Poland (not
many). They’re in Israel, the U.S., and all over. I have some serious
problems with Israel, that’s another long story. But now, I have a much
clearer understanding of my grandparents’ life, and their story. 
I have clearer pictures of the unspeakable suffering of the Jewish in
the camps, but I’ve learned a lot more about how bad it was in the
ghettos, like the ghetto in Warsaw.  And I’ve met Jews living here
now. And Jack and I found the old Jewish cemetery in Mogielnica, my
grandfather’s town, and it’s an overgrown forest. A young forest.
Probably 60 years old. And then we did find some sort of memorial,
probably put in recently marking where a rabbi was buried. That’s the
only trace of any of those Jewish people in the whole town. Oh wait!
Except that we went to the town’s city hall and a lady there pulled out
the book where all the births were recorded. She had a different book
for the Jews. In that book, in Russian, all the births were recorded
from 1889-1915. So we’re going to call with a Polish friend (now that
we have our grandfather’s birth year and name correctly) and see if
he’s written there. Anyhow, the point is that things are immensely
clearer now. Like in Spanish you say, why’d you go to Poland? To
“conocerlo.” To know it.  There are still a million thoughts and
confusions and questions, but I feel like I know it, I know the past
and the present. I recommend coming to Poland.
And really, the people have mostly been so so nice.

P.S. My grandfather came to the U.S., to Kansas City, in 1921 at age 17. My grandmother came around then also, at age 11.

Towards the end of the Rome trip, my dad was asking us what the best moment was on the trip so far. Without a second of hesitation I told everyone it was that moment on the top of the Spanish steps. I said I want to learn to make films just so I can recreate it. It was surreal, and really kind of beautiful, but at the same time really scary. We had been down there earlier and felt the beginnings of a horrible crush. When I was in school, I was in a crush at a football game. That was the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, I was on the outskirts of it and only experienced a moment of terrifying lack of movement, where I was wholly out of control and could only keep my arms to my side, not move them at all while the crowed moved me forward and back. At that game, a girl was left in a coma and I believe she died later. It was a pretty famous event, and it was the only football game I ever went to, just coincidentally. What happened was the University had decided the students weren’t going to be allowed to rush the field like they used to after every single winning game. So they blocked off the field, but the entire student section rushed to the field, and that tragedy unfolded. There were security men at each blocked off section at the bottom, and the one in front of me and my crowd of people saw what was happening and just let the crowd tear down the little barricade. The other security people didn’t figure that out, which is always what I think of when I think of that girl.

Anyways, back to Rome.

Such tension! That was why it was so incredible. And like I was saying, I think it’s because we had been down there and we were the only ones around us who understood that the people were probably creating a crowd crush. But to see this woman balanced on this man’s head, and such a mass of people, and people clearing a space in front of the ambulance, and the ambulance siren whaling — intense.

The only issue, though, is that could have been a police van instead of an ambulance. I thought it looked like a dark grey van, and later I saw white ambulances. Plus, the dark grey police vans were all over, and written on them was something about “mobile police station.”  So anyhow, the sight we saw could have been a police van.

And now back to Piazza Venezia. The friendly Italians I picked out to talk to were an easy guess. Two of the three guys had long hair, and the other one had a beard. The girl wore Birkenstocks and baggy clothes. But, much more importantly, one of the guys wore a “Rage against the machine” t-shirt, a telltale anti-Bush these-kids-are-on-the-same- page as me sign.  So, to add to Jack’s post, I have to say that the girl of this group of four told me some more at the end. The group protesting were futher left than any of the other Italian protest groups. They demanded they be able to march en masse from the piazza venezia to another area, where a sit-in was already going on while we all talked.  Anyhow, this group sort of said, and always says, well it’s our streets and even if we don’t get a permit, we want to march.  Finally, the police let them march in groups. That was what we were watching. One of the many smaller groups of these protestors marching.  I think it’s a shame they weren’t allowed to march, but then again: it’s notte Bianca. It’s like a group in Kansas City demanding they march right through the middle of Westport (which is now closed off and open containers are allowed within the Westport neighborhood)  at night when people are partying.  My point is that it was a show from the protestors, as well. But back to being flabbergasted: the amount of riot police and the 11 or so police vans who completely totally surrounded the piazza, were immense compared to these 30 protestors. But at the same time, the atmosphere was so calm. I didn’t want to stand in front of the riot police, but standing next to them talking to the Italians, I wasn’t worried at all. And I even walked in front of one of the lines of police (not the ones playing the marching game with the protestors, this is far away from them) and took a picture.

And another note on those nice Italian lefties.  I walked up to the rage against the machine t shirt guy and asked about the mass show of force. All four of their faces lit up, eyes wide, big smile, and the r.a.t.m. t shirt guy held out his hand to shake and sort of congratulate me and he said, “we were all just sitting here wondering if the tourists see this and think that it’s weird.”  It wasn’t that he was surprised we were left-leaning Americans, it was that I had walked up to them in the middle of their conversation about tourists like myself, and in so doing, answered the question they were discussing. It was one of those nice moments, for sure.  And I say that about the left-leaning Americans because 2 years ago I had a conversation with a Dutch guy in a bar in Amsterdam, who was just astounded that I thought the way I thought, that I even existed. I shared all of his views about my government. Hello! There are many sides to the story in our country! The Italian kids seemed to know this already. And wait: r.a.t.m. is an American group.

But still: have no fear: the Italians CAN’T STAND AMERICANS. No doubt about it. I’m glad to be gone from Rome, I really am. I was sick of their bitchy attitude. Sure, we met quite a few nice ones, but god forbid you want to ask a question in a store, or buy a glass of American champagne (Coke). The bottom line is, Italians can’t stand us and I was sick of them, Romans I should say, though, since I never left Rome. Oh! I should tell about the taxi driver who tried to rob me. Later..   I will tell you that I got to see my friend Heidi who is Norwegian and she confirmed this note about Italians. She said they don’t like Germans nor Americans. She said they were jerks to her until she spoke, and they would actually say, “oh, you’re okay. I thought you were American!” (Or German)  And now that we’re in Poland, well, Germans are much much more disliked than Americans. That’s a nice change. We’re not the bad guys here.

Later that night, we
went out with Dad and Marie.  The four of us walked to the Spanish
Steps where there were throngs of people.  Cirque du Soleil had
set up a stage ON the steps and was about to start when we got
there!  Unfortunately, about 30,000 people had arrived before us
and there was no way we could see the show.  In fact, when it
started, we were caught in a scary crush as people began moving en
masse towards the stage. 

I should have posted this a week ago, but I’m just now getting around to writing about it.