Ending the BBC news report today on the Oscar winners, the anchor noticed that the Icelandic singer Bjork was nowhere to be seen. “She was wearing the white feathered swan dress she wore her Oscar year,” he said, “and Dick Cheney shot her!”
I have both CNN and BBC on my television in my apartment so I often switch back and forth. It was interesting to notice after the nuptual blessing that the Royal couple was barely out of the church when BBC announced it was resuming it’s normal programming and we haven’t heard a word since.
CNN on the other hand has been running and re-running it; all enhanced by various gossip commentators. One commentator wanted to know what’s up with all the English lady’s big hats all gussied up with feathers, flowers, birds and whatever! So I watched an in-depth analysis on BBC of the power grab by President Putin and the government “mafia” that supports him instead.
I want to emphatically state (and I think Bob would concur) that I have nothing but admiration for this proud and resilient people who have survived 70 years of this “ideological tidal wave that affected virtually the entire globe,” according to Robert Harvey in his “Comrades…The Rise and Fall of World Communism,” “that left maybe 100 million dead in its wake, as well as twice that number homeless and suffering, and more than 30 million as slave labor of one kind or another and that shaped the lives of billions.”
Robert Conquest in “Reflections on a Ravaged Century,” argues that a group of sub-intellectuals fastened upon Marx’s convoluted and half-baked theories because of the new turn-of-the-century faith in science as the answer to every problem, including human ones” which was one response to a bewildering new world of social upheavel and unseen forces as lost men sought to gain control over the destiny of their lives.
I mention to three of our homestay hosts that I see T-shirts with CCCP (USSR or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and hammer and sickle on the backs…black humor born of a young generation that did not have to live through the bloodbaths…and when I see the responses on the faces of these women, I know I will not wear this T-shirt. It is not funny.
Are not some Muslim men today, full of shame because they are jobless and without family also reaching from out of a medieval creed with a leveling response in a desperate attempt to gain control over their lives? From communism to this?
Trakai, on the outskirts of Vilnius, Lithuania, is a small settlement placed in the middle of five large lakes that is home to about 350 members of the Keraites, a minority community originally from Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) who later migrated to Turkey. Keraite literally means “reader”. Their religion is a form of early Judaism mixed with reading of the Koran. (Imagine that !!—maybe we should inquire whether they have insights for current situations.)
Traki used to be one of Lithuania’s many capitals and the Keraites served as guards to the palace/castle…which Bob wanted to buy and occupy. We tasted the Karaites’ traditional dish called Kibinine, a small piping hot pastry stuffed full of delicious chopped meat and onions…juice squirting down one’s arms with each bite.
In an area selling crafts I met a woman who was exclaiming over two drunk locals…I asked her what country she was from and she said “San Francicsco.” She went on to say she was enjoying herself “but they won’t take our dollars here!” Speechless, I decided against asking if she had thought of visiting a money exchange window.
Old Town Vilnius is now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sights. Some graffiti seems significant in this country where a staggering 91% of the 64% of the population who turned out to vote gave a resounding yes to membership in the European Union and that just this last April became a full-fledged member of NATO: “Your Life Becomes More and More of Adventure” and “The important Thing Is To Express Yourself!” are examples of graffiti everywhere.
One of the more vivid images of Europe this year, but especially of Vilnius, is the sight of slim, long-legged beauties strutting confidently with an air of success in slip-on spike heels and showing off flat tanned bare midriffs above skin tight jeans that come within an inch of the pubic bone. There are solariums (tanning beds) on every other block…no fish-white bellies here. I asked a young woman in former East Berlin what is behind the styles in dress and she answered “It is self-expression…we want to dress according to how we feel.” I asked if the school authorities allowed the students to wear these clothes to school and she said they wouldn’t DARE prevent us from dressing the way we want to dress!
But on the other hand Sasha, our guide to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, will say “these are nice girls…not prostitutes…but they have $100 in each eye!” There will be no going back to rigidly defined socialist customs in these countries!
On the outskirts of Vilnius is European Park where The French National Geographic Institute places the center of Europe at 54 degrees North Latitude, 25 degrees 19′ East Longitude. Recently a monument was erected that is topped with golden stars and a mini amphitheater to gaze upwards at them.
When Lithuanian student, Gitaras Karosas, a student of Vilnius Art Academy, found out that the center of Europe was here he set up a contemporary art museum and now the exhibition spans an area of several acres and displays over 90 works by artists from 27 countries to express their own unique visions of the Center of Europe. One piece of art is LNK INFOMEDIS, registered in the World Guinness Book, which is a 700 meter maze of 3000 bulky, broken Soviet television sets brought by people and shaped like a tree with a rapidly decaying concrete Lenin at it’s center.Now people write their names or phone numbers on the TV screens.
There is something in the European demeaner/attitude that brings out my anti-establishment posturing. On the flight from the U.S. to Frankfurt (Lufthansa Air) my seat was broken. “No problem,” said the sweet little blond frauline in braids. “We’ll find you another seat after everyone boards.” “Perhaps in first class” I suggest. (87.3% joking but it’s always worth a try). “I DON’T THINK SO” was the authoritarian autocratic response of this idealic frauline now converted to “big nurse.”
On boarding an open top tour bus in Berlin I ask the attendant (100% joking) whether this is the bus to Paris? I DON’T THINK SO.” is the less than friendly response while he is thinking “scheiskoff!” In Krakow our taxi driver parked his upscale white Mercedes next to a bright orange-colored street rod. “Maybe you ought to paint your taxi that color,” I suggested. Predictably…”I DON’T THINK SO!” Suspect that my attempts at humor need a total revamping.
Europeans perceive Americans as large, loud and naive. (This does not apply to me of course.) I think that the Europeans are a bit dorky. Especially men wearing shorts and regular shoes with black socks. Oh well.
Traveling continues to be a learning experience–the perception/interpretation of other cultures as well as our ability to tolerate/adapt/react is a challenge. The language barrier contributes to frustration but that is my problem, not theirs. I’m in their country. Still working on the smile. But occasionally it is difficult to smile when confronted/frustrated. Am going to schedule a session with the Buddah who seems to have a corner on smiling.
Most encounters however are rewarding. And each day offers the promise of a new adventure/experience–and that is exciting. However, it seems that adrenaline rushes are good for a day or two–then need a day of R&R. This sort of thing did not seem as necessary back in my frivilous youth. The R&R days usually are not planned…they just occur as in “crash.”
Later,
RLG
Who would have thought that Poland in 1995 would have chosen the former communist bureaucrat, Aleksander Kwasniewski, over the former hero Lech Walesa, who, along with the Solidarity movement, led Central and Eastern Europe out of Communism?
Poland still has a post Communist president, as do most post communist European countries today, and our taxi driver, who has two university educated children, frowns when I mention this…”I don’t like!” he spats. He and his wife have a two-room apartment with a monthly rent of $200. Fewer tourists come to Poland in winter, so what he makes in the summer has to stretch year round. He has his old white Mercedes with 500,000 miles on it to maintain. (He didn’t laugh when Bob pointed to a bright orange car and suggested he paint his car the same color! “I don’t think so!” Urban dwellers in apartments pay very high taxes which rural people in their own homes do not pay and food is more expensive than in the country where people grow most of their own. But he is fortunate, he says, that in school, children are rewarded for good grades by not having to pay as much tuition…those with the highest grades are rewarded with full scholarships.
So even though it is more expensive to live in the city, where the communist government sponsored “milk bars” (with simple but wonderful home-cooked food) are now few and far between. The effects of economic growth are more visible there than in the country where Walesa surprisingly lost most of his support.
And for the young, communism and Solidarity are already ancient history…something they learn about from boring textbooks. In contrast to the uneducated electrician, who often appeared undignified and used ungramatical Polish, the smooth-talking yuppielike former communist appeared more modern and forward looking. And for some young voters, there was an element of conscious revolt, just because the parents identify so strongly with the post-Solidarity tradition, the children vote against it…a pattern we saw also in the former East Germany and the Czech Republic where, for example, the young waitress who went to school with her Prime Minister, says that it is popular now to study Russian as well as English in school. So Walesa lost 48% to Kwasniewski’s 51% with an amazing 68% voter turnout.
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In re-built Warsaw we view public art memorializing the Warsaw Uprising…Nazis destroyed the city while Russia watched on the other side of the Vistula River…then moved in and occupied the city for the next 50 years…the “liberators” became the occupiers… There are reminders of horrendous Polish history everywhere. There is no work and most young people want out of the country according to the young man who set us up in our apartment and who had spent two years studying Spanish and English in Britain…says most people have never been out of Poland… they have plans to work in international business in Spain. Poor Poland.
During the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, more than 85% of Warsaw’s historic centre was destroyed by Nazi troops. After the war, a five-year reconstruction campaign by its citizens resulted in today’s meticulous restoration of the Old Town, with its churches, palaces and market-place. It is an outstanding example of a near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Germans changed the name to Auschwitz but the Polish still call it Oswiecim. We hire an English speaking guide to drive us to Auschwitz and Birkenau for the day and are predictably blown away by the scene. Bob remarks that the Poles have maintained the camp in an appropriate-simple yet austere-manner…a glimpse of history and reality without an artificial sentimentality…the scene itself supplies ample information. I find out that the Polish resistance that tried to get information to the outside world were the first to be killed. I find myself scanning the pictures and names on the walls for Mroczynski…my mother’s surname.
The Death Block, a prison within the prison, was where the SS shot thousands of prisoners, mostly Poles at the Wall of Death. The Cellars, the Crematorium and Gas Chambers, the Assembly Square where prisoners were made to wait in the freezing cold while they were counted out…reality setting in by layers….minute by minute…still not into my head. Later more and more camps, Auschwitz II, III, IV were built when the decision was made to exterminate the Jews. Birkenau is the largest…10 to 15 times the size of Auschwitz.
Bob reads the memoirs of Dr. Mengele’s assistant who carried out countless experiments, many of which were cutting edge at the time, but others left many dead and maimed…especially the children-twins and dwarfs.
The curator of the Jewish Museum in Krakow warns that memory is a difficult thing…and many books of recollection are subject to hyperbole…but among the best of the Holocaust writing is surviver Halina Birenbaum’s “Hope Is The Last To Die.” She is a writer, poet and translator, born in Warsaw in 1929 who spent the occupation in the Warsaw Ghetto, and in the concentration camps at Majdanek, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and Neustad-Glewe from where she was freed in 1945. She emigrated to Israel in 1947 and now lives in Hertzliya with her husband and two sons. Her works are sad but devoid of hated. What emerges from them, according to the book jacket, “are peace, kindness and belief in man.” And if she can achieve this….
7/12/06:
Government officials said Wednesday that Poland and “historical truth” both had won a victory after the UN agreed to rename one of its world heritage sites “The Former Nazi German Concentration Camp at Auschwitz.” About 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were put to death at the facility outside Oswiecim, Poland, in World War II. The German and Israeli governments also agreed to the name-change. Poland requested the change on grounds that the previous name, “Auschwitz Concentration Camp,” left a “misconception” that it was Polish-run.
The fortified walls, barbed wire, platforms, barracks, gallows, gas chambers and cremation ovens show the conditions within which the Nazi genocide took place in the former concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest in the Third Reich. According to historical investigations, 1.5 million people, among them a great number of Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered in this camp, the symbol of humanity’s cruelty to its fellow human beings in the 20th century. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Laughingnomad 