Millions of victims from Nazi atrocities during the Second World War are still unacknowledged in Holocaust literature. Sure, there is documentation on the subject. But it is limited and to this day, the approximate numbers of non-Jewish victims, and their stories, continue to be skirted by the media at large.
I thought of those millions who met a grisly end during the Second World War, only to be forgotten by millions more. And I wondered, "What would these forgotten have wanted?" In fact, what would all eleven million victims want today?
Would they want us to represent their voices on a segregated basis, that is, by religion, culture, race, nationality, politics, or sex?
Or would they ask us to consider them collectively through no affiliation?
Would they want us to give prominence to some orientations, but give vague or general billing to others?
Or would they ask us that we honestly account for all affiliations by number - even if approximate - when broaching the Holocaust?
These are questions that I wondered about upon my return to Toronto. Remarkably a few days later, I came across some answers.
Lise and Maurice Spagat live down the street from me. They are an exemplary couple who have been married to one another for years, and have raised a family. They are also survivors of Nazi concentration camps in Poland.
I met Lise and Maurice last June, briefly enjoying their company while I photographed an event. And I remember mentioning to Lise that I would have to go to Poland. It was absurd not to after I had written four chapters of a story, set in that country during 1942.
Eleven months later, and after my first visit to Poland, I walked down my street and chanced upon Maurice. I informed him of what I'd seen during my travels and how disturbed I was by the Nazi concentration camps.
"Some, like the leader of Iran, don't believe that the camps existed, that the atrocities ever happened," he said.
"Then they should go there," I replied.
Asking me for more details, Maurice mentioned that Lise had been interned in Stutthof. Then he unbuttoned his shirt cuff, rolled it up, and turned his wrist to show the inside of his forearm. There, was a numbered tattoo; he had been in Auschwitz.
I told Maurice that I was troubled by my experiences at Auschwitz, not only because of the worst and most systematic cruelty I have ever seen represented. But also because of the religious conflicts I sensed in evidence today. "We have learned nothing," I added before asking him, "As a survivor, if you were chosen to speak on behalf of all those who did not make it, what do you think the victims of Nazi concentration camps would want, today?"
"The truth," he replied, adding, "And to know why it took so long for the West - Britain and the United States - to do something."
Maurice is still resentful of Poles, mentioning that they did nothing. And I pointed out that that is not altogether true; that there were many Poles who risked their lives at a time when the population was threatened with death for helping. I'd like to ask Maurice for his personal experiences in this regard. I'd also like to lend him a book I picked up on a similar topic.
London Has Been Informed: Reports by Auschwitz Escapees, edited by Henryk Swiebocki, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (2002) mentions with proof the information relayed by the Polish Underground to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London. That information, in turn, was reported to the Governments of the Allied and Neutral Powers as early as May 1941. Unfortunately, early reports on the atrocities committed against Poles were not taken seriously. And subsequent reports on the exclusionary horrors being perpetrated on Jews were also treated in a cavalier manner by the West. That is, until 1943. Even then, it would take another year or so to finally dismantle the Nazi grip on the camps.
But back to the present...Maurice wants to see my photo essay, and while I prepare, I wonder whether my images can accurately convey all that I saw and all that I felt.
I also wonder if there is hope through dialogue. Dialogue to establish more intellectual honesty on all counts. Dialogue to gain more respect and accountability for all differences.
In the meantime, I welcome getting together again with the Spagats. I would also like to continue connecting with the many who extended their kindness to me during my visit to their countries.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Poland - Part 2:
Perceived Conflicts
I traveled to Poland to learn more about its history, to document my impressions, and to gain some answers. But the more I saw and the more I learned, the more I questioned.
The bus stopped at the outskirts of the village of Sztutowo, 65 kilometres east of Gdansk, three kilometres from the Baltic Sea. Getting off, I walked down a cobbled stone road. At the end, were the main gates of the Stutthof Museum. They were closed. Through the railing, I saw an expanse of land, barbed wire fencing, observation towers of dark wood, and a sizeable building of brick. More would be revealed in the next few days.
Stutthof started out as a Zivilgefangenenlager, or detainee camp for civilians, among them, the Polish intelligentsia. Teachers, professors, students, political activists, and clergy were rounded up by the Nazis and their collaborators, after the invasion of Poland through the Free City of Danzig, on September 1, 1939.
By 1942, Stutthof had evolved to a concentration camp for the rapidly increasing number of prisoners, among them, Soviet POWs and Jews. In its almost six years of operations, the camp received prisoners from over 25 countries. They faced, for the most part, unbearable conditions. More than 85,000 prisoners were directly and indirectly exterminated, and as many as 110,000 were deported.
Stutthof rarely gets much notice in the history annals from the West. I wondered why. Certainly the exhibits, which are not that badly presented, could be improved. They could also benefit from fewer religious symbols.
More Catholic symbols and shrines are present at Stutthof than what I encountered at the larger museums of Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Could the Nazis have made more concessions to the belief systems of their prisoners at Stutthof? Or were more Catholic priests and nuns killed at Stutthof than at any other concentration camp in Poland?
The questions remain unanaswered. I can understand the need for religious symbols in a country where Catholicism is such a dominant force. But as a researcher and an historian, I found the overtness of the religious symbols at Stutthof to be distracting, if not overdone. I also thought the shrines overshadow the memory of those who held other beliefs.
How could this issue of religious partiality be solved in a Museum that represents so many beliefs? Could a Roman Catholic chapel be added to the exhibits at Stutthof, so that all the symbols pertaining to this religion be housed in one place? That might allow the non-Catholic viewer to concentrate on the historical aspects of the camp, without being duly influenced by the symbols of another religion. And what about the belief systems of the non-Catholic prisoner at Stutthof? Would these beliefs be represented in equal proportion?
Ecumenism in its broadest sense can be sticky for a museum that wishes to have a global presence.
Ecumenism can also be expensive. Consider the brick smokestack of the Museum's crematorium. At its back end, not visible by the general public, a cross appears in the brickwork. Did the Nazis really concede that much to Christianity while incinerating bodies? I hardly think so. It is likely that a well-intentioned soul, included in the reconstruction design of the death trap, several blonde bricks among the redder ones. The effect is an unmistakable cross.
----------------------
I walked beyond the crematorium towards the north end of the camp, past the barrack with the shoe exhibit to an outlying field, designated for expansion before the Soviet forces pushed west, in the face of disintegrating Hitlerian fantasy.
There, in the outlying field of sandy soil and coarse grass, I made the most astonishing discovery. At my feet were pieces of leather, once belonging to shoes, boots, slippers, and belts. The find shook me, more so, when I found a metal, stamped button, belonging to a Nazi uniform. How did I know it belonged to a Nazi uniform? It was on account of an exhibit I'd seen, days earlier, at the Imperial War Museum in London. There, buttons on the uniforms of two ranks of SS officers, drew my attention. A week later, at the Majdanek State Museum, I confirmed that the button I had photographed in the field at Stutthof belonged to a lower SS officer.
Confirming why the leather pieces were strewn on the field of the Stutthof Museum, would take a lot longer.
------------------------------
Further south on a back country road, I came across an old church with some of its windows boarded up, others showing evidence of a charred interior. Was this the Lutheran church attended by the farmers and long-term neighbours of the 90-year old Polish Catholic who lives next door to me, today? The 'Evangelicals', as my neighbour would refer to these Poles of German extraction, were kind enough to take his family in. That is, when the Nazis ordered Poles to vacate their homes and lands. You see, ethnic Germans from further east were about to arrive. And these new immigrants, or Volksdeutsch, were taking hearty advantage of the Nazi policy for Lebensraum. As a result, they gained more room - land, homes, and businesses - at the expense of Catholic Poles and Jews, most of whom had nowhere else to go, many of whom suffered a dire fate.
After the war, when the Soviets took over Poland, the Volksdeutsch were ordered to leave, while those of German ancestry who had lived in Poland for generations, found life to be increasingly difficult. They, too, had to leave. Was the abandoned church a symbol of these later years?
Who caused the fire?
------------------------------
Further west on that country road, I found a sign with two crosses pointing to the Białuty Forest. It reads:
"Place of mass murders in the years 1941-45
12000 persons from the camp in Działdowo
including 58 priests and 1500 Jews".
I wondered, where was the Star of David for the 1500 Jewish victims?
Entering the forest, I found the memorial to these victims of Hitler's travesty, along with an oversized cross, an open-air chapel of Catholic symbology, plus small flags, including those representing the Vatican. The representation for non-Catholic believers was nowhere to be found.
------------------------------
On my return to Mława, where I was staying, I encountered a cemetery or Friedhof for German soldiers. A peaceful enclave of impressive design, the Friedhof displays tablets of granite about 2 metres high, each engraved with many names and vital statistics of soldiers killed during the Second World War. A large cross forms a focal point for the arranged tablets, while smaller crosses beyond symbolize those soldiers killed during the First World War.
The Friedhof was founded by the Wehrmacht, or German army, and built by Polish forced labour to bury and commemorate 1,300 German soldiers. Today, as a result of the efforts of the German Association of Carers of War Graves and the Polish Foundation Pamięć, the cemetery has been reconstructed to include the symbolic tombstones for about 12,000 soldiers, many corpses having been exhumed from other cemeteries.
Seeing so many German surnames on the tablets, I was curious. For I have 25 per cent German ancestry, and wondered if my surname was represented. The closest match was Felix Hedrich (1912-1944). And I remembered Rabbi Jacobson, a professor of Western Civilization who, in 1970, approached me after class to ask, "Are you Jewish?". It seems that members of his congregation shared my last name. I replied, "not to my knowledge." Later, my Dad mentioned that sometimes German names with one consonant are Jewish. With these long-ago conversations in mind, I wondered about Felix Hedrich. Was he Jewish? Certainly there were Jewish soldiers in the German army during the First World War, Anne Frank's father being one of these. And conceivably some of those Jewish soldiers might have been killed in Poland. So I wondered, why were there were no Stars of David at the Friedhof?
I sensed religious tension in other historical locations in Poland.
About 100 metres down from the main entrance to Birkenau - a horrifying extermination camp where Jews and Gypsies where particularly targeted as victims - stands a Carmelite convent with a very large cross, once used in an open-air Papal Mass. I couldn't help thinking that the oversized cross was somehow provocative. For I compared the convent's need to make its presence known to a more discrete retreat near Auschwitz I, the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer.
It was at the peaceful Centre for Dialogue and Prayer where I stayed for a few days, finding nowhere a need for overt advertising of its Catholicism. In fact, the Centre made every effort to embrace other faiths, as evidenced by Jewish religious literature at the front desk.
On its website, the Centre notes that the words 'dialogue' and 'prayer' may not be as appropriate as silence and the need to listen. For Auschwitz was a place where interpersonal relations were shattered by politics that sought to divide.
I wonder about silence in lieu of dialogue. Certainly silence is needed when reflecting on the testaments to the horrors of war, and when honouring the memory of millions of victims.
But don't we need more dialogue, rather than less, when discussing issues caused by subjective allegiances? Don't we more dialogue to ensure that religion be a private matter between a believer and his or her chosen system? Don't we need more dialogue to ensure that religious organizations be discrete in the way they conduct their business? Don't we need more dialogue to ensure that religious organizations educate their flock to be respectful of all faiths?
But how can dialogue be broached if there is so little trust, if the principal aim remains: that of gaining more converts by using emotional pitches that have long led to divisiveness, an 'us' versus 'them'?
Early one morning at the entrance to Birkenau, I witnessed a highly-charged emotional pitch being delivered to American youths. They were all wearing Israeli flags that fluttered in the wind. And one of their tour leaders was yelling through a loudspeaker that 'Birkenau was the only place designed to exterminate Jews'.
I thought, is this feverish pitch necessary by hallowed grounds?
Later in one of the barracks, I came across the same youths, listening to a second tour leader. His discourse seemed more reasonable as he proposed thoughts on moral choices of a universal nature. Yet the cumulative effect was weighing on a caped young woman who, outside the barrack, cried inconsolably to another. As the group left to continue their tour, I re-entered the barrack, finding on the walls, graffiti with names and years, such as 2004 and 2007, some with Stars of David. I do not imply that the group of youths I had come across that morning had engaged in this disrespect to the premises, and to the memories of so many more unfortunate than they. But the graffiti showed that there is a lack of supervision among some of the groups that pass through.
Later, I hired a private guide with a university degree in History, a normal qualification for museum guides throughout Europe. And near the end of the tour, I mentioned my concerns. Regarding the Carmelite convent, my guide mentioned that its presence was due to the canonization of Edith Stein who was born a Jew, converted to Catholicism in the early 1920's, became a Carmelite nun, and was killed by Nazis at Birkenau. I did not press on the issue of the large cross. Regarding the tour of Jewish youths, my guide lamented that these groups are not interested in hiring Museum guides, but rather, in bringing their own, and that the combination of horrific exhibits with the conveyed emotionalism causes many to have ongoing nightmares, as reported by their parents.
Because of the emotional turmoil and religious conflict that I saw or sensed, I came to the conclusion that the political use of religious symbols to convey the plight of millions is misguided. Likewise is the revisionism that occurs to present history to favour one side while omitting or rendering general and vague the reality of others.
I consider that concentration camps and their visitors should treat with the utmost respect the memories of ALL victims who suffered the worst indignities. And in so doing, we should deeply reflect on the nature and consequence of aggression and war, of conflict and intolerance. For if we fill our heads instead with partialities and conflict, how will we ever learn to reach out in peace?
The bus stopped at the outskirts of the village of Sztutowo, 65 kilometres east of Gdansk, three kilometres from the Baltic Sea. Getting off, I walked down a cobbled stone road. At the end, were the main gates of the Stutthof Museum. They were closed. Through the railing, I saw an expanse of land, barbed wire fencing, observation towers of dark wood, and a sizeable building of brick. More would be revealed in the next few days.
Stutthof started out as a Zivilgefangenenlager, or detainee camp for civilians, among them, the Polish intelligentsia. Teachers, professors, students, political activists, and clergy were rounded up by the Nazis and their collaborators, after the invasion of Poland through the Free City of Danzig, on September 1, 1939.
By 1942, Stutthof had evolved to a concentration camp for the rapidly increasing number of prisoners, among them, Soviet POWs and Jews. In its almost six years of operations, the camp received prisoners from over 25 countries. They faced, for the most part, unbearable conditions. More than 85,000 prisoners were directly and indirectly exterminated, and as many as 110,000 were deported.
Stutthof rarely gets much notice in the history annals from the West. I wondered why. Certainly the exhibits, which are not that badly presented, could be improved. They could also benefit from fewer religious symbols.
More Catholic symbols and shrines are present at Stutthof than what I encountered at the larger museums of Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Could the Nazis have made more concessions to the belief systems of their prisoners at Stutthof? Or were more Catholic priests and nuns killed at Stutthof than at any other concentration camp in Poland?
The questions remain unanaswered. I can understand the need for religious symbols in a country where Catholicism is such a dominant force. But as a researcher and an historian, I found the overtness of the religious symbols at Stutthof to be distracting, if not overdone. I also thought the shrines overshadow the memory of those who held other beliefs.
How could this issue of religious partiality be solved in a Museum that represents so many beliefs? Could a Roman Catholic chapel be added to the exhibits at Stutthof, so that all the symbols pertaining to this religion be housed in one place? That might allow the non-Catholic viewer to concentrate on the historical aspects of the camp, without being duly influenced by the symbols of another religion. And what about the belief systems of the non-Catholic prisoner at Stutthof? Would these beliefs be represented in equal proportion?
Ecumenism in its broadest sense can be sticky for a museum that wishes to have a global presence.
Ecumenism can also be expensive. Consider the brick smokestack of the Museum's crematorium. At its back end, not visible by the general public, a cross appears in the brickwork. Did the Nazis really concede that much to Christianity while incinerating bodies? I hardly think so. It is likely that a well-intentioned soul, included in the reconstruction design of the death trap, several blonde bricks among the redder ones. The effect is an unmistakable cross.
----------------------
I walked beyond the crematorium towards the north end of the camp, past the barrack with the shoe exhibit to an outlying field, designated for expansion before the Soviet forces pushed west, in the face of disintegrating Hitlerian fantasy.
There, in the outlying field of sandy soil and coarse grass, I made the most astonishing discovery. At my feet were pieces of leather, once belonging to shoes, boots, slippers, and belts. The find shook me, more so, when I found a metal, stamped button, belonging to a Nazi uniform. How did I know it belonged to a Nazi uniform? It was on account of an exhibit I'd seen, days earlier, at the Imperial War Museum in London. There, buttons on the uniforms of two ranks of SS officers, drew my attention. A week later, at the Majdanek State Museum, I confirmed that the button I had photographed in the field at Stutthof belonged to a lower SS officer.
Confirming why the leather pieces were strewn on the field of the Stutthof Museum, would take a lot longer.
------------------------------
Further south on a back country road, I came across an old church with some of its windows boarded up, others showing evidence of a charred interior. Was this the Lutheran church attended by the farmers and long-term neighbours of the 90-year old Polish Catholic who lives next door to me, today? The 'Evangelicals', as my neighbour would refer to these Poles of German extraction, were kind enough to take his family in. That is, when the Nazis ordered Poles to vacate their homes and lands. You see, ethnic Germans from further east were about to arrive. And these new immigrants, or Volksdeutsch, were taking hearty advantage of the Nazi policy for Lebensraum. As a result, they gained more room - land, homes, and businesses - at the expense of Catholic Poles and Jews, most of whom had nowhere else to go, many of whom suffered a dire fate.
After the war, when the Soviets took over Poland, the Volksdeutsch were ordered to leave, while those of German ancestry who had lived in Poland for generations, found life to be increasingly difficult. They, too, had to leave. Was the abandoned church a symbol of these later years?
Who caused the fire?
------------------------------
Further west on that country road, I found a sign with two crosses pointing to the Białuty Forest. It reads:
"Place of mass murders in the years 1941-45
12000 persons from the camp in Działdowo
including 58 priests and 1500 Jews".
I wondered, where was the Star of David for the 1500 Jewish victims?
Entering the forest, I found the memorial to these victims of Hitler's travesty, along with an oversized cross, an open-air chapel of Catholic symbology, plus small flags, including those representing the Vatican. The representation for non-Catholic believers was nowhere to be found.
------------------------------
On my return to Mława, where I was staying, I encountered a cemetery or Friedhof for German soldiers. A peaceful enclave of impressive design, the Friedhof displays tablets of granite about 2 metres high, each engraved with many names and vital statistics of soldiers killed during the Second World War. A large cross forms a focal point for the arranged tablets, while smaller crosses beyond symbolize those soldiers killed during the First World War.
The Friedhof was founded by the Wehrmacht, or German army, and built by Polish forced labour to bury and commemorate 1,300 German soldiers. Today, as a result of the efforts of the German Association of Carers of War Graves and the Polish Foundation Pamięć, the cemetery has been reconstructed to include the symbolic tombstones for about 12,000 soldiers, many corpses having been exhumed from other cemeteries.
Seeing so many German surnames on the tablets, I was curious. For I have 25 per cent German ancestry, and wondered if my surname was represented. The closest match was Felix Hedrich (1912-1944). And I remembered Rabbi Jacobson, a professor of Western Civilization who, in 1970, approached me after class to ask, "Are you Jewish?". It seems that members of his congregation shared my last name. I replied, "not to my knowledge." Later, my Dad mentioned that sometimes German names with one consonant are Jewish. With these long-ago conversations in mind, I wondered about Felix Hedrich. Was he Jewish? Certainly there were Jewish soldiers in the German army during the First World War, Anne Frank's father being one of these. And conceivably some of those Jewish soldiers might have been killed in Poland. So I wondered, why were there were no Stars of David at the Friedhof?
I sensed religious tension in other historical locations in Poland.
About 100 metres down from the main entrance to Birkenau - a horrifying extermination camp where Jews and Gypsies where particularly targeted as victims - stands a Carmelite convent with a very large cross, once used in an open-air Papal Mass. I couldn't help thinking that the oversized cross was somehow provocative. For I compared the convent's need to make its presence known to a more discrete retreat near Auschwitz I, the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer.
It was at the peaceful Centre for Dialogue and Prayer where I stayed for a few days, finding nowhere a need for overt advertising of its Catholicism. In fact, the Centre made every effort to embrace other faiths, as evidenced by Jewish religious literature at the front desk.
On its website, the Centre notes that the words 'dialogue' and 'prayer' may not be as appropriate as silence and the need to listen. For Auschwitz was a place where interpersonal relations were shattered by politics that sought to divide.
I wonder about silence in lieu of dialogue. Certainly silence is needed when reflecting on the testaments to the horrors of war, and when honouring the memory of millions of victims.
But don't we need more dialogue, rather than less, when discussing issues caused by subjective allegiances? Don't we more dialogue to ensure that religion be a private matter between a believer and his or her chosen system? Don't we need more dialogue to ensure that religious organizations be discrete in the way they conduct their business? Don't we need more dialogue to ensure that religious organizations educate their flock to be respectful of all faiths?
But how can dialogue be broached if there is so little trust, if the principal aim remains: that of gaining more converts by using emotional pitches that have long led to divisiveness, an 'us' versus 'them'?
Early one morning at the entrance to Birkenau, I witnessed a highly-charged emotional pitch being delivered to American youths. They were all wearing Israeli flags that fluttered in the wind. And one of their tour leaders was yelling through a loudspeaker that 'Birkenau was the only place designed to exterminate Jews'.
I thought, is this feverish pitch necessary by hallowed grounds?
Later in one of the barracks, I came across the same youths, listening to a second tour leader. His discourse seemed more reasonable as he proposed thoughts on moral choices of a universal nature. Yet the cumulative effect was weighing on a caped young woman who, outside the barrack, cried inconsolably to another. As the group left to continue their tour, I re-entered the barrack, finding on the walls, graffiti with names and years, such as 2004 and 2007, some with Stars of David. I do not imply that the group of youths I had come across that morning had engaged in this disrespect to the premises, and to the memories of so many more unfortunate than they. But the graffiti showed that there is a lack of supervision among some of the groups that pass through.
Later, I hired a private guide with a university degree in History, a normal qualification for museum guides throughout Europe. And near the end of the tour, I mentioned my concerns. Regarding the Carmelite convent, my guide mentioned that its presence was due to the canonization of Edith Stein who was born a Jew, converted to Catholicism in the early 1920's, became a Carmelite nun, and was killed by Nazis at Birkenau. I did not press on the issue of the large cross. Regarding the tour of Jewish youths, my guide lamented that these groups are not interested in hiring Museum guides, but rather, in bringing their own, and that the combination of horrific exhibits with the conveyed emotionalism causes many to have ongoing nightmares, as reported by their parents.
Because of the emotional turmoil and religious conflict that I saw or sensed, I came to the conclusion that the political use of religious symbols to convey the plight of millions is misguided. Likewise is the revisionism that occurs to present history to favour one side while omitting or rendering general and vague the reality of others.
I consider that concentration camps and their visitors should treat with the utmost respect the memories of ALL victims who suffered the worst indignities. And in so doing, we should deeply reflect on the nature and consequence of aggression and war, of conflict and intolerance. For if we fill our heads instead with partialities and conflict, how will we ever learn to reach out in peace?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Poland - Part 1:
Looking for Answers
Issues from the Second World War have intrigued me these past few years. Blame it on my 90-year old Polish neighbour.
By the time the Second World War was declared, Roman Goralski had left his farm, near the border of East Prussia, to join the Polish armed forces. Within weeks, he and his fellow soldiers were captured by Soviets who, like the Nazis, were scheming to carve up Poland, according to the pact between Hitler and Stalin.
On the forced march to L'vov, prisoner-of-war Goralski scoped out a field of haystacks. He gambled and zig-zagged away from the troops, risking bullets fired in his direction. He figured the Soviets did not have the time and manpower to leave their custodial duties and mount a search. He was right.
More risks awaited Goralski, until he was able to get past the German-occupied sector of Warsaw to connect with his brother and obtain civilian clothes. Goralski returned to his farm, only to find that it had been appropriated by the Nazis and given, instead, to German colonists from Byelorussia. Had it not been for a neighbour, who offered the Goralski family a substitute home, the outcome of this story would have been very different.
In the ensuing years, the Nazis ordered Goralski to go to Westphalia, in Germany, where he became forced labour.
In his accounts of the time, Goralski inspired me to write a story for young adults, I set it in Poland, circa 1942. But by the fourth chapter, I was stumped. I realized that I couldn't continue writing about a country I'd never tasted. It was time to travel. This, in spite of my uncooperative health.
It took me nine months to plan an itinerary that would combine an historical review with my literary and photographic goals. I began in London, England, where I viewed the exhibits at the Imperial War museum, as well as the photographic archives of two Polish institutes.
I next flew to Gdansk, from where I travelled throughout the country, seeking eleven museums, a little-known, mass grave in a rural forest, designated cemeteries, and several houses of worship.
I would have preferred an extra 6 months to better learn the basics of a language I barely know; it would have made communications with a variety of Poles a richer experience. But I could no longer postpone my search for answers to some persistent questions, among them:
- What was it about Poland that made it so vulnerable to aggressors from the West (Germany) and aggressors from the East (Soviet Union)?
- Why, after 60-plus years, do most people not know about ALL the millions who were persecuted and annihilated by the Nazis?
- Why is the generic term 'Holocaust' associated with six million Jews, whose memories are honoured in exhibits, literature and film, while others - reportedly five million - are given general and vague billing, if they are mentioned at all?
Obtaining answers would not be easy. In a world beset by partialities and political agendas, I could only hope for a compass pointing to intellectual honesty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In London, I visited The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (PISM), the Polish Underground Study Trust (PUMST), and the Imperial War Museum (IWM-London).
PISM is the steward of artifacts and documentation from the Polish government-in-exile during the Second World War. That is, after the spring of 1940 when the Polish government fled Paris as the Nazis invaded France. With my interest in their photographic archives, from 1939 to the mid-forties, I buried my nose in PISM's basement one gorgeous Spring day.
Next, I reviewed the more extensive collection of photographs at PUMST, and spoke with its curator who confirmed what I had read and heard while I learned about nuances of which I was unaware.
In contrast, IWM-London offered only the slimmest of photographic archives on Poland; in fact, I found only one black and white image from 1942: that of Himmler visiting Stutthof, the first detainee camp for Polish political prisoners from what was then the Free City of Danzig. (Stutthof would become, as of 1942, a concentration camp for detainees of 25 nationalities who did not fit the desired profile of the Nazis.)
I chose to better spend my time visiting several exhibits at the IWM - the one in the lobby, focusing on the armaments of war, the one on intelligence and espionage, and the one on the Holocaust. They were all superbly presented.
Months earlier, I was referred to the Holocaust exhibition at IWM-London by a fellow writer, after I had voiced my concerns to our group over the partialities I was encountering on the reports of victims from the Second World War. I might as well have been talking to the wall. For the man who referred me to the Holocaust exhibition at IWM-London confirmed how entrenched are the partialities that have been promoted regarding the victims of the Second World War.
Allow me to explain.
Upon entering the Holocaust exhibition, we learn about the stories of Jewish victims and their families. One Jewish family after another is presented up close and personal through photographs and video commentaries from the survivors or their relatives. Only much further along in the exhibition is there a video commentary from one non-Jew: a Jehovah's Witness. And there is a vague and general reference to millions of non-Jews who, too, lost their lives due to Nazi viciousness. But outside the Jehovah's Witness, there is no personalization of non-Jews, no fullness of accounts for the millions of non-Jewish victims who, too, were exerminated, who too, failed to live up to the profile established by the Nazis.
My search for a balanced presentation on all the victims of the Holocaust – Jews and non-Jews, alike, was in vain. I didn't find it at the IWM-London as I didn't find it, online, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Perhaps the exhibits at museums in what were earlier concentration camps, in Poland, would better account for the brutal losses of all parties during the Second World War. At the very least, I hoped to find information on the direct and indirect extermination by the Nazis of Polish citizens: its three million Polish Jews, and its three million non-Jewish Poles.
By the time the Second World War was declared, Roman Goralski had left his farm, near the border of East Prussia, to join the Polish armed forces. Within weeks, he and his fellow soldiers were captured by Soviets who, like the Nazis, were scheming to carve up Poland, according to the pact between Hitler and Stalin.
On the forced march to L'vov, prisoner-of-war Goralski scoped out a field of haystacks. He gambled and zig-zagged away from the troops, risking bullets fired in his direction. He figured the Soviets did not have the time and manpower to leave their custodial duties and mount a search. He was right.
More risks awaited Goralski, until he was able to get past the German-occupied sector of Warsaw to connect with his brother and obtain civilian clothes. Goralski returned to his farm, only to find that it had been appropriated by the Nazis and given, instead, to German colonists from Byelorussia. Had it not been for a neighbour, who offered the Goralski family a substitute home, the outcome of this story would have been very different.
In the ensuing years, the Nazis ordered Goralski to go to Westphalia, in Germany, where he became forced labour.
In his accounts of the time, Goralski inspired me to write a story for young adults, I set it in Poland, circa 1942. But by the fourth chapter, I was stumped. I realized that I couldn't continue writing about a country I'd never tasted. It was time to travel. This, in spite of my uncooperative health.
It took me nine months to plan an itinerary that would combine an historical review with my literary and photographic goals. I began in London, England, where I viewed the exhibits at the Imperial War museum, as well as the photographic archives of two Polish institutes.
I next flew to Gdansk, from where I travelled throughout the country, seeking eleven museums, a little-known, mass grave in a rural forest, designated cemeteries, and several houses of worship.
I would have preferred an extra 6 months to better learn the basics of a language I barely know; it would have made communications with a variety of Poles a richer experience. But I could no longer postpone my search for answers to some persistent questions, among them:
- What was it about Poland that made it so vulnerable to aggressors from the West (Germany) and aggressors from the East (Soviet Union)?
- Why, after 60-plus years, do most people not know about ALL the millions who were persecuted and annihilated by the Nazis?
- Why is the generic term 'Holocaust' associated with six million Jews, whose memories are honoured in exhibits, literature and film, while others - reportedly five million - are given general and vague billing, if they are mentioned at all?
Obtaining answers would not be easy. In a world beset by partialities and political agendas, I could only hope for a compass pointing to intellectual honesty.
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In London, I visited The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (PISM), the Polish Underground Study Trust (PUMST), and the Imperial War Museum (IWM-London).
PISM is the steward of artifacts and documentation from the Polish government-in-exile during the Second World War. That is, after the spring of 1940 when the Polish government fled Paris as the Nazis invaded France. With my interest in their photographic archives, from 1939 to the mid-forties, I buried my nose in PISM's basement one gorgeous Spring day.
Next, I reviewed the more extensive collection of photographs at PUMST, and spoke with its curator who confirmed what I had read and heard while I learned about nuances of which I was unaware.
In contrast, IWM-London offered only the slimmest of photographic archives on Poland; in fact, I found only one black and white image from 1942: that of Himmler visiting Stutthof, the first detainee camp for Polish political prisoners from what was then the Free City of Danzig. (Stutthof would become, as of 1942, a concentration camp for detainees of 25 nationalities who did not fit the desired profile of the Nazis.)
I chose to better spend my time visiting several exhibits at the IWM - the one in the lobby, focusing on the armaments of war, the one on intelligence and espionage, and the one on the Holocaust. They were all superbly presented.
Months earlier, I was referred to the Holocaust exhibition at IWM-London by a fellow writer, after I had voiced my concerns to our group over the partialities I was encountering on the reports of victims from the Second World War. I might as well have been talking to the wall. For the man who referred me to the Holocaust exhibition at IWM-London confirmed how entrenched are the partialities that have been promoted regarding the victims of the Second World War.
Allow me to explain.
Upon entering the Holocaust exhibition, we learn about the stories of Jewish victims and their families. One Jewish family after another is presented up close and personal through photographs and video commentaries from the survivors or their relatives. Only much further along in the exhibition is there a video commentary from one non-Jew: a Jehovah's Witness. And there is a vague and general reference to millions of non-Jews who, too, lost their lives due to Nazi viciousness. But outside the Jehovah's Witness, there is no personalization of non-Jews, no fullness of accounts for the millions of non-Jewish victims who, too, were exerminated, who too, failed to live up to the profile established by the Nazis.
My search for a balanced presentation on all the victims of the Holocaust – Jews and non-Jews, alike, was in vain. I didn't find it at the IWM-London as I didn't find it, online, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Perhaps the exhibits at museums in what were earlier concentration camps, in Poland, would better account for the brutal losses of all parties during the Second World War. At the very least, I hoped to find information on the direct and indirect extermination by the Nazis of Polish citizens: its three million Polish Jews, and its three million non-Jewish Poles.
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