Expatriotic

A Story About A Quest

2009-12-28T23:39:00.039+00:00

There is a story to be told here, people keep telling me.

Yes, there definitely is.

But where does that story begin? Who is the protagonist? Where does it take place?

In the 14th century, Jews began arriving in Poland and establishing communities like Konin.

No, too historical. I’m out of my depth.

In 1921, Fischel Mysch, my grandfather, arrived at Ellis Island. He was joining his brother who was already living in New York, and leaving behind another brother and the rest of his family in Poland – a country he would never return to again.

No, I’m not qualified to tell that story either. I never met my grandfather.

It was an ungodly early hour to be at London Luton airport, but that’s the hidden price of discount airfare, I thought to myself as my dad and I waited to board our flight to Warsaw.

No, that just seems trivial. It needs some context. It doesn't work without the back-story.

Maybe my problem is that this isn’t a once-upon-a-time type story at all. Maybe it really should begin with an exploration of an intangible, a concept. Like identity. Or travel. Or absence. Roots. Fate. Sense of place. Humanity.

Or maybe I should just take my friend Amanda’s advice. “Don’t over-intellectualize it,” she said. “Just let the words roll.”

Right.

***

This is a story about a book.

About 15 years ago a British author named Theo Richmond wrote a book called Konin: A Quest about the Polish town his father originated from. Well, maybe I should say he finished writing it 15 years ago. Many years of painstaking effort and travel – spanning several corners of the globe – went into his research and writing.

I first heard about the book shortly after it was published when my dad recommended it to me – it turns out Konin is the same town that his own father was from. “You should read it,” my dad told me every so often. “It's about our family. My uncle Morton – you know, the one from Brooklyn – he was interviewed for it. He’s in the book.”

“Yeah sure, Dad. Whatever,” I probably responded. My dad is a notorious name-dropper and so any claims about my dad’s uncle Morton’s 15 minutes of fame would have ben easy to dismiss.

I never so much as flipped through it in a bookshop. But the used book market underneath Waterloo Bridge is no ordinary bookshop. Thousands of books are lined up on massive tables, with no hint of any order – not thematic, not alphabetical, just hilariously random juxtapositions. You don’t go there to find a particular book. You go there because maybe a particular book will find you.

It was there about four years ago that a nice hard-cover edition of Konin, on sale for a couple of quid, caught my eye. What the hell, I thought. It’ll look impressive on my shelf.

***

I didn’t read the book right away, but I got around to it eventually a few months later. As it turned out, I owed my dad an apology. To my amazement he was not exaggerating this time. The story of the Mysch family – our family name before some rather convoluted changes to it – truly is central to an amazingly rich portrait of a typical pre-war Jewish community that the book depicts. My great uncle Morton (or Motek in Yiddish) is indeed one of the main sources of information – of personal memories, really – that Theo Richmond tapped into.

There was my great grandfather, a tailor who, during World War I had let German soldiers camp in his back yard, and who also (I am sorry to say) ran afoul of the local union whose members he employed and had to go into hiding for a few years. There was a great-great aunt who – the townspeople all thought – performed a great service within the community: she communicated with the dead by rolling around on the ground of the cemetery. There was Motek, popular, handsome and athletic – he was the guy who would beat up anyone who was picking on other Jewish kids. He wowed his fellow soldiers with gymnastics displays while serving in the Polish Army between the wars.

***

This is a story about fate.

Something else struck me in reading Konin. Theo and Motek’s relationship was very obviously more than just interviewer and interviewee. They had a special friendship and respect for one another. Motek truly believed in Theo, believed in his quest. It occurred to me that this author – who, I learned in the book, lived in London – might be interested to know that Motek’s grand-nephew was residing just a few miles down the River Thames.

So I tried looking for this Theo Richmond guy. Surely a published author can’t be very difficult to track down, not in the information age. Simple enough, I thought. I Googled him.

A few book reviews. New and used copies for sale on Amazon. But as for getting in touch: nothing.

Nothing? How is that possible? With all of the book readings, panel discussions, cultural events and commemorations that go on in London? Surely there would be a few links to organizations that would know how to get in contact.

Nope. No mention of where I might find him.

OK, I thought, this is going to take some more advanced detective work. I was going to have to, you know… ask around.

I asked around. People in the Jewish community. Nothing. The “history” community. Nothing. The publishing community. Nothing.

I wasn’t obsessed or anything, mind you. But I felt like I had caught a bug. It was just… it was just… weird. Weird that I hadn’t met Theo Richmond. It occurred to me why I felt this way: This guy knows more about my family history than I do. And on top of that he lives in London. And on top of that, I had begun working at this point for the Holocaust Educational Trust (my project involved in large part teaching about pre-war Jewish life in Poland). Clearly, I thought, we are supposed to meet.

***

I didn’t find the connection I was looking for. But eventually, the connection found me. It was complete chance. Obviously. It was always going to happen by chance.

Obviously, it was always going to happen in Poland.

I was leading a group of students on one of our Lessons from Auschwitz Project visits to Poland. At the end of a long and draining day, my group climbed onto our bus for the journey back to the Krakow airport. Across the aisle a teacher who was in my group took a book out of his backpack: Konin.

“You’re reading Konin!” I stated the obvious. “You know, my great uncle is in that book.” (I am nothing if not my name-dropping father’s son.) We chatted about it for a few minutes. I was just happy to have someone to have an impromptu book-club discussion with, to share what the book meant to me.

“I’d actually really like to meet the author,” I revealed to this near-complete stranger. “But I can’t seem to figure out how to find him.”

“I know where to find him,” the teacher responded. “Theo Richmond’s daughter is my wife’s best friend.”

Oh? Really?

One week later, I saw the teacher again at a follow-up seminar we had organized. He handed me a piece of paper with a woman’s name and email address handwritten on it.

“This is Theo’s daughter,” he said.

“That’s fantastic!” I replied. “Would it be alright if I mention your name, if I say that I was referred to her by you?”

“No need. I’ve already told her about you. She wants you to get in touch.”

***

It is beshert! I remember writing to Theo in an email. I hoped he would appreciate the Yiddish. I hoped he would agree with the sentiment – it is meant to be.

He did. After exchanging several emails, Theo invited me over for coffee. I wanted to bring a gift – ostensibly to say “thank you” for having me over, but really to say “thank you” for the book. What I really wanted him to know is that his years of hard work actually mattered. But how do you say that without sounding corny?

So I baked him a batch of my newly-perfected homemade bagels. I suspected from reading his book that he would appreciate them. You just can’t get decent bagels in London, not like the ones he describes being nearly force-fed in the homes of countless elderly Jews across the five boroughs of New York while conducting research for his book.

On the designated day, I trekked to his house in the suburbs. We schmoozed for two hours. He talked about the members of my family he had met. And I talked about the other members of the Mysch/Maws clan that he had not had a chance to meet. He was particularly interested in the generations that followed on from those original immigrants to New York.

We talked about my job. He was not interested in joining me on an educational visit to Auschwitz. Of course not – he is a chronicler of Jewish life. Going to the most notorious site of Jewish death would simply be too incongruous. Even I get that.

He mentioned in passing that he had several boxes of notes compiled during his research for the book stashed away in his attic. Who knows, he said, there may even be some more information about your family that didn’t make it into the book.

I may have raised an eyebrow.

His health was poor just then, and he understandably didn’t have the energy to go up there digging around. He suggested that maybe once his health improved, though. “Maybe,” he said, planting the seed, “if you ever decide to visit Konin…”

***

This is a story about a journey.

At this point, that same bug was back, with a serious vengeance. Theo calls it the detective bug. My friend Jeremy uses a different analogy. We who dig through history and search for its meaning, he says, are like archaeologists. We unearth layer upon layer, yet all the while we must be aware that we have entered the story ourselves. History is not static or complete. It is not merely something you observe from the protective distance of time; it is something that you enter and become a participant in. We represent history’s next layer.

The book Konin depicts a community that once existed, but that is not to say that the story ends with the deportations of Konin Jews in World War II – even though the Jews were never to return there. The book it is also the contemporary story of a lost community in Diaspora, its members spread around the world. But the story continues beyond those survivors as well. Theo was born in London, and I was born a generation later in Boston, yet we have a strange sort of link. In the ongoing story of the Jews of Konin, we are the next layer.

Leaving Theo’s house that afternoon, the next step of the journey became obvious to me. I may only be a metaphorical archaeologist – an archaeologist without a shovel – but I would have to do as any archaeologist would. I had to go to the site. I had to go to Konin.

***

“Dad, I’ve got an idea. Hear me out.”

In my mind it was this simple: I couldn’t imagine not visiting Konin. And I couldn’t imagine going without my dad.

In reality, nothing is that simple.

In my five years in London, my dad had visited me once – that was four years ago. If I can’t even convince him to come to London, how the hell am I going to convince him to go to Poland?

The obstacles were partly practical, partly intellectual. The practical issues – “it’s hard to find the time to visit” – were easy enough. A simple combination of guilt and bullying could overcome that.

The intellectual ones were more nuanced. “Poland is antisemitic,” he protested (an all-too common belief among many American Jews).

“You have no way of knowing that!” I responded. I told him about the Poles I know and work closely with. I reminded him that America has antisemitism too. I reminded him that for centuries Poland was the closest thing the Jews ever had to a homeland. Is there antisemitism there? Yes. Is it more complicated than that? Hell, yes.

“But what will we see?” he asked.

Damn. He’s got me there, I thought. Good question.

“I don’t know,” I had to admit. “Maybe nothing. But maybe in this case, it’s not what you see that makes it worth visiting… it’s what you don’t see.”

***

The “journey” was not direct. It began with a detour. At the time, August 2008, I never would have even thought of my trip to Israel as being at all related to Konin. It was meant to be a work trip, plain and simple. I spent most of nine days in Jerusalem at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum and one of the world’s principal Holocaust archives.

Most of my time there was spend in a classroom, but we had lengthy lunch breaks to make use of however we wanted.

One absurdly hot day, I decided to poke my head into the air conditioned archive building.

I managed to communicate to a librarian what I was looking for – the Konin Memorial Book. I knew of its existence because Theo refers to it in his book. As survivors from many communities did after the war, Jewish Koniners from around the world wrote accounts of what they remember from their lives in the town, and pulled together some money to print only enough copies of the book for those people – presumably all Koniners themselves – who wanted a copy of it.

It is incredibly difficult to find.

Thankfully, my hunch paid off. Yad Vashem has a copy. A friendly woman behind the counter brought it out to me.

It was written in Yiddish.

Other than a few phrases – grandmotherly threats mostly – I don’t speak a word of Yiddish. I don’t speak a word of Hebrew either, but I do still vaguely remember the alphabet from my years of Hebrew school. (Yiddish is written with Hebrew letters.) Time for me to reach into the depths of my memory and see if all of those Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were worth anything after all.

The friendly woman pointed to several pages of text at the back of the Memorial Book, which she explained were a list of names – names of Konin’s victims of the Holocaust, or at least those who the survivors could recall when they compiled the book. I looked for the Hebrew letter mem.

There it was. “Mysch,” written in Hebrew characters. My name, as it would have been written had I been born in some parallel universe. Only in this case, it was next to several entries commemorating those killed by Nazis.

One of them I knew to be my great grandfather: Yitzhak. Others I was only learning the existence of for the first time: Freyde. Lutek. Channah. Rivkah.

In addition to this book, there was a database to peruse. Yad Vashem has undertaken a massive effort since the 1950s to collect as many names as possible of victims of the Holocaust. Some are accompanied by other information – places and dates of birth, parents’ names and the like. But really, the task here is to just account for the people whose lives were lost, to provide some sort of commemoration of those people who have no other marker of their death. They have put out a call to survivors and anyone else who may know: just give us names.

We know, of course, that there were six million victims of the Holocaust. How many of those names has Yad Vashem has collected to date? Three million.

Half.

The glass-half-full side of me thinks that compiling three million names is an impressive accomplishment. But the glass-half-empty side cannot help but feel an overwhelming sense of sadness – that in the modern age, in the age of birth and death certificates, we don’t even know something as basic as the names of three million of the victims. To say nothing of any of the other more important details that we don’t know about these people – what were their lives like; what were their interests; their customs; their personalities; their dreams?

This figure of three million is a reminder of just how precious something as simple as a name can be. So I feel strangely privileged. People in my family who died at least have some acknowledgment that they ever existed. This also reminds me how grateful I should be to Theo for writing about Konin. Beyond just these names, I also feel as though I can say I know something about who my relatives were and what their lives were like. Most people cannot.

Yad Vashem is also home to numerous Holocaust memorials. Many of them are ideologically complicated to say the least – outdated, overly patriotic, that sort of thing. But at least one of them is truly remarkable; it is called Valley of the Communities. It is essentially a man-made canyon that you descend into, and wander around. Carved into the walls all around you are the names of the Jewish communities throughout Europe, most of which were totally destroyed as a result of the war. It is a powerful reminder that while we must of course remember the six million individuals who perished, it is also important to reflect on the more collective loss. The loss of culture and traditions, of music, language, food, humor, folklore, buildings, art. The general sense of belonging that we associate with that abstract word: community.

I sought out the name of the community that had special meaning for me, and took a photo of its name carved in the wall. When I got back to my hotel that night I emailed it to my now-kindred spirit, to Theo.

His quest was also mine now.

***

It was no longer an option. I would go to Konin, and I would go with my dad. The only questions were how and when.

Fortunately, there was an obvious impetus. My dad was going to be turning 70 in April. “Get yourself to London,” I told him. “I’ll organise the rest. It’s my birthday present to you.”

He was still skeptical but he knew I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He booked the flight to London.

I had the slight sense of guilt that my birthday “present” to my dad might feel more like a punishment. I also had lingering doubts that my romantic and philosophical notions about visiting a place with nothing to see might turn out to be a gigantic anticlimax. I remained outwardly upbeat, though.

A few weeks before his arrival, I sent an email to Theo, the man who started all this. Would he be willing to meet with my dad and me in London before we set off for Poland, I asked? Might he have any information that might help us on our trip? Any contacts in Konin of people with any knowledge of its pre-war history?

His contacts were scarce, particularly English-speaking ones. After all, he wrote his book almost 20 years ago. Poland was still under communism then. He did have the name of one English-speaking contact. It was nobody Theo had ever met before, just someone who had once invited him a couple years ago to the opening of a local exhibition on Jewish life in Konin. Theo couldn’t attend the exhibition, so he had never actually met the guy. It wasn’t much, but maybe this guy would be able to help.

I emailed Theo’s contact and told him the date that we planned to arrive in Konin. Did he know of anyone who might be able to talk to my dad and me about local history?

A few weeks passed, but he never got back to me.

Oh well, it was a long-shot.

***

A few weeks later, my dad arrived in London. We planned to do London stuff for a couple days before hopping on a flight to Warsaw. After a couple hours watching cricket at Lord’s and before heading out to a West End musical, we had an appointment for coffee with Theo.

We were, of course, on Dad Standard Time (late); but I am pleased to say not on Dad Standard Behavior. That is to say: my dad was willing to listen and to let someone else do the talking. Normally, Dad can convincingly weigh in as an expert on just about any topic you throw at him, but ironically when it came to this topic – Who am I and where did I come from? – he recognized that someone else might be able to provide him with some important information.

I brought with me my copy of Theo’s book – the same one I had bought under the Waterloo Bridge – because I was hoping that Theo could point on the hand-drawn map printed in it where our family lived. He also had finally gotten around to digging through the boxes in his attic, he told us, and found a photo which he brought for us to have. It was a picture of the house my grandfather grew up in, taken when Theo visited Konin in 1988 while researching the book.

“The house was in pretty bad shape 20 years ago,” he said. “They were tearing down many of the others on the street, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is no longer there.”

Either way, we agreed, it would be nice to at least find the place where it once stood.

***

Our flight was due to depart ungodly early the next morning – 6:45 am – and from Luton Airport which is nowhere near central London. I got a cab and picked my dad up at his hotel at 4:30. For the first time ever he was already outside waiting when we pulled up.

At the airport, we checked in with ease, and went to have breakfast and kill time.

I played the role of savvy, experienced Euro-traveller. Unfazed by the experienced. Done this a million times. No need to stress. Just stick with me.

Except…

We. Missed. The. Flight.

Reflecting back on that moment, it is painful now to even type it.

The flight was actually at 6:25 not 6:45. By the time I realized the mistake and ran what seemed like 5 miles to the departure gate, they were just shutting the door.

“But!” I pleaded.

“I’m sorry, sir. You cannot board.”

“You don’t understand,” I begged, trying to catch my breath… but it was a lost cause.

My dad was annoyed. “Forget it,” he said. “Let’s just go back to London. I don’t care about going to Poland”

“Dad,” I said with role-reversal sternness and authority, “We are not going back to London. We are going to Poland.”

Fortunately, there are no shortage of flights to Poland from Luton airport. There was one leaving in just over an hour, in fact. Back in the check-in area, I sheepishly asked if there were any seats available. There were.

Perhaps this was a sign.

They were expensive.

Dad pulled out his credit card. So much for the birthday present.

***

This is a story about a connection.

Sitting down for a rest on a park bench in the area that was once contained within the Warsaw ghetto walls, my dad said, “I don’t know what it is. I just feel this… sort of… connection to this place.”

I smiled. It finally seemed like this might not be a total disaster.

Warsaw is a curious place. It is noteworthy for both the thriving Jewish life that once existed there and for the unimaginable horror of the ghetto, whose brief existence is one of the main emblems of the Holocaust. Today it attempts to embrace these components of its history, but its sites and symbols of commemoration seem a bit muddled at the moment. It will get there eventually – after all, as a community it is still relatively new at this business.

Until then, visitors have to make do with their own imagination. They have to make do with this intangible thing that we call “a connection.” They have to be able to stand in a place where there is nothing and feel something. Ninety percent of the city was destroyed in the war. Everything is either new or a recreation of something old. Connecting is no easy thing.

Dad felt a connection, though. This could bode well, I thought, for tomorrow’s visit to Konin.

Never one to let a nice moment go un-ruined by invasive technology, I used this idle time to check my email on my phone. Theo’s Konin contact had finally responded to my message from several weeks ago.

He was sorry it had taken him so long to get back to me, he wrote. He could not personally help me because he was out of the country at the moment. But he gave me the suggestions of a few people who might be able to help. One of them even spoke English, he said.

It was unlikely to amount to much, so I didn’t bother calling until the next day. We were already at the train station killing time before our train to Konin. The English speaker didn’t answer her phone.

Here goes nothing, I thought as I tried the next number he suggested, a man named Henryk, who is the director of the Konin Library. I knew that one branch of the town’s library happened to be located in what was once the town’s great synagogue, the building where my family worshiped.

Henryk answered. The conversation went something like this:

“Hello! Do you speak English?”

[Polish words.]

“English?

[Polish words.]

“You? Speak?”

[Polish words.]

“OK. Thank you. Goodbye.” I gave up. Enough already. Time to move on.

But five minutes later, my phone rang. On the other end was a woman named Karolina. She told me in near perfect English that she was calling on behalf of the Director of the Konin Library. Actually, she said sheepishly, as if it would betray Henryk’s professionalism – she was his daughter. It just so happened that she was in Poland visiting her family for Easter, and offered to help translate.

I was surprised to learn that her father knew about me from an email – apparently Theo’s contact had warned him that I might be in touch.

“My father says he will meet you in Konin. You are coming tomorrow, yes?” Karolina asked.

“Uhhh… actually… we are coming today.” I said. “Our train arrives at one-thirty.”

“Oh. One minute please,” she said.

I could hear an animated father-daughter conversation unfolding in Polish on the other end of the line, as Karolina’s hand covered the receiver.

“OK. My father will meet you at the old synagogue at two o’clock.”

***

I didn’t know the Polish word for library, which made it difficult to tell the cab driver where to take us. But I pointed to the name of the street on the map in the back of Theo’s book, and said – repeatedly – one of the few Polish words I do know: “synagoga.” The cab driver was baffled. There obviously was no synagogue that he knew about, but he gamely took us to the street I had indicated.

As we sped right passed it, I recognized the building from photos. “Stop! Stop! Stop! Here! Yes! Synagoga!” The driver made a U-turn and pulled up in front.

A man and his daughter were waiting in front. I knew it must be Henryk and Karolina. They had seen the cab zipping past a moment ago, and were not happy with the cab driver. Before greeting us, he yelled at the driver in Polish. I can only guess that the conversation went something like this:

“Where were you taking these people? Why didn’t you stop?!”

“They didn’t tell me where hey wanted to go, they just kept saying ‘synagoga, synagoga’. They never said they wanted to go to the library!”

“You fool! This is the synagogue!”

The argument eventually over, we emerged from the car into the hot and very bright Polish spring day. We made our formal introductions.

By way of stating our intentions, I took Theo’s book out from my bag. Our hosts nodded vigorously at the sight of it – I suspect Theo essentially put Konin on the map (but just barely) when he wrote it. I flipped open to a page of photos in the centre and found the one of Motek in his Polish Army uniform. “This,” I said in my pointy, exaggerated foreigner-speak, “is my father’s uncle. My father’s family… his father… they are all from this town.”

Karolina translated for us that Henryk had cancelled his plans at work for the day to join us. For how long, he wanted to know, did we plan to stay in Konin?

What once seemed so obvious – that we could get in and out of Konin in just a few hours – now seemed embarrassing and cruel to say aloud to these people. “We will get the 7:30pm train,” I said awkwardly.

“You are not staying the night in Konin?” Henryk said through Karolina, disappointed. He thought about how to fit what he wanted to convey to us in that amount of time. Then began talking very quickly in Polish.

We smiled politely as if to indicate some vague comprehension – of which we actually had none.

Periodically he would pause, before launching into his Polish monologue again. We looked with some concern to Karolina, tasked with translating. “Don’t worry,” she said, pointing to her head, “I am recording it here.”

It occurred to me there how unfortunate it was that Henryk and my dad did not speak the same language. With their mutual gifts of gab, they might have become instant best friends.

***

Inside the former synagogue, teenagers surfed the internet on computers, and the universal library sound of books being loudly stamped in and out echoed throughout the room. But looking at the walls and ceilings, it was unmistakable what purpose this building had formerly served. We were introduced to the branch librarian as though we were visiting dignitaries. She seemed impressed to learn that we were bona fide Jews, with relatives who once worshiped here.

Upstairs, in what would have once been the women’s gallery, was a small exhibition of art relating to Jewish Konin. We visited. It was nice to see the town acknowledge this part of its past, though it did not seem as though this exhibit had likely received many visitors.

We left the library and Henryk pointed out the small building next door. It was the mikvah, or ritual bath. More recently it had been turned into a convenience store.

***

We thanked Henryk profusely for meeting with us and insisted that we didn’t want to take up too much of his time, but he brushed off our protests. He would hear none of it. He had a car and – it turned out – a driver. Did we want to go see the old Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of town? We knew there was only one cemetery for Jews so surely our relatives were buried there. But there was some hesitation in Henryk’s asking us whether we wanted to see it. I suspected I knew why.

The four of us tried to fit in the small car clown-style along with Henryk’s driver (Henryk is a rather large man), and went the few miles outside of town.

When we got there, it was just as I had assumed it would be: a cemetery with no gravestones. Like so many others in Eastern Europe, they had all been destroyed by the Nazis, in part for practical reasons – gravestones made useful building and paving materials – and in part to demoralize and humiliate.

The small plot of land we saw was actually only part of the cemetery, Henryk explained. He pointed to some businesses we could see nearby, through a copse of trees, which now sat on land that once was cemetery.

So there were no graves for us to visit, but one old tree stood in the centre of the site. I couldn’t help but assume that it had seen my ancestors being buried. Perhaps my relatives mourned beneath its branches, or sought shelter in its shade while visiting the graves of their loved ones.

A plaque had been mounted on a large boulder to tell any infrequent, probably accidental visitors to this innocuous spot what once existed here. I found a small stone, and placed it atop the boulder, in keeping with the Jewish tradition – a public display of remembrance that seemed almost futile in this remote spot.

***

There was one other stop which we could use their help in finding, we told Henryk, Karolina and driver. I pulled out Theo’s book, flipped open to the map printed inside the dust jacket, on which Theo had marked the approximate location of where my grandfather, Motek, and the rest of their family lived – the one that had likely since been knocked down. I also pulled out the black-and-white snapshot that Theo had taken of the house in 1988.

It wasn’t hard to find the street. There are not that many of them in the old section of Konin. We pulled up in the car to the block of the street indicated on Theo’s map, wondering what we might find in the place where our family’s house once stood.

What we found was the house.

Well I’ll be damned.

We stood on the sidewalk and marvelled. But at what? The house was fairly innocuous. It was functional, divided into apartments, and would not have looked out of place in just about any city or town in the Western world. But there it was. After seeing a synagogue that was no longer a synagogue and a cemetery that was no longer a cemetery, seeing a house that was in fact still just a house carried a certain significance. We did not have to use a great deal of imagination to picture our relatives living here.

Even less so, when Henryk asked if we wanted to go inside.

“Uhhh… yeah?” I said, not sure how Henryk planned to go about doing that.

“I will ask. I am wearing a suit,” he volunteered.

***

How do you summarize the current state of Polish-Jewish relations? In short, I think the answer is that you don’t summarize. It is futile. How to summarize the incongruity and dissonance? Perhaps we can just consider a range of snippets, and hope that in their totality they contribute to some sort of larger picture. These snippets might consist of the faux-Jewish restaurants in Krakow’s old Jewish quarter; or the askance looks of the locals in Oswiecim as tour buses rumble through through their town on the way to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau – without ever stopping for a look around, maybe to buy a bottle of water.

Here’s another snippet. A man in a suit knocks on a stranger’s door. Inside a woman on crutches gets up from where she is eating her lunch to answer. Outside a man who is convinced that all Poles are antisemites waits with his son. The man in a suit explains to the woman who lives there that he is showing around some American Jews. Their family used to live in this building. Might she be willing to let us come in to have a look around? The woman, whose family has lived there since the 1950s, may have had brief cause for concern. Do these Jews want to cause trouble? Do they want their house back? Did the man in the suit ever have to actually say: no, no, don’t worry – they just want to have a look around? I will never know.

What I do know is that Henryk came back outside to where we were waiting.

Karolina translated. “He says: we go inside now.”

***

As recently as that same morning, I had been concerned that we wouldn't get to see anything in Konin – that it would be a symbolic journey, but mostly just a symbolic waste of time. Instead, we had so far had the opportunity to visit the synagogue where our ancestors prayed, the spot where many were buried, and now even the apartment they lived in. It was starting to hit me what an improbably perfect day this was shaping up to be. My dad couldn't believe what I had pulled out of my hat. Neither could I.

I had little to do with it, really. It was Henryk, Karolina, the librarian, the driver, the lady in my grandfather’s former house… whatever we were expecting to encounter in Konin – it wasn’t this. It wasn’t random acts of kindness.

Still, there was one more person. We emerged from the house back into the bright afternoon, and Henry began yelling to a man across the street. The details emerged haltingly amid a dust storm of gesticulation, animated Polish conversation between the two men, and Karolina’s attempts to interject in English. This man… he is Piotr… he is the town archivist…

I began the routine of trying to introduce and explain myself to Piotr, raised voice and pointing, as I had done earlier with Henryk. When I pulled the book out of my backpack again for a visual aid, Piotr took it from me. He flipped to the acknowledgments section, skimmed for a few seconds, then with a broad smile pointed at his own name. “Me.”

Piotr was merely on his way home from work when he came upon us, so we didn’t want to take up his time. And of course, he spoke no English. With time constraints and language barriers working against us, we all stood on the sidewalk for several minutes trying to cram in as many conversation topics as we possibly could – him, us, Theo, this house, the town, the Jews, the Poles.

All the while the afternoon sun beat harshly upon us. So Piotr made a suggestion, perhaps practical, perhaps symbolic. Shall we go to a café?

And so we did. The setting and the attendees of this ad-hoc symposium could not have been better arranged if this meeting had been intentional and pre-organized. Just down the street from where my family once lived, in the former Jewish neighborhood of Konin, our expanding group now piled into a trendy café, to order beer and to have a discussion about history and our place in it. A man of books. A man of records. A young Polish immigrant. The son of a Jewish immigrant. A Holocaust educator. And on the table sat my copy of Theo’s book, symbolically saving a place for him.

We stayed for an hour, by the end of which Piotr, Henyk and Karolina surely should have been getting home – but if they did need to, they did not let on.

Through the beer and language barrier, here is what I think we discussed: People like their interaction with history to be tidy. They want good guys and bad guys. Winners and losers. They want to understand what happened and why it happened. They want a guidebook and a map to clearly indicate where they can see remnants of it. They want to know what these remnants represent and why they are important.

But history is not tidy. History is messy.

This was a principle that each of us around the table exemplified and embodied. In ways both purposeful and accidental, each of us were archaeologists, discovering and bringing to light different facets of our shared slice of history whilst also entering into it as participants.

That having been clarified, we spilled out onto the street for hugs, photos and email addresses.

We said goodbye to what can only be described as the kindest hosts I have ever encountered, and set off to explore some of the back roads of the town on our own for a couple of hours before we had to catch our train back to Warsaw.

The streets were nearly empty. We wandered through the old market square where our ancestors would have shopped almost every day for generations. We saw the site of the school my grandfather attended. We saw the bullet holes which still remain in the façade of a building – marking the day that the Holocaust officially arrived in Konin. Two townspeople – one Pole and one Jew – were publicly shot side-by side to make an example and frighten the rest of town into submission. Finally, using the map in Theo’s book, we found his family’s house and took a photograph of it to send to him. The structure still remains, but today it houses a furniture store.

The sun was beginning to set as we continued to wander. In a place of no particular significance, the whirlwind of the days activity must have all finally caught up with my dad. He exclaimed, “I’m so happy I could kiss you!” Then he did.

“Thanks, Dad. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it,” I think I mumbled. Whatever grandiose words should have marked this occasion somehow evaded me in the moment. What do you say when you have reached the end of your quest?

My dad said it, with a giant smile and an arm around my shoulder: “Where are we going to visit next time!?”

The Hitchhiker's Guide to UK Citizenship

2009-12-21T10:03:00.004+00:00

Life in the UK is a brilliantly subjective concept which is also the official name of the "citizenship test" -- that much maligned Gordon Brown initiative (inspired, like so many bad ideas, by the US).

Before passing the test last week, I had the opportunity to cram for it over several days, with the aid of the official study guide published by the Home Office.

To those of you still mourning the death of Douglas Adams, and upset that there can be no more books in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, may I just suggest ordering yourself a copy of this as a perfectly suitable alternative.

To wit, a few cultural chestnuts:

Young people have different identities, interests and fashions to older people.
Many parents worry that their children misuse drugs and addictive substances.
Christmas is a special time for children. Very young children believe that an old man, Father Christmas (or Santa Claus), brings them presents during the night. He is always shown in pictures with a long white beard, dressed in red.
Most people get information about political issues from newspapers (often called the press), television and radio.
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish fact from opinion in newspaper coverage.
[Re: hairdressing and shoe repairs] To avoid problems it is a good idea to agree the price before the work starts.
The fire service can often help with fire safety and fire prevention. This includes giving advice about what to do if there is a fire.
To get information from the internet you need to know the address of a specific website (this usually begins with 'www').

Obama Abroad - Part Deux

2009-01-28T18:41:00.001+00:00

My uncle Dick (who, by some estimates, may himself be about 5% responsible for Obama’s victory) recently emailed me two articles [1] [2] about how it is once again cool to be American abroad. I cannot say that I’ve been getting a lot more party invitations than usual over the past few months, but yes, it’s true: there is something perceptibly different.

Just like that, America went from being the object of derision to being the object of envy. We didn't just undo a bad thing, we replaced the bad thing with an assertively, proactively, absurdly good thing. The high ground from which people used to legitimately be able to criticize America wasn't just leveled, it was surrendered. And now it's ours.

At first, I questioned: Is this perception that I have -- that people are actually acting differently toward Americans -- for real? Or is it just my own personal shift from embarrassment to pride, from self-loathing to self-promotion, that is making me see my world through a different lens?

But then came inauguration day, when I learned that yes, it is real.

On my morning commute to work on the Jubilee Line, it began. I had dusted of my Obama button for one final public viewing and wore it on my coat. Halfway down the packed train, a woman caught my attention with her animated mime routine of furious waving, smiling and pointing. This is unheard of on the Tube at 8:30 am. She pointed at my button, then pointed at her own.

I smiled back and gave her the thumbs up, then went back to my book.

Then more waving, more pointing. I looked puzzled. Now, she was pointing at her other button -- more Obama, opposite lappel.

How nice, I thought! That merited a double thumbs-up this time. Back to my book.

But wait, she wasn't finished. She continued, awkwardly re-positioning herself amid the sardine can of commuters -- this time to show me her tote-bag. An Obama tote-bag, of course.

With no more thumbs to use. I opted for the point/wink/nod gesture, the one that says "you're the man!" Despite being a woman, I think she understood. We never did get to high-five, but it was definitely implied.

Outdone by what I can only assume was a British person (we never spoke), I got off the train and went to work.

The swearing in was to start at 5:00pm our time, which meant I had to duck out of work early to go and watch it. I could have just watched it online at my desk, but much like game four of the 2004 World Series (and despite the fact that American hangouts are to be avoided like the plague), there are certain occasions when you just want to be with your people.

Alas, that didn't work out; it seems a few too many other people had the same idea. Robbyn and I had planned to meet up and go to a place called (wincing as I type this...) The Texas Embassy for an event sponsored by Democrats Abroad. However, at 4:45, there was a line out the door to get in. No way we were going to miss the speech by standing in line, so instead we went in to a nearby pub which was showing the ceremony on their TV.

In the pub, actual British people, arriving from their actual British jobs, crowded around a TV set to watch. They ordered their pints of British ale. They tutted Britishly when people blocked their view. They politely thanked the bartender for turning up the volume so they could hear every word. And when Obama finished his speech, even though one doesn't like to make a spectacle of one's self... they cheered. Actual applause from actual British people.

It was hard not to bask in the moment. I felt like I should stand in front of the room and say, "Thank you, thank you!"

No, on second thought I should have stood in front of the room and said, "you're welcome!"

Cuba: 50 years after the Revolution... Two weeks before Obama...

2009-01-26T23:55:00.009+00:00

All lighting fixtures in Cuba use energy efficient fluorescent bulbs. As a result, night-time throughout the island is cast in a dim yellow-green tint that gives every home and business an unnerving institutional glow.

Daytime is the opposite. In the light, Cuba is eye candy – bright Caribbean colors, retro typefaces, 400 years of and three continents worth of architecture. But it looks as though something cataclysmic happened in the year 1959, and today the survivors are merely living among the ruins. It is Blade Runner Goes to Disneyland.

Eyes squinting. Eyes bulging.... squinting... bulging...

Such an appropriate metaphor for the most complicated travel experience Robbyn and I have ever had. Growing up in 1970s and 80s America, Cuba was like your aunt with cancer – the thing that we dare not even speak about. If we pretended it just wasn’t there, then maybe the problem would go away. It is a raft journey away from the US, but it is forbidden to visit as a tourist. To Robbyn and me, that is the best marketing imaginable. Obviously, we had to go there.

So it was: our experience in this land of myth and mystery was simultaneously revealing and bewildering. Enlightening and befuddling.

Any explanation has to begin with poverty. People there are poor by our standards. This forms the backdrop of every experience you encounter as a visitor. Visible, crumbling-buildings poverty. But it is a complicated poverty. You find yourself observing things like "They are poor, but at least everyone has a home." Or "They are poor, but people seem very happy" (in the singing and dancing sense of happy). Or "They are poor, but everyone has free health care." Or "They are poor, but at least it is really cheap to go to a baseball game."

But then there is the other great theme that cannot be avoided: La Revolucíon. The Revolution. Not in the historical sense; not just that event that took place exactly 50 years before our visit, but the ongoing "Revolution." The word that Cubans use to describe their country, their society, their way of life. Did we get an accurate view of what Cubans really think about their political situation? Hard to say. Some people we met seemed obviously more patriotic than others. The language barrier prevented us from understanding people's nuanced opinions. Or more often, the suspicion of us as foreigners probably prevented people from opening up as much as we had hoped. On a few occasions, we made progress getting to talk to people, but then we would notice their habit of constantly looking over a shoulder to see who might be listening. Being critical of La Revolucíon has real consequences. Jobs, homes, educational opportunities can all evaporate if you are not on board with the program.

No, people are not free – at least not by any definition of freedom that you or I would be comfortable with, but there is much pride and propaganda about Cuba Libre – Free Cuba. And it’s not entirely ironic or hypocritical. They are free, in a sense, they have liberated themselves from the cultural and economic imperialism that that has conquered so much of the rest of the world. But is that enough freedom? Is it the wrong kind of freedom? There are limits to what people can read and discuss and believe. Almost all books are ones that extol the virtues of the glorious revolution. It is mind control, but at least it is overt mind control. Everyone knows the rules. Is it possible that this is somehow preferable to the more subtle (but arguably just as powerful) forms of mind control that we encounter in our lives? Is it possible that we simply tolerate different trade-offs, different hypocrisies? Is it possible that there is no such thing as a perfect economic system or form of government?

I am not writing a polemic. I really don’t know the answers.

This is not the type of realization (or perhaps confusion?) that a person normally sets out to experience on a sunny vacation. But this is a hint of what it was like to visit Cuba. Seemingly every mundane encounter seemed to have major moral and philosophical questions embedded within it. Trying to reserve a bus ticket two hours in advance of the bus departure (instead of one hour – not possible). Buying an ice cream cone that is 24 times more expensive than what the locals pay at the same shop because there are two separate currencies. Going to a baseball game and finding no food or souvenirs to buy anywhere (but finding an amazing fan-led drum section in the bleachers). Sitting at a white-sand beach right next to a modern all-tourist resort, knowing that not a penny spent there will go to the local economy. Being the only two visitors in (yet another) museum dedicated to the glorious revolution, which is staffed by eight employees. Having a travel agent explain to you that another travel agent probably didn’t tell us about the flight leaving tomorrow “because it is easier to lie to tourists then to sell them a ticket.” Meeting some of the warmest, most friendly people in the world, watching them literally dance in the streets, but wondering if they will ever know the meaning of true happiness. Or maybe they are watching me wondering the same.

These are some snapshots that I carry in my mind from Cuba.

And these are some snapshots that I have posted on flickr…

Obama Abroad

2008-10-21T23:22:00.005+00:00

Two Saturdays ago Robbyn and I were waiting to order our Fairtrade coffee at the Borough Market and saw a street canvasser holding a sign that said “Searching for Americans.” Damn, are we that predictable? The canvasser was from Democrats Abroad, and they were… get this… doing get-out-the-vote work here in London.

Well, why not? There are a quarter of a million Americans living in the UK – no small number – and surely a fair few of them are from swing states. It is significant enough that the DNC actually has a full-time staffer working here.

As it turns out, these people found me at precisely the right moment in the campaign. You see, although I am a 30-something, liberal, East Coast, passport-owning American, I am not ENTIRELY predictable. Specifically, I am not a Democrat.

If you are reading this blog then you are probably one of my close friends or family members and therefore you probably already know that for the past few presidential elections I have voted Green. You may have even briefly stopped talking to me because of it.

But the Obama UK folks found me about 12 hours after I finally got fed up enough with the Republican campaign tactics (Karl Rove, is there any chance you are reading this…) that I was inspired to CHANGE MY VOTE to Obama.

As a Massachusetts voter (in absentia), my Democratic vote is either entirely meaningless or entirely symbolic depending on where you fall on the cynicism/idealism spectrum because the Dems could nominate an actual donkey and still carry my home state. This is why I have always felt free to vote my conscience (which remains Green) in the past.

My reasons for choosing Obama this time around may be different than some other former Green voters who will also be falling back into line this year. Yes, the world is more screwed up than anyone could have ever predicted Bush would make it, and this certainly makes some people more willing to buy into the lesser-of-two-evils approach to voting. And yes, though Obama is basically another centrist Democrat he is somehow qualitatively more palatable to many people on the Left than Gore or Kerry ever were. These factors are not insignificant to me, but they are not what changed my thinking.

What changed my thinking is fear. Or more specifically, the politics and the language of fear. By now we are all so familiar with the eye-rollingly transparent Republican talking points that attempt to depict Obama as “The Other.” A terrorist sympathizer. A foreigner. A Communist. A person who just doesn't feel the same way about America that YOU AND I do.

The worst thing is that some people seem to be buying into it; we keep hearing about ugly scenes at campaign events, hearing it on the radio, and reading it on the internet. It’s getting nasty. But is it really so hard to understand those who lash out? Of course they are responding to the language of fear – they are afraid! Afraid for their jobs, and their houses, and their security – all of the things that have (ironically) been put in jeopardy by the policies of the past eight years. And now they have been given a platform and practically invited to act on those fears. These actions may be desperate and irrational, but they are there and they need to be stopped.

In my day job I try to teach young people to recognize the roots of intolerance and challenge them on a personal level. History teaches us that prejudice does not just magically appear in societies. It is planted and cultivated and nurtured. And it is accepted because it is subtle and people don't even realize they are accepting it.

I feel like this election has been turned into a referendum on fear and xenophobia. Are you willing to tolerate a campaign of whispers and suggestion against a man simply because he is outwardly different looking, or are you not? Rarely does the act of challenging prejudice come in such a tidy package. Normally it's an awkward conversation stopper. Normally you risk getting your ass kicked. In this instance, it is as simple as punching a chad. Thank you, Republicans, for making it so easy on me.

So, yes, I’ll say it: I suppose I am voting for Obama because he is black. Not in the affirmative-action sense, or in the “wouldn't it be nice to elect an ethnic president” sense (although it would be), but in the sense that I have become a single issue voter. I hate racism, and voting for Obama is precisely the thing that racists hope that I will not do.

And even though I would like to see the Green Party reach the 5% threshold needed to qualify for Federal matching funds, (which I have a much more direct impact on than I do on Obama’s election) this ultimately is not as important to me as sending a message to all of the people screaming racist insults at campaign events and posting them online. I want Obama not just to win, I want him to win big, so that no one can question his legitimacy and so that it is as clear as utterly possible to the racists that their views are on the fringe. That they lost, and that their ideas about what is “American” and what is not are not ones that are actually shared by… Americans.

Put simply, I am voting Obama to say, “f—k you” to racism.

When Obama wins, he is going to have a lot to answer for. Some of his policies suck, and I look forward to joining in criticizing him when it is needed. He seems like he’ll be more receptive to it than Bush was anyway.

Symbolism and sympathies aside, his election will have a positive impact on my quality of life as well. I’m not talking about taxes or the economy here. I am talking about being able to live and travel as an American abroad, and not be embarrassed about it. I don’t want to have to explain any more that I am American, but not THAT KIND of American, every time some one says to me in broken English “America… George Bush… very bad.” I actually think people might even begin, after a period of some serious image repair, to start thinking favorably about our country again.

I read in Time magazine that here in the UK, only 53% of people polled say they like America, compared to 83% in 2000. This brings me back to campaigning for Obama. We’ve been hitting the American hotspots ourselves lately with our Obama gear and absentee voting information. The Americans we’ve met have generally been tickled to see us out there. But more noteworthy has been the reactions of British people once they get over their initial confusion. It is so un-British! They smile. They give the thumbs up. They… don’t… pretend not to notice you. They SPEAK! “I hope your man wins,” they say.

Man, so do I.

Prepare to be Moldova

2008-03-26T13:47:00.003+00:00

I don't imagine there was dancing on the streets of Chisinau the day that the Lonely Planet added the words “AND MOLDOVA” to the title of its Romania guidebook. But there should have been. Short of becoming a new EasyJet destination, nothing serves to officially sanction a region as the new place to visit quite like a tip-off in the backpacker bible. Surely this is more important to the Moldovan economy than ascension to the EU.

Like most people who have done a bit of traveling to the typical city-break destinations, I am constantly on a quest to find that ever elusive city “that hasn't been ruined yet.” A few years back, the cliché was to describe a place as the New Prague. Today, you can forget Prague. You can forget all of the New Pragues for that matter. Tallinn, Riga, Krakow, Split, Budapest, Ljubljana - you name the contenders - they have all been claimed by the British stag party set. In the search for authenticity, you need to go further afield.

One simple line in the Lonely Planet, then, was all it took to convince me that I absolutely needed to travel to Moldova. “Visit Moldova now,” it read, “before it is too late.”

That settled it! One flight to Bucharest and an overnight train journey in a Communist-era sleeper car later, and there we were. Chisinau. The new frontier. A city that a few weeks ago, I had literally never heard of.

There is something charmingly unrefined about Moldova as a tourist destination. I don't say this patronizingly (for Moldova is Europe’s poorest country) or retro-ironically (even though, in an age of Cold War nostalgia, the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transdniestr is still bona fide Communist). I mean that, for example, there is no tourist information office anywhere in the country. There are not even travel agencies that deal with Moldova, except for the ones helping you to LEAVE the country. This lack of refinement has two sides. On the one hand, there is great satisfaction in not hearing English spoken in every shop and café; on the other hand you also have to gesticulate wildly to communicate and endure being stared at like a Martian when you enter most rooms. On the one hand, meals and lodging cost pennies; on the other hand, the food and rooms are straight out of the USSR circa 1980. (We stayed in flat charitably advertised as a “hostel” that in the US or UK would be too dodgy looking for many crack dealers.)

In a place like this, there is a definite “what the hell are you doing here?” vibe you get from many people. Not in an unwelcoming way – just in a genuinely baffled sort of way. Most of the foreigners there are Mormon missionaries, Peace Corps volunteers, and the like. It is crazy to think that the search for authenticity takes us to this level – that in order to have a non-touristy experience, even for a weekend, you need to go someplace that is still receiving substantial foreign aid. But I suppose that I am basically after the same thing that the Church of Latter Day Saints or the US State Department are after: the opportunity to lay claim to a place “before it is too late.”

Was Moldova an enjoyable place to spend a long weekend? Well, it wasn't exactly Venice, but that's not the point. As Robbyn points out, some places you go because they are famously beautiful or important. Some places you go just to see the world from a strange and different perspective.

These days it is not merely enough to experience the world. You need to experience the world first, before anyone else. One day I'll be talking about visiting Moldova in '08 the same way that I like to casually mention seeing REM at the Wang Center in '86.

I give it 10 months before EasyJet starts flying to Chisinau. You'll be able to find me grumbling about Moldova back when it was still worth visiting.

Imprecision '08: The Road to the Correction

2008-01-07T22:30:00.000+00:00

The American Presidential race sure is heating up... In Britain.

Between last week's Iowa Caucus and this week's New Hampshire primary, the election has been the top story on the news every morning. So prominent is the coverage that on Saturday, a British guest who was at our place for brunch was able to engage in a thoughtful conversation about Barack Obama's prospects and what a cultural shift this would represent for America. This particular brunch guest is 11 years old.

To any Americans reading this, it goes without saying that our electoral system is arcane and utterly confusing. But what must foreigners think? In this post-2000 age, when even the WINNER of the election doesn't actually win, then you can pretty much forget trying to explain the Iowa Caucus.

Understandably, the British press doesn't have the time to get into this level of detail, so what we end up with is just the most basic-level horse race style coverage. And it is completely misinformed. Over the past week, I have had to patiently explain to people that no, in fact, Obama didn’t really “win a big election in Iowa” and that the race for the White House is not actually “down to a woman versus a black man.”

But you can’t blame people for being interested. In these globalized times, the American presidential election arguably has as much impact on British people’s lives as their own political races do. It must be incredibly frustrating to them that they have to sit back and watch while other people are put in charge of making the decisions that affect the collective fate of Britons. (A frustration that long-time blog readers may remember being exemplified by this headline.)

So I will continue to politely explain whatever I can about the process when people ask -- because the concept of “civic duty” strangely takes on added weight when you have the eyes of disenfranchised foreigners watching.

But man, it’s going to be a long 11 months.

Museum is Maws Muse...More!

2007-08-16T16:24:00.000+00:00

As promised/threatened: there is a sequel to my earlier post about analyzing Auschwitz. I've been thinking more about how museums construct our history. So, this meta-narrative thing was very much on my mind when we spent a few hours at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol. To recap, what we're talking about here is not exactly what the museum actually teaches visitors, but rather how and why it teaches what it does. The story behind the story, if you will. I visit a lot of museums, and I deal heavily in the history and education business on a daily basis, so hopefully you can at least understand why I am being such a nerd about this...

At issue this time was another “challenging” part of history – the British Empire and slavery (the museum currently has a temporary display called “Breaking the Chains” to mark the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade).

The first thing to take note of is where the museum is located. Now Bristol may not exactly be Poland, and this museum site doesn't carry the significance of a former death camp, but as a city that was essentially built on profits from the slave trade -- perhaps the ugliest component of the story of the Empire -- it is as compelling a place as any to examine this part of history. This is an important starting point in a consideration of this museum's meta-narrative. The choice of location is neither obvious nor arbitrary for any museum or memorial site.

The question that I often pose to the students I lead around Poland applies here just as well: where does this story begin? Take the 'story' of slavery, for instance. It's hard to say, really. You might reasonably frame the story in the context of the slaves themselves, or possibly the plantation owners, or the policy makers who enabled slavery to exist. Or, as is the case with Bristol, we could frame the story in the context of slavery's profiteers, and use one of their major home bases as the backdrop to set it against.

So well done, you Bristolians, for being willing to embrace, or maybe I should say confront, the dark side of your history. It would have been much easier to point the finger elsewhere in telling the story of slavery (it also might not have brought in as much tourism, but I am trying to not be cynical here).

I was impressed with the museum for other reasons as well. The language in this one display (pictured) was fairly typical. It begins, “How much good the British Empire did depends on your point of view…” and goes on to say things like “there were many ethical problems with introducing western medicine and schooling to non-European people.”

I think this strikes just the right tone. Keep in mind that while any debate about the merits of slavery is pretty much over, this is not the case when it comes to the more general issue of the British Empire. This is still a complicated issue today, one that is fracturing contemporary British identity. Gordon Brown advocates that Britons should be proud of the positive legacy of the empire, which probably doesn't sit well with those who view the colonial relationship as one of exploitation and paternalism. I am no fan of the inherent racism of colonial ideals, but I sure do love living in a multicultural London. I should also point out that I visited Bristol with my friend Prash who was born in India. Presumably I have the Raj to thank for our friendship, in some weird indirect way.

So anyway, like I said, complicated issue... Well done.

In the special slavery exhibit, I was similarly impressed. First, by this quote that greets visitors upon entry. It reads, “They will remember that we were sold, but not that we were strong. They will remember that we were bought, but not that we were brave.” Again, nice. From the very outset of the exhibit, its curators are announcing that this story is not going to go along with the traditional narrative. That would be the one in which slaves are portrayed almost solely as helpless victims, whose liberation was only possible thanks to the altruistic actions of benevolent white people. What about slave rebellions and smaller daily acts of resistance? What about the freed slaves who relentlessly spoke out to win white converts to the abolitionist cause?

This more inclusive way of framing the story made it an effective exhibit, I thought. There were other things I liked as well, like the way that they continued the “story” beyond the conventional “ending” -- the one that tells us that the slaves were freed, then lived happily ever after. The exhibit rightly highlighted that the end of the slave trade was not actually the end of slavery, and that the end of slavery was not actually the end of oppression, discrimination and disadvantage. They made connections to musicians like Bob Marley, and to contemporary campaigns against forced labor and other modern forms of slavery. This active attempt to “connect” with a contemporary audience was important for me to see, because it is exactly what Auschwitz does not do (which is sort of OK, because it enables me to have a job making those connections). And it demonstrated that museums can be both objective and activist at the same time. They can teach about controversial parts of history in ways that are educationally sound and don’t clobber you over the head with their bias, but that still inspire you to “do something” in your own life with the lessons you might have learned (hopefully) from history.

In short: Good museum. You should go.

The Balloons were nice too.

Postmodern Meta-Narratives at Auschwitz-Birkenau (or "History is Messy")

2007-07-30T11:31:00.000+00:00

“History” – Margaret Thatcher once famously oversimplified – “is an account of what happened in the past.”

Though I am neither an historian nor a prime minister, I would beg to differ: when it comes to history, there is what happened… and then there is what happened.

Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau highlights this divide all too clearly. What happened there? On one level, this is not the source of very much debate (Holocaust denial does not find much traction at former death camps): more than one million people were murdered. Full stop. End of story. On another level, however, the “story” - or at least the telling of the story - is still being contested. At issue is not whether the Holocaust actually happened, but rather who gets to write the history of it, who owns its legacy.

Thus, as Auschwitz-Birkenau marks its 60th anniversary as a museum this year, it finds itself at the centre of international debate. In recent months, the museum has made headlines over its dispute with Russia over how many victims of the Holocaust ‘belonged’ to the Soviet Union as well as its official name change from "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to the slightly less catchy "Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945).”

Awkward as it seems to over-intellectualize the world's most horrific location, it seems the study of the Holocaust has entered the realm of postmodernism. As a society, we cannot agree on a definitive 'account of what happened' because we are presented with competing narratives. Our understanding of the story depends on who's telling it. At present-day Auschwitz, much of the museum is devoted to state-sponsored national pavilions. With the different 'victim' countries given the opportunity to place the camp into their own context, this gets confusing.

To wit, I present you with pieces of text from two separate pavilions I visited last week. The first appeared at the entrance to the Austrian block. It reads:

The Austrian Memorial in the former death camp in Auschwitz was officially opened in March 1978, 40 years after Austria’s Anschluss to the National Socialist German Reich. Its depiction of the years 1938 to 1945 reflects a viewpoint which today is considered too one-sided, and which shows Austria to be simply the “first victim” of the violent expansionist policy of the Nazi regime of terror, whilst not acknowledging the involvement of many Austrians in National Socialist crimes, in particular the Holocaust.

Such a view of history no longer reflects the way present-day Austria understands its past: the recognition of a shared moral responsibility for the involvement of many Austrians in the crimes of National Socialism has led to a much more balanced view of historical events. Such an attitude is also evident in the increased efforts of the Republic of Austria over the last ten years to re-examine the darker episodes in its history.

In tandem of this changed view of its National Socialist past a new approach to commemorating bygone events has emerged in Austria, the central focus of which is to remember the victims of the Nazi regime, especially the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazism.

This changed perspective of how the country views the years of National Socialism will now find similar expression in a new design concept for the Austrian Memorial, which is now being developed.

Bold move, Austria! They may as well have posted a sign saying: “Warning: please do not believe the Austrian propaganda you are about to see.” Austria, it seems, at least recognizes that historical narratives are not monolithic – they are open to debate and discussion. Moreover, it is willing to admit that it may have been too one-sided the past.

In contrast, consider this bit of text from the Polish pavilion:

Except for a few depraved individuals, no official political or social elements nor the Polish people let themselves be drawn into collaboration with the Nazi occupier.

Really? NO Polish people? In fairness, this too is from a visibly outdated exhibit. This is a communist-era hard line that is not shared by most of the Poles I have met today. Still, it is a bit troubling. Half of the visitors to Auschwitz-Birkenau today are Poles – many of them (disturbingly) are young schoolchildren – who invariably will visit this pavilion. Like schoolchildren anywhere in the world, they will learn a version of history that is informed – perhaps even biased – by their national perspective. But in this case, it is troubling to see a site like Auschwitz – a site which raises so many complicated questions – being used as a forum for offering simple answers.

Attempts like this to categorize the good and the bad into distinct compartments surely don’t work in understanding history today. History is just too messy – and that, to me, is why it is interesting. Victims, perpetrators and bystanders cannot be objectively assigned or rationally quantified. This is okay. After all, isn’t modernist black-and-white thinking what leads to the extreme positions like those that created Auschwitz in the first place?

We should be comfortable with going to a site like Auschwitz-Birkenau – or any museum – and not getting all of the answers handed to us. I’ve visited Auschwitz nine times so far, and this is why am able to keep going back.