Poland Road Ways Two on the Loose TRAVEL HUMANITIES PHOTOS

Krakow. Poland's poets - Meet Wislawa Szymborska, Adam Zagajewski - Zbigniew Herbert: Poetry

2012-02-02T14:35:00.000-05:00

Update 2012. The poet with an ear and an eye to experiences of other living beings -- Wislawa Szymborska -- has died, see http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/books/wislawa-szymborska-nobel-winning-polish-poet-dies-at-88.html?scp=1&sq=wislawa&st=cse. Two of her poems are reproduced there, her obituary, to be savored, read slowly with lips moving and no sound. She had won the Nobel Prize in 1996 but translation of her work was difficult because she tended to invent words, or engage in a playfulness that is often language-specific. Her observations of self as poet: the writing of some lines, the crossing out, the sitting in silence for an hour, "who could stand to watch such a thing."
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Too often, translations crush poems. Here, apparently not. I do not know Polish to compare these particular translations personally with the originals, but these in Poetry Magazine read beautifully and apparently are quality. Applause for Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak, who make me want to go read more of these poets who were unknown to me before. If only copyright let me just cut and paste here to give you a taste -- is it safe to do that these days?
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Polish poets:
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1. In Poetry Magazine
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1.1 Wislawa Szmborska's "Consolation," 4/06, Vol CLXXXVIII, No. 1, at page 47), translation by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak; and Clare Cavanagh's "Translator's Note," at page 49-50. Find the poem at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/177886
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1.2 Adak Zagajewski. From birthplace in Lvov, then Berlin, see further bio at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/adam-zagajewski.

"Submerged City," 6/06, Vol. CLXXXVIII, No. 3 at page 236; http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/188/3#20607462 ; and
"Evening, Stary Sacz," at page 237; both translations by Clare Cavanagh; poem at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/188/3#20607461

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2. In The New Yorker magazine
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2.1 Adam Zagajewski's "In a Little Apartment," The New Yorker, 4/2/07 at page 44, translated by Clare Cavanagh; and "Anton Bruckner," at page 46, translation by Renata Gorczynski and Benjamin Ivry. http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/04/02/070402po_poem_zagajewski

Warsaw: Marie Curie

2012-01-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

Polish Marie Curie and Polish National Identity Ideas

A. A brief biography.

November 1867: Manya Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, the later Marie Curie. It was a time of Russian occupation, with educational resources denied in the interest of Russian domination. Her mother died when Marie was 10. She was brilliant at mathematics as well as literature, and studied physics and natural history at a secret school, see http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Madame-Curies-Passion.html.

There appears to be no limit to her resourcefulness, serving as a governess when there was no money to send her to university, then saving enough by age 24 to take herself to the Sorbonne, and a degree in physics in 1893. She married Pierre Curie in 1895, a daughter born in 1897, and a plain, no-frills life. Scorned for pursuing her work, while other relatives cared for the then two children, and from there to her excellence in research. She and Pierre successfully collaborated until his death in in 1906 - he walked into traffic!

The Smithsonian account is not to be missed. Lost in it all, however, is Marie Curie's Polish roots.

B. Polish National Identity:

Scroll down to the sections on Polish tradition at The Roots of Polish National Identity, http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/roots.html

1. 1700-1750 -- The Sarmatian Tradition, the name referring to an ancient Hellenic tribe, warriors. This was apparently an illusory mythology, and not related to "democracy" but rather to a circumscribed role for a king, and power in nobles to elect the king, and act in political matters. And the veto: one member could block anything. See the buffalo.edu site.

2. 1750-1830 or so. The Enlightenment Tradition - Reason, rationality, and each group, from nobles to burghers to peasants, should have rights.

1795 - Poland is dismembered. Polish legions form in Italy and fight with Napoleon in hopes of that leading to the independence of Poland. Hear the national anthem, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQTq07gihqg. A state may be divided but it can be forced, forged, back into a unified existence.

3. 1830 - ___. The Romantic Tradition. Poles had participated in huge numbers in Napoleon's wars, and followed an era of great poetry and nationalism, striving for independence -- that also probably benefited other independence efforts in Europe.

A democratic concept, deep in the consciousness it appears, not as the Greeks formed it, but as the Poles did, is and was a sustaining force.

Marie Curie: challenges to her independent thought, she overcame, she did what was needed. A true Pole.

Northern Crusades. Poland and the Baltic Crusades. Christianity continues amok.

2012-01-31T09:29:00.000-05:00

Poland: In the Way of the Northern Crusades

Malbork, Teutonic Knights, Other
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Christian against Christian. Rome's drive for supremacism, in a religion that was, by its Founder, one of love, tolerance, inclusion.

The time frame for this Christian against Christian warfare is some 400 years from the 1100's to the 1500's in Poland, Slavic areas, northern Germany, with with news of the onslaught traveling fast to Scandinavia. The northern opposition to Rome reflected the opposition to "Christianization" as it was being forced in northern Europe. Many were already Christian in the Orthodox, the Byzantine tradition, spread by benign missionaries. Other traditions of also-benign Roman missionaries and monks were being usurped by the militants.
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There had long been conversions in many of those areas already by Slavic and Orthodox missionaries, particularly Saints Cyril and Methodius, see http://historyofmacedonia.wordpress.com/2007/02/12/sources-on-st-cyril-and-methodius-greek-ethnicity . But that was not good enough to be considered "Christian."
Warfare ensued to kill nonbelievers and then also those who had been converted by the Orthodox, and not the Roman, in northern and eastern Europe.
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What was the context:

774 ff. Charlemagne, and the Pope's Armies, continued forced Christianization, and in 774 attacked the Saxons, resulting in 782 in a slaughter of 4600 Saxon prisoners at Sachsenhain. This site is wrong in citing the chieftain Widukind's attacks: This was Widukind's territory, and the Franks and Charlemagne the invaders. See the skew at http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/churchhistory220/lecturetwo/timelinecharlemagne.htm Vet the site. No wonder it is wrong. It is propaganda: The cua.edu is the Catholic University of America. Skip that agenda.
The massacre is remembered, see Sachsenhain, Saxon's Grove, Verden, Germany
1054. The Great Schism, the division of Rome from the rest of the Christian Church, the Orthodox was in 1054. The Eastern church continued in a peaceful way. Not the Roman version. Is that so? See http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-great-schism.htm.
1095. The Pope authorized the First Crusade to Palestine in 1095. See http://crusades.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=54. That site gives also the Arab view. Why the Crusades? There had been centuries of fighting Islam incursions in Spain and France, but had been pushed back.
The Pope, now on his own, needed a new rallying point, a justification for this new branch, money, and converts, fast. Go to war. Simply the presence of unchurched peoples, particularly if unchurched by "this" branch of the church, justified the crusading movement.
11th-15th Centuries: http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/crusades.htm; see also http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars12011400/p/Northern-Crusades-Battle-Of-The-Ice.htm. Read there about Papal forces, Teutonic Knights, etc., invasion of Russia.

These were not faith-filled missions. They were conquests, commercial, far more than caring for souls. See again http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/crusades.htm. These invasions and battles also offered employment to returning crusaders from the Holy Land's failures. Teutonic Knights, and other offshoots of Templars, see them at http://www.timeref.com/libitem111.htm

Auschwitz - Birkenau. Shoah - Holocaust Preservation Funds Misdirection?

2010-12-19T10:38:00.001-05:00

Germany is about to give $80,500,000 to the preservation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp at Osweicim, Poland. Why there, of all the places more in need of publicity and facilities, see Holocaust Experience, Camps
See New York Times December 16, 2010 at A8. The German foreign minister, Guido Westerville, says, according to the article, that this contribution "bears witness to its historical responsibility to commemorate the Holocaust and to convey this to future generations."

That appears to be misdirected.

Auschwitz is already preserved, with access for buses, a tourist information center, grounds that are over-manicured and small museums in the barracks.

Send the money instead to Mauthausen, Austria, to put its fine and nearly intact (compared to other concentration camps that were destroyed, and had to be rebuilt, if at all) more on the map. Publicize it. It has visuals that will stop you in your tracks, including the deep quarry and its long stone staircase down, and cliff on top for the merry pushing over of the most luckless ones.

Or send the money instead to Bergen-Belsen in Germany itself: where Anne Frank died, among so many others. There in Germany itself is perhaps the most hidden of the concentration camps we have seen so far. There, there is nothing but a big park with flat mounds to show where 5,000 people each, or 3,500, or 10,000 are buried in mass piles. There is a documentation center there, but the merry children running around the park while the parents may go more slowly and read inscriptions, will grow up with no idea at all.

Shoah or Holocaust: See ://www.shoaheducation.com/definitions.html/; especially at ://www.shoaheducation.com/aaaa.html Shoah: a slaughter derivation

Holocaust: a sacrifice derivation

Warsaw Ghetto - Irena Sendler: Nearly Nobel Peace Prize Winner

2010-07-24T13:47:00.001-04:00

Keeping a name alive. This name, Irena Sendler, will not be new to many, but is worth putting in print wherever we have access, and can salute. We highlighted her in May 2008. Others apparently have her in mind as well, because we received a viral email about her. See that earlier post at Warsaw and Irene Sendler.

She worked by permission of the Nazi authorities in the Warsaw ghetto as a plumber-sewer specialist. From there, from the inside, she smuggled babies and small children and even larger children (lots of burlap sacks) out. She followed through with obtaining paperwork and placement for as many as she could, see ://www.irenasendler.org/team.asp/

We received this viral email about her -- since it has no authorship, we just put it in indenting. Irena Sendler --

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive' .... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids..) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Two thousand five hundred children saved. Do an Images search for her.

She was considered for a Nobel Peace Prize, but it went elsewhere, a noble cause also but very different, less personal, to Al Gore for Global Warning. That is fine, we suppose, but if we had been judging, surely there is a place for Irena. What other category perhaps? Posthumous?

President Lech Kaczynski, St. Mary's, Krakow

2010-04-19T04:05:00.000-04:00

The historic cathedral of St. Mary's in Krakow, is now the resting place of the deceased President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria.

St. Mary's Cathedral, Krakow, Poland

Polish Cathedrals are largely brick, because that is the material available locally. Once past the High Tatras in the south, bordering Slovakia, for example, the land becomes flat, agricultural, forested, or a lake area. No soaring mountains for rock or hiding. Large foundation rock for castles with softer materials below ground, or wet, like Malbork, were brought by barge from places like Sweden.

Marek Edelman, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Commander, Memorial and Theory

2009-10-03T13:39:00.003-04:00

Jewish Ghetto Heroism and Survival:

A View of One There

Protest is the Easier Route: Marek Edelman

The war memorials in Warsaw are graphic, realistic, scene-focused, as though a sculptural snapshot were capturing the event. Here, there are two settings: One, here, German soldiers searching, approaching, on the alert. In the setting to the other side, a little nearer, people on the street at the sewer openings, helping each other down, a woman with a child, an elderly person, families, trying to disappear into the labyrinth beneath. What is missing from the memorials is the lines of people going to the trains, being herded, many staying in line, some other struggling.

Marek Edelman was one of the Jewish commanders, of the Jews in the Ghetto at the time of their Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943-44, against the Germans. He was 24 at the time.

Dr. Edelman had this perspective, among others, as to survivors - are those who did not fight back, to be criticized; and only those who actively fought back, to be praised.

He believed that it is more difficult to go quietly to one's death, than it is to die shooting. The active fighter is not more heroic than those who submit. See Obituaries, New York Times, October 3, 20009 at A19, ://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/world/europe/03edelman.html/

Memorial, Warsaw Uprising, WWII, Warsaw, Poland

He survived to practice cardiology, live in Lodz, join the Solidarity free labor movement as a health care consultant, and the subject of the book, "To Finish Before God," written in 1976 by Hanna Krall, telling her his story.

Other survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto mass murders and their circumstances have been documented, see ://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/cgi-bin/data.show.pl?di=record&da=encyclopedia&sf=entry_name&sv=Warsaw%20Ghetto%20Uprising/; and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005069/. Their stories are in books, documents, film. See ://www.life.com/image/72197612/ Some criticize the acceptance of the victims as they were sent to their deaths. Why no forceful acts against the Germans, except for the few who did rebel. The answer is not easy to find. When there is no choice, what is heroism.

Poland's Black Madonna and the American South. Spread of Cultural Heritage. Colonial America and Forward

2008-11-25T20:55:00.008-05:00

Cultural Vestiges -

Immigrants and Slaves, Contacts and Ideas

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Who emigrates. 1) People under pressure, or 2) People just adventurous, or 3) People with few other optionns; or 4) People forced to.

What do they take with them, if they can. What do they take in mind, heart or hand, that ends up in the household of their next family, or down the road, the next intermarried family. What loss of tradition is there, when the story connected to an object is lost. The question arises in the context specifically of the book, "The Secret Life of Bees," by Susan Monk Kidd, now a film.

Jasna Gora, Monastery, exterior, Black Madonna, Czestochowa, CZ

There, a cultural vestige of Poland, a picture of the Black Madonna at Jasna Gora, appears as central to a Black family, descended from slaves. How did it get there? We speculated that there could be connections with Polish Roma other either enslaved or immigrant groups in the South. There is also a Sara-La-Kali role figure. See FN 1. See The Fodder Site, Mixed Origins, Clues to Religions, Cultures.

Here we look at other Polish connections that could have brought knowledge of the Czestochowa Black Madonna, at Jasna Gora, to American Blacks and others. Inconclusive. Surely others knew of the Black Madonna, if that one book family did. How widespread at our colonial times was that iconic painting of the Black Madonna?

1. Polish settlers have been here from earliest colonial times.

This "Info Poland" site says that Poles came to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, as skilled workers in glass and in "pitch and potash burners," brought by the London Company, see http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art39fr.htm/. A second large group came at the time of the American Revolution, and more between 1800 and 1860.

Prominent Poles in our Revolution: Pulaski, and Kosciusko.

2. Poland has Gypsies, and Gypsies began immigrating to America early on. Were some Polish immigrants also gypsy?

That site does not mention Polish Roma as immigrants, but this one, "Roma People" at Crystalinks, at ://www.crystalinks.com/romapeople.html/ mentions that the largest group of Gypsies in Germany are Polish Roma, in connection with the spread of Roma churches; so we know of broad ranging Roma populations in Northern Europe, who could have come here.

Crystalinks, "Roma People, Gypsies", at ://www.crystalinks.com/romapeople.html/ affirms Roma immigration to the United States in colonial times, especially in Virginia and Louisiana.

Some groups are like Roma in lifestyle, but not of Indo-Iranian heritage.

They could have blended in more easily.

There are other groups in Northern Europe with similar lifestyles as Roma, but are not Indo-Iranian, but are "white Gypsies" according to this site, "Roma Peoples" at://www.mlahanas.de/Greece/History/RomaPeople.html/.

These are known in Germany as the Jenische, or Yeniche (France), or Jeniche; in Norway and Sweden as the Tatere or Tater (perhaps deriving from Tatars, or Tartars?); and Travellers, in Ireland (see "What is an Irish Traveler" at ://www.slate.com/?id=2071456 - they believe the derivation to be from pre-Celtic minstrels, displaced, and refer to them as "white gypsies"); and Travelers with various names also are in the United Kingdom and America; as quinqui or mercheros in Spain. See also Gypsies, Roma, Romani.

For an 1889 account, see the "Full Text of the 'Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society.' " in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at ://www.archive.org/stream/journalofgypsylo01gypsuoft/journalofgypsylo01gypsuoft_djvu.txt/. Scroll down to the Polish gypsy stories. Do a search for pol and get the Poland and Polish references. Stories, language matters.

3. We find no direct evidence that Polish Roma were enslaved in Poland, as the Roma had been in Romania, England, Scotland, Spain, other areas. So a theory of American slave groups including Polish gypsy slaves may not hold.

4. Do Poles include as gypsies these "white gypsy" groups. Did these, rather than the Indo-Iranian branch end up within the broad cultural mix of peoples from immigration, or hired on ships from earliest colonial times, and live now in the South and Appalachia in particular. There is a group there, descended from many ethnic groups, including, some say, Roma.

These are the American Melungeons. Need to find out if they have Catholic backgrounds? What kinds of icons might they have?

5. One Black Madonna, at least, ended up in a rural town in South Carolina

Or was it North Carolina?. Still, why did Hollywood change the icon in the film to kitsch, from that great art on the book's cover. Why offer the film's paltry modern swoopy figure, instead of Art, is beyond us, unless it is to deny the ancient tradition.
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FN 1 See Gypsies, Roma, Romani: Melungeons, Parse for American Gypsies. There may also be another connection with a cultural religious role figure, this time, Gypsy - and the Roma Sara-La-Kali, see The Fodder Site, Mixed Origins, Clues to Religions, Cultures.

The Sara-La-Kali connection: patron saint of the Roma, perhaps shown in the painting at Gdansk Cathedral, an affinity for a female intermediary, worship of one for aid and succor and protection and endurance, is possible - an easy move from that by proximity, and intermarriage, even if not common enslavement, to the slave world Black African female goddess figures? See both at the Cathedral at Gdansk. If you have more information, or can correct our understandings, we invite you.

As we look at that Black Madonna, where else did it go. See Switzerland Road Ways, Gran San Bernardo Pass and find it at the monastery at the summit of that ancient pass. Did it come that way to Poland eventually. We are trying to find that story.

The Lie in Photography - Selective Representation. What does cropping do?

2008-11-24T07:52:00.010-05:00

Photography and the Intentional Omission.
Cropping to Suit the Purpose

The Travel Photo Tells the Story
The Photographer Wants to Tell

Look at the lovely travel photos all over the internet. Cropped, changed, angled.

Does everyone do it - crop out the clothesline from the ancient magic well photo. The lie of cropping. Pretending the past is present. That technology is not everywhere. That people everywhere wear comfortable, not necessarily traditional clothes. Still, do we aim for only photograph national dress. This time, we did not aim for national dress. National dress sets people apart from each other, makes one group - the curiosity one - an object, not really a fellow human.

So: Here is an actual ordinary group of pilgrims at Czestochowa, the famous Jasna Gora Monastery where the Black Madonna can be seen in the sanctuary. They are not on their knees, not in babushkas (we barely saw any babushkas, just on a few elderly women), and laughing enjoying each other, and in jeans.

Like us. No national dress, nothing other than people. That also is the message here.

Polish tourists, Czestochowa, Poland, at Jasna Gora Monastery.

I could have waited for more picturesque, stereotyped national dress-wearing people, or all in babushkas, to unroll from a bus.

But this is the reality we saw all over - a modern, regular Poland. We saw little "national dress" anywhere - just in ceremony or celebrations.

See the photos on Images for Poland. Read the blurbs. Imagine yourself there. How much is a sham. a sales product to sell you on something. The photographer - including me - crops some things out, focuses on others. Of course. We have a story we want to tell. A reality photo would be this instead: point and click with a wide lens. No changes. Are our photos representations to illustrate a point, using selective content, approach, message. Suspect.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote,

"To write or to speak is almost inevitably to lie a little. It is an attempt to clothe an intangible in tangible form; to compress an immeasurable into a mold. And in the act of compression, how Truth is mangled and torn."

See www.news24.com/News24/On_this_day/On_this_day/0,,2-1602-1492_2121379,00

That thought applies also to photography, painting, or copying. All art is to lie, a little, a lot. So, consider photos as art, expression, and not your reality necessarily. Someone has tinkered.

1. Current application:

Even our photos - these are in themselves sometimes little lies if we screen out the phone wires; or choose the one individual in traditional dress, from the hundreds of blue jeans. And tout the one showing what we want to illustrate, and crop out the reality otherwise. All for the picture. We appreciate the problem, and try to crop only to leave out wires, or someone's behind. Aesthetic. But also selective.

2. Is an unretouched reality "better" than carving out particulars for a planned illustration.

It depends on the purpose of the illustration. Look at the unplanned illustration her, the ladies above. One fine part of this tourist group - see back row, second from right,is someone in a bright jacket. There, on the lady's head, is that splendid shade of henna - impossible, really -but gloriously red, sometimes even orange, hair, that is indeed common in Poland for ladies of a certain age. Even here at home, for our Polish neighbors whose grandmother has come to live with them.

And it should be.

The hair color we saw so much was jarring at first - see it everywhere on the heads of ladies of a certain age - but then it became familiar. It does make the viewer - and probably the wearer - feel more cheerful. I began to see it as wonderfully impudent, fun, I-like-me-like-this, not attempting to fake natural color in order to deny the getting older process. Instead it is a look-at-me delight, perking up a whole face. Why have gray on top when you can have RED and FUSCHIA.

Indeed.

Like our ladies in the red hat societies, but not wearing hats. Good for them. Rick Steves in one of his guidebooks put me on to the henna. I believe he said that it had to do with what dyes were or were not available during past decades. So I noticed - second from right here, back row, but the color is not caught on camera at all. Trust me. Bright henna, even fuschia, is indeed splendid.

Musicians, Polish banquet, Jasna Gora, Poland (hotel).

And here is some nod to costume - the band at an event at the hotel. A large bus arrived with tourists to see the Black Madonna. Going to Jasna Gora is a fun thing.

America the New Poland. Poland as Mirror and Teacher. Abuse by Lobby and Veto.

2008-07-19T18:33:00.012-04:00

How Can America Be Like Poland
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Ask Those Who Tell the Ethnic Jokes;
And Sniff and Turn Away

Poland is an unlikely teacher, many would think. Yet, look at our current events. Is Poland instead a mirror. Look at what is happening, that Poles know are devastating:

One. Accessibility of the US to outside invasion, with technology and economic-financial tools, even if not ships or ground armies of soldiers or paratroopers, that Poland knew.
Two. Abuse of the population by giving in, by a government compromising with an eye to the benefit of those in power, rather than the survival of the citizenry. Is that a fair assessment? Maybe not. Hard to say. Could any nation have done more than the Poles on their flat land without fortresses, than the Poles did and died for. Perhaps not. Geography as destiny?

Poland, sheep herding

How is that applicable to the United States, an ocean away.

1. Barriers and Non-Barriers.

Look at how Poland was affected by its particular geographic accessibility - there its geography, flat, resource and agriculture-rich, clocks, shepherds, rivers, flatflatflat, easy to invade. No place to hide.

The Polish vast plains merge with the Russian steppes. Some hills, but hardly "mountains" that we saw.

America's coasts. We have geographic barriers, but invasions of countries these days take place economically, and otherwise financially. That is us.

2. Those in Power First.

See how Poland was abused by its own government. It evolved so that the powerful, most-resourced families, accepted the financial rewards of doing as outsiders wanted - foreign interests, like lobbyists from surrounding countries. So, in the parliament known as the Sejm, the nobles were representing really their own patrons - whether German, Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian even. And benefiting all along, to the detriment of a developing sense of nation. They were owned.

Is that us. That is us. How are our lobbyists different: citizens here, yes, but interested not in the country but in the profits of their sponsors. Who really control decisionmakers. Who has inside tracks. We can't even get names. Just like Poland.

3. Poland's history - the insurmountable veto.

Look at the devastating effect of the veto as it evolved in Poland, so that any individual in that governing house, throughout its history, seeking self-interest over the group, could stop any collective improvement action by a mere and arbitrary "no." Look at old Poland. We do have a difference here - when it comes to action, it takes 60% to overcome a presidential veto. But we still have the veto. Ok so far.

The issue will be if one voice in a Senate, depriving the whole of a passing vote, should be enough. We need a process to go around if that is what it comes to. A graduated voting system so there is not a stalemate. How can any one voice, whether vice-presidential, presidential, or industry at the megaphone, bar consideration of a common good, not private profit. Just like Poland.

To avoid: The power of a ruling group by a single vote to block adoption of measures. Try a graduated voting system. First, second, third efforts, with the first at the 60%, the second at 57% to block, and the third at 55% to block.

Poland is interesting.

5. Recognize the heritage of our immigrants whose country flowered centuries before ours. In the 16th Century, we were not. They were blooming.

It does not take deep, elitist research to learn. Go to the library and get out a simple book: "The Polish Americans," in the Junior High section, part of a series on the Peoples of North America, with a preface by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

6. Open up. Is a new approach to be feared, or watched, and waited for. We have not suffered on our own soil from invaders. They have. Resistance to oppressors, there - communism: Labor unions and Lech Walesa at the Gdansk Shipyard.

Gdansk Shipyard, PL, Labor Union Revolt Memorial,

Gifted cultural leaders: Jan Paderewski, 1918 or so. Get fine arts back in the schools, seriously.

Jewish-American vets, World War I, protesting treatment of Polish Jews. That is WWI. Teach about the Holocaust.

German troops invade Poland, WWII, and nobody elsewhere does anything.

Westerplatte, Gdansk, PL, Tank Memorial, Russian invasion WWII

In 1775, Poland as a mere "plumcake" to be divided by the surrounding European, Russian and Eastern European powers.

The 16th Century - Poland's Golden Era.

Poland's Parliament, the "Sejm" - spellings vary - gave huge powers to individual noblemen, and interests, to the detriment of the whole.

How else was Poland victimized?

5. Respect Poland's history:

The Church turned militant, for its own commercial interest (amber, resources, land).

See the Teutonic Knights, especially Conrad von Thuringen, grand master of the Teutonic Knights, 13th Century we believe, monks turned soldier, and persuading for economic benefit under the guise of religion.

No doubt religious dogma also accompanied the force, but it was force nonetheless. Poland had long been Christian - converted centuries before Roman Catholicism broke from the larger Christian Church - nonetheless, kill those who did not convert the extra step. Wonderful. Here is Malbork Castle, and the Grand Masters.

Malbork Castle, Poland, Grand Masters, Teutonic Knights

Rightful Positive Status. Poles assisted us.

Look at our Revolutionary War, and the European Generals assisting, including Polish Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

Others:

Edmund Muskie, filmmakers, writers -

Isaac Bashevis Singer - and political advisor and writer,

Zbigniew Brzeznski, baseball's

Carl Yastremski, who are we to talk light bulbs?

Can we, any more than could the ordinary Poles of the past, uproot the special interests, the ring of grabbers. Look closely at Poland, divided, taken, and even dissolved for a time. No independent borders at all.

Up to us. We the Sheeple. Good image. If nobody speaks up for the country, we lose it. Poland the role model, the example, our mirror?

Exhausting. Pass the pierogies, and there is nothing like a warm, fresh plate of buttery Polish pierogies on a raw waterfront late afternoon, with a good Polish brew, at Gdansk, prior to a nice nap before going out for a supper somewhere.

Visit Poland. It is us.

Children of the Holocaust - Diarist Rutka Laskier, 'The Polish Anne Frank"

2008-06-11T21:49:00.008-04:00

World War II Diarists
Rutka's Notebook

"Holocaust Diary of a Fourteen Year Old," see Rutka Laskier's diary entries reviewed at ://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277875,00.html/ See another review of Rutka's Notebook, A Voice from the Holocaust, copyright 2008 reserved to Yad Vashem et al., at ://www.jewishmag.com/119mag/rutka/rutka.htm

1. Rutka Laskier - Hers is another valiant name to add to the list of those children who memorialized their experiences in WWII in diaries. See ://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/06/05/2007-06-05_moving_diary_of_polish_anne_frank_unveil.html
The diary had been known, but is now just released. The author or compiler of this work, "Rutka's Notebook," is Aron Heller. Not sure which role best describes.

2. Background. Rutka was the same age as Anne Frank. Rutka lived in a middle sized town, Bedzin, Poland, northwest of Krakow, not far from Auschwitz. Most of the Jewish population of Bedzin had lived there since the middle ages. Jews comprised about half the total population. She wrote in her diary beginning in 1943. The Germans had conquered Poland in 1940.

Auschwitz PL, fence with rose memorial

Deportations to labor and death camps had begun. As in other towns, a preliminary step was to move the Jews to another section of the town, or its outskirts. Rutka agreed with a friend, Stanislawa Sapinska, that Rutka would hide the book under the apartment's stairs where Stanislawa could find it, as Stanislawa did, after the war. Stanislawa kept the book for 60 years, only then revealing its existence.

3. Adults only. Our regret is the editorial choices of layout and color - the book is not appealing visually or as laid out for children to read. It already looks old, dated. This edition is well done, but for grown-ups. It cries out for a companion version that would be true to the original in content, but one that a child could not pass by without opening, and once open, reading.

4. Need a companion volume for children, young teens. The photographs, the layout: all are the dingy tan-sepias that an adult appreciates as conveying age and reverence. There are similarly toned photographs from the period that show pre-war Poland, Bedzin, and the families, as well as others, but will a child want to stay with it. Still, particularly memorable are the children of Auschwitz photographs, the town, the "JUDE" patch.

5. Meet Rutka: Here she is at 14. Like any bright, deeply feeling, attractive young person, "regular" family, like your neighbor, but more perceptive than most. She loved reading, interest in faith, witness her increasing fear of Germans, exuberance and mood changes with normal life, becoming more intense with maturing, boys, then despair with the "selections" taking place, people herded, separated, families divided as to destination - work, death, unknown, or even home again to await another selection.

Auschwitz, barracks, guard tower

Beatings, shootings, a baby bashed in as she watched, an escape and run back home, and her family also there, labor camps for adults 16-50, more people moving into their apartment so her family has just one room, grayness, steady stream of fear on faces, more people pushed into the ghetto, food rations reducing, then the human boredom of nothing to do on a particular day in her room, then, last entry April 24, and Rutka subsequently gassed and burned at Birkenau, a section of the larger complex at Auschwitz. Auschwitz also had ovens.

6. Additional writings by Rutka. Keep these in the young person's volume.

Poland, High Tatras Mountains, near Zakopane

Rutka visited this lovely area, and wrote about it. There are also undated fragments of stories found with the diary, one about Zakopane, the area long a vacation-ski resort in the High Tatra mountains (lovely black and white photo, whose?); and one about winter season, the ghetto, brutality, and then a wedding with a bride in tears. After that, a section on the lives of the father, Yaacov Laskier, 1900-? He survived the holocaust. All other family members were killed.

Do note the listing of other child diarists from WWII, pages 86-89.

7. Bifurcate, bifurcate. Back on edition: For children, present just Rutka. Add some details in the back, but do an edition that is intended for children. Those are the ones who may well know nothing of the holocaust. Please do not dilute Rutka with everyone else, or all the other historical details. A child with an interest can go to this full edition and find out all that. We finished the book, and still thought, where is Rutka?

Background on the holocaust from other diarist children's perspective - see

Auschwitz, Poland, Poland Road Ways, Auschwitz, Petr Ginz;
Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Anne Frank ("The Diary of Anne Frank"), Netherlands Road Ways, Anne Frank; and
Prague, Petr Ginz, Czech Republic Road Ways, Petr Ginz. He also died at Auschwitz.

How better to teach our own children about these events, except through the eyes of other children who lived it. History, hope, hopelessness in our failings to the death. Then again to hope.

Warsaw Uprising - Escapes and Deaths; Memorials. The Sewers in WWII

2008-05-13T17:06:00.017-04:00

The Escape Envisioned
The Last, Hopeless Descent into the Sewers

We live in a visual age. Young people, we hear, read less. Watch more.

Go to Poland, then, and see World War II.

See monuments like stage sets, but more moving because they are based on reality.

Memorial, Warsaw Uprising, Sewers Escape, Warsaw, Poland

The world's sewers. Stories of escapes, history, burial grounds, FN 1. But sewers also were life-giving for those escaping pursuers, and death-traps for those cornered.

Warsaw's sewers. August 1944. A means of getting from one separated district to another, some extremely narrow in diameter. The sewers then became a major evacuation route toward the end of the month, and the Germans still did not realize. When they did, they filled the sewers with gas, mines, gassed the tunnels, set fires with gasoline. See ://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/sewers.htm, Here are people going down, a soldier in front, a woman and baby at the left, at the back. This is part of a composite memorial, with the memorial to the Warsaw Uprising behind. See this site for stories behind the major Polish memorials. ://www.cyberroad.com/poland/jews_ww2.html

The Jewish population of Warsaw at the outset of WWII was 1/3 of the total population. One in three residents was a Jew. By the end, there were almost none left. See seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2002189092_holocausttour27.html

Under the cities. Sewers.
.......................................................................

FN 1 We forget the true life and death battles that sewers represent. Never forget. We joke now about sewers, and are entertained by stories about them. They have found their way into film and on stage. In Paris, think "The Phantom of the Opera." Or "Les Miserables." People lost there, Nazis, Resistance, burial places during the French Revolution and other times. See ://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/europe-asia-pacific/11020481.html. See this overview site for a touristy look at cities these folks found that offer tours of their sewers, used through the ages for escapes (walkways and bridges to conquer the wasteways). In Paris, see how clean it all is - that is the miracle of modern clean-up stations. See www.ooze.com/sewer/howto.htm; and ://www.ooze.com/sewer/theplan.html The site gives admission fees, and exactly where to locate the entryway. Brussels - see ://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/263298

Warsaw Rising - The New City, Architecture to Meet the Times

2008-05-13T17:06:00.016-04:00

Old Warsaw Is Hard to Find
Vestiges Are There

Warsaw, Poland; city street

Old Warsaw. Hard to find.

The devastation of the culture and the city itself, was profound.

The Jewish population of Warsaw at the outset of WWII was 1/3 of the total population. One in three residents was a Jew. By the end, there were almost none left. See seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2002189092_holocausttour27.html

See it now - the main square, a hub.

Warsaw, Poland, main square, reconstructed

The reconstructions give a hint of old city life, but with a botox overlay. How to reconstruct in the old manner, without the money, the time, to do so. Minimalism results, understandably.

Warsaw, Poland, market square

As in any other European city or town, there are the cafes, the umbrellas, the street musicians, the carts with wares.

Warsaw, Poland, murals, apartments

Modern apartments, with murals, decorative, interesting, on the outside.

Warsaw, Poland; elegant, modern building complex

Or in other areas, buildings modern with fine, clean lines, shapes in color. Reflections of older buildings across the way. Architecture to meet the times.

And interspersed, markers for the old places, memorials for the Warsaw Uprising, the sewers, soldiers and people.

No block area is totally one thing or another, and that is as it is.

Warsaw and Irene Sendler. WWII. Saving the Jews, the Targeted.

2008-05-13T11:56:00.007-04:00

Warsaw. The Ghetto. Holocaust. A people allowed to be overrun. Is that accurate? Images of death apparently keep some people away from visiting there. Even contemporary factory smokestacks can echo crematoria of World War II. The images are The heroes and heroines still coming to light.

So: Read about heroism in those circumstances, and perhaps you will go.

1. 2007, book about the Warsaw family, the Zabinskis, Antonina and Jan, at "The Zookeeper's Wife," see the Washington Post review at ://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091301895.html; Earlier published, in 2007: "The Zookeeper's Wife" - by Diane Ackerman, see ://www.dianeackerman.com/work1.htm. But that site does not even give us the name of the family at that Zoo where so many Jews and others targeted were hidden and passed through to other places from the Ghetto in some degree of safety. It is at another review that we learn that the family is the Zabinskis, and the wife is Antonina. The International Herald Tribune at ://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/07/arts/idbriefs8A.php.
and

2. 1993. Read about Oskar Schindler, and the film made of his saving many through his factory worker shield program, "Schindler's List,see ://www.auschwitz.dk/Schindlerslist.htm. Read the full list of names there. Do it. Then it comes alive and off the celluloid.

3. 2008. Now, add Warsaw's Irene Sendler, who died recently, and who saved 2,500 Jewish children, getting them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. See ://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1948680/'Female-Schindler'--Irene-Sendler,-who-saved-thousands-of-Jewish-children,-dies.html.

Why is only the man, Schindler, given fame. This does not minimize his contribution, but he was a man of means; he actually walked and talked with Nazis as equals. These others, regular folk. And, he was a man, the others, women, alone or in partnership saving others.

Nonetheless, appreciate the heroism of the Poles, in their flat land, money restricted, open ports, no natural barrier to invasion, defending, undercutting the invaders. No more light bulb jokes. About anyone. Ever. Promise? They are lies geared only to make the powerful feel better.

Warsaw - Zygmunt and the Main Square

2008-05-12T16:03:00.001-04:00

Warsaw - Damage

Warsaw, Poland; reconstruction ongoing

Everyday Warsaw first, then the fantasy.

Here, reminders of the devastation of wars in the 20th Century, in buildings still shattered on one floor, renovations beginning on another.

Then reconstructions of a glorious more distant past, with the full Old Town area nearly completed. Warsaw's history is at www.e-warsaw.pl/miasto/historia.htm. A handy timeline is at www.iexplore.com/cityguides/Poland/Warsaw/History

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote somewhere that writing is a lie because it compresses a totality. That is also true of photographs. Go to that history site, and see Warsaw now. Looks like New York. Then see these jolly photos, and read this post: focusing on the past. Just like a lie, isn't it? Warsaw is more than its Old Town. Still, as a tourist:

Here is the Old Town, and
Warsaw, Zygmunt, or Sigismund, Column

Zygmunt, or Sigismund. In 1526, he led his people to many glories but died heirless. He is still remembered.

His column here was elevated here in 1644. This is the Old Town, in the main square. Scroll down to "monuments" at this site: www.warsawvoice.pl/view/5478/.

And, in the Old Town, spirited music in everyday dress, not some costume, and we liked that.

Warsaw, Poland, street polka

Visit big cities on holidays, if you can do without the museums for that time. Traffic is down, festivities are up.

Dan holds the Polish flag - he is not lip-synching - because this is Constitution Day, May 3.

This commemorates two May 3's -- one in 1791 - see ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=1132. There were tragic subsequent events, after that hopeful time in Polish history. It was partitioned and invaded multiple times.

The second May 3 is in 1918 - the old Poland had disappeared from maps until it was reunited with many of its old boundaries on May 3, 1918.

Wroclaw - Square: House of the Seven Electors; Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Black Madonna

2008-03-11T13:43:00.009-04:00

Wroclaw, House of Seven Electors

The House of the Seven Electors in Wroclaw's main square shows fresco-type paintwork dating from 1672. The electors refers, we believe, to the Holy Roman Empire's system of these seven electing in turn the Holy Roman Emperor, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector. See also ://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Electors. Wroclaw had been the German city of Breslau.

Memorial, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran, a Protestant theologian, who was born here, and who was executed for opposing the Nazi regime. See ://www.eni.ch/articles/display.shtml?06-0081. This is in front of St. Elizabeth's Church. See a current discussion at The New Republic, book review by Alan Wolfe, "The Grounds of Courage" as to book Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, at ://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/81378/Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-pastor-martyr-spy

Black Madonna, Copy from Gdansk

We recall this as being in St. Elizabeth's Church, but have to check notes. It is the same as we had seen at the Cathedral in Gdansk, but different from the Black Madonna at Czestochowa. Look at the robes and patterns on the various Black Madonnas. It can be hard to tell which is an original.

Wroclaw - Hussar Armor - The Winged Cavalry

2008-03-11T13:30:00.010-04:00

The Winged Hussars

The Winged Cavalry

Wroclaw, Poland, Winged Hussar, Winged Cavalry, armor

Poland The armor of the Winged Cavalry, the Winged Hussars. Perhaps a film is in the offing - Mel Gibson in one that may be called, Victoria, or The Victory (is it still in the works?), see ://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=137266/

To get in the mood, see this clip of another film with Hussars in action, at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_LtNzCv83Y/ Cossacks against Winged Hussars (watch for the wings), and add Tatars, in With Fire and Sword, at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD6UkzJs9h0&NR=1/

Then go to a history of Medieval Poland, and scroll down to the "combat" section for the Hussars. ://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/SCA/slavic/med_poland.html.

This set of armor is from a church in Wroclaw.

Mel Gibson apparently is going to play King Jan Sobieski in a film by a Wroclaw film producer, Mariusz Bielak, about the siege of Vienna, There, the winged cavalry pushed back the Turks (Ottoman Empire) and kept Europe from being conquered, as the Balkans had largely been conquered. See ://www.vienna-life.com/news/news/18-Will_Mel_Gibson_Save_Vienna/

The motto of the Winged Hussars: was : "Love of homeland is our law." See ://www.habbo.co.uk/groups/Poland/.

For you cavalry people, get your own equipment here: ://www.polishhussarsupply.com/contact_us.html.

See earlier post on Hussars here at Poland Road Ways, Polish Hussars.

Wroclaw - Facades, towers, gables. History in architecture.

2008-03-11T13:07:00.008-04:00

Wroclaw Square, Wroclaw, Poland

Wroclaw - the old "Breslau" - is one of the oldest cities in Poland, with early dates to the 9th Century, and its University and tourist sites keep the town square active. Pronounce it in the Anglicized Row-claw and there will be an amused or confused response. Say Vro-cloof and you will get directions.

Cathedral, Wroclaw, Poland

The Square was quiet in the afternoon, but filled up fast toward sunset.

The town began on two islands in the River Odra, with Ostrow Tumski now attached/ filled in.

For overnight, go to Piasek Island, a short walk across the river. It is an old monastery area, an near the Old Town.

Large parts of the town are partially restored, partially new concrete or other modern structure, so it varies from block to block,. It does not offer the botoxed uniform look of reconstruction under a budget that plagues many towns. We liked that.

The Town Hall has Gothic gables.

Wroclaw, Square, Poland

During WWII, some 70% of the city was leveled. Its historical rulers include Bohemia, Austria and Prussia.
Wroclaw Square, Ornate Medieval Architecture

Swidnica - Silesia

2008-03-11T12:06:00.006-04:00

Swidnica: not far from Wroclaw, on the way south back to the Czech Republic. The main square (or "Rynek") in Swidnica -is a place for carnivals as well as serious statuary. Here, inflatables going up, booths. Many towns have brightly painted buildings, and this town is enjoying some fame for its creative use of street lights.

See the town's Plague Column at ://www.lighting.philips.com/in_en/project/urban/market_square_swidnica.php?main=ro_ro&parent=1&id=in_en_project&lang=ro.

The town also is a World Heritage site for its Peace Church, timber-framed, constructed after the 30 Years' War (1618-1648). See http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1054.

Sopot - Baltic Sea Resort, and the Amber Trade

2008-02-19T16:36:00.005-05:00

Sopot is not far from Gdansk, and as a settlement, dates back to the 5th Century BC - it has been a resort for centuries, with baths and fine architecture from many eras. The area people here from 400 BC-30 AD -were Celts. Those that we now associate with Ireland and other parts of more remote Wales and sections of Great Britain. Celts apparently were most everywhere, from here to Italy and the Balkans.

Read about the whole history, and see vintage photos at ://www.sopot.net/historyofsopot.htm://archaeology.about.com/od/baterms/qt/baltic_amber.htm

Duke Sambor I in 1180 gets credit for establishing a Cistercian Abbey there. Read about Cistercians and their white robes with a black apron overlay, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cistercians; and their literal approach to the Rule of St. Benedict, at www.newadvent.org/cathen/03780c.htm; and the Rule at ://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02436a.htm and we stop looking back with that.

The Amber Trade. Sopot was situated to take full advantage of Rome's demand for amber, as well as other people's. The Sopot coastal area was and is a source of amber, and it found its way to Rome and places in between on established trade routes.

The amber trade itself dates back thousands of years before, with evidence from 8000-4000 BC. See ://www.khulsey.com/jewelry/kh_jewelry_amber_mining.html. Now, that's old. There is a long spit of land at Poland and Lithuania known as the Amber Coast. Storms pull up the fossilized resin that is amber, from the ocean floor, and dump it on the beaches where, in some areas, amber riders on horseback would come with their amber-nets and scoop it up, and amber divers would scrape it off the sea bottom. Early amber workshops in Gdansk: 10th Century. A Beach Master was in charge of guarding the beaches, and amber theft was a capital offense. All this at the khulsey site. Do see the pictures there.

The amber trade was not just an economic boon. The traders carried culture, ideas. See archeological discussions at://archaeology.about.com/od/baterms/qt/baltic_amber.htm.

Sopot - A Day at the Beach, and the Crazy House

2008-02-18T15:43:00.010-05:00

Sopot, Poland, Beach

Aah. Off with the shoes. Just leave the car. Go!

Sopot, Poland, swans, dock

Sopot is known for its pavilion and long long dock (what are those called, the really long ones out into the ocean?), and see all the salt-water-loving swans.

Get the bennies. Splay out there and enjoy.

Sopot, Poland, sunbathers

Some on the beach itself had freed themselves of top clothing and left only underwear. No problem. Just enjoy.

This looks like the day after the night before, but it is for real, and on the main shopping street at the Baltic Sea resort at Sopot- the "Crazy House."

Whose? This particular shot arrived in one of those huge email-spam-ha-ha mailings, a photo with no attribution at all, and a million people on the list. Fair use!We may well be the only people on the list who know where it was from, and can vouch for it - Sopot! Sopot! The building, a tourist-gimmick. Here is another angle, if you are feeling down: http://my.opera.com/gog5/albums/showpic.dml?album=341572&picture=5120883. And another. See://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_wacky_building.htm.

Money to build fancy houses? Sopot knows how.

Warsaw. Poland War-Torn. Ghetto, Uprising, Resistace. Lens: "The Zookeeper's Wife"

2008-01-18T10:53:00.002-05:00

Poland at War
Warsaw and Elsewhere

Warsaw. New building on old ruins. Poland.
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Poland. Warsaw is still building on ruins. World War II is still on view: and on Twitter. Tune in to Tweets about the invasion of Poland by Hitler, this an update, see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/arts/re-enacting-historical-events-on-twitter-with-realtimewwii.html?scp=1&sq=poland%20tweets%20invasion&st=cse

Literature still emerges about life in those times. For a view of ordinary citizens acting in extraordinarily heroic ways, see "The Zookeeper's Wife, A War Story" by Diane Ackerman, WW.Norton&Co., NY 2007. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/07/arts/idbriefs8A.php
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Can electronic devices present the same experience as leafing through pages, with real sounds, touch, the eye seeking its chosen words, reviewing, anticipating, skimming, refreshing. The jury is still out. Does the impression last, as a means to learn history, culture, ways.

The book: Zookeeper's Wife. The Kaminsky family maintained the remains and grounds of the Warsaw Zoo during the German Occupation. It served as a conduit, hiding place, escape route for some 300 Jews - as well as keeping such animals as survived from time to time.

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The story is told simply, not embellished, not made into a movie-script gripper made for the thriller shelf at the library. Read it for its plain information, day by day life. Find their thoughts from their diaries, additional facts. A small universe is laid out for you. Our past is their present.
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This kind of book is a reasonable source for getting a grip on a totality that sometimes gets lost in the large, scholarly, detailed accounts. Get the impact from real people.
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The references in this post are to pages in "Zookeeper." Enjoy a flavor of a fine country.

"Zookeeper" on Everyday Life in Poland

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1. Warsaw and its linden trees

Linden trees were also well known in Berlin. Hitler cut them down on the boulevard Unter den Linden in Berlin, so that his flagpoles could be installed with the swastika flags instead. Once sacred to a goddess of love, the Linden morphed into a symbol of Mary after Christianity, with its mead and honey, beeswax, used for candles in churches (see the churchyards with the lindens), at one point a village condemned honey thieves and hive destroyers to death. P.21.

The linden tree is also known as the lime tree, with uses including for countering insomnia and anxiety -- but also, as a paradox, as a stimulant. And for chills, as an antimicrobial, for colds, inducing sweating, and good for respiratory problems. See http://www.herbalsafety.utep.edu/herbs-pdfs/lindentree.pdf. See the lovely photo there of a large linden.
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2. Poland Affected by Rivalries, territorial invasions over centuries.

Germany and others, have brought their havoc again and again. Poland and its geographic fate as a flat highway, compared to other nations with vast alps and mountains, to conquest. Location, location.
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Northern Crusades, Teutonic Knights at Malbork Castle. Histories of religious killing.

A country carved and recarved with no natural strong boundaries to keep anyone out. "Some village children learned five languages just to speak with neighbors." P.38.
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Germany occupied Poland so often since and during the middle ages, that there was a kind of tradition that evolved, Slav v. Teuton. See posts around Poland Road Ways, Malbork. Here are some quasi-Teutonic Knights at their castle at Malbork. See also http://www.castles.info/poland/malbork/. It was not enough that Poles had already been converted to Christianity by Saints Cyril and Methodius and others of the Orthodox Christian branch. The Pope did not consider them Christian, needed territory and converts, and forced conversions to his Roman branch. Christian Schmistian. Killing those of differing beliefs? With Roman Christianity it became the norm. Is that so? Religion of the Nine Commandments. Is that so?
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The Poles won against them at Grunewald. The Germans were back in WWI, same symbolic battlefield.
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3. Bombs.

What were these like, up close. Learn that each has its own scent. What "boils into aerosol", what detached molecules are floating, and where. "Cucumber to violin resin." Charred flesh and pine of a house, butcher shops, bakeries with dirt clouds smelling of yeasts and vinegar, cloves. P.47
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4. The German gunship Schleswig-Holstein.

This gunship attacked near Gdansk at Westerplatte. See the fort area there, earlier post at Poland Road Ways, Battle of Westerplatte; P.46-47.

Gdansk offers a gateway to the interior, from the mouth of the Motlawa River, to the Liniwka, a branch in the delta and the Vistula itself, Poland's longest river - the Wisla.
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Gdansk, from Westerplatte. Motlawa River view, Poland
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Westerplatte: a fort, now a park. Gdansk: often under siege, now calm. The invasion now is economic, with Russia circumventing its ports for its pipelines, and sending them elsewhere. Spite? http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34261.pdf

This river view is from Westerplatte back toward Gdansk. Poles held out against the gunship hoping for help - never came. Parachutists like white jellyfish in the sky. P.50.
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The Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war" took everyone by surprise with all available armaments and methods loosed at once. See http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/EuropeatWar/blitzkrieg_poland.htm. Polish pilots, "superbly trained and famously courageous" but in slower planes against superior German Junkers and JU-87 Stukas. P. 50. See http://www.stukas.freeservers.com/
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5. Hussars.

Blizzards of down from pillows and comforters after a bombing, P.59.
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This reference to feathers calls to mind, obliquely, the use of battle feathers by the famous winged cavalry, the Polish "Hussars." Centuries earlier, the Hussars repelled the Turks at Vienna. Hussars were also Warsaw's guardian angels. Read about the Husaria at (this by way of update) http://polishgreatness.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html The hoop apparatus on their backs, with feathers that whirred as they rode and spooked enemy horses so they "dug in their hooves and refused to advance."

Hussar armor, Winged Cavalry, Gniew, Poland

Model of a Hussar. Note the leopardskin cape. And a waitress again at the hotel restaurant - at Gniew.

6. Buildings "guillotined by the war," P.67.

Germans: The "clop of heavy bootheels and gabble in a foreign tongue."
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Decrees: death to anyone in defiance of German orders, or authority. Defiance worthy of death included owning a radio, trading on Black Market, failing to report someone else. Surprisingly, only a few denounced others. Underground: "As little, as late, and as bad as possible." P. 71.
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Sabotage.
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7. Zoo philosophy:

At the time, there were two basic approaches in zookeeping. One, that animals can adjust, so there is no need to fuss with their surroundings. Two, animals do best in surroundings approximating their habitat. P.75. Today, zoo management requires university preparation, see http://www.zoology.msu.edu/graduate-studies/requirements/ms-zoo-aquarium-mgt.html

8. Nazi Policies:

Verboten.

Speaking Polish in public was forbidden, and in Gdansk, speaking Polish in public was a capital offense. P. 99. Note that William the Conqueror, the Norman who invaded England and won in 1066, promulgated a set of laws that prohibited capital punishment: blind the misreant, and castrate him. That's enough. We have declined since then. See http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/will1-lawsb.html

Lebensraum -

The geo-political policy of Lebensraum furthered more living space for Germans. Kill Poles for their land. Polish Nordic-looking children were sent to Germany for re-education. Foster the biological superiority of the Aryan. P. 99. Lebensraum extended into Poland and Western Europe, see http://countrystudies.us/poland/15.htm; and east, into Russia, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/hitler_lebensraum_01.shtml

See lebensraum at http://www.holocaust-trc.org/wmp15.htm. This was an important political-social philosophy of supremacism.

Himmler even sent expeditions to the Himalayas to find Aryan roots. See http://tibettalk.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/the-influence-of-the-occult-on-the-1939-german-expedition-to-tibet/; and a popular source at http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/nazimyths.html, The issue has become a favorite of those seeking connections between socialism and Tibetan sources, see a more message-focused at http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Tibet.html, "Nazis in Tibet." In between and to the right and left of both views, beyond this post. Do a search.

9. Calorie distribution in the hunger lines (pre-Ghetto):

Systematic starvation. Germans get 2613calories a day, Poles 669 calories a day, Jews 184 calories a day. The Resistance built bunkers, "underground dens," with ventilation and facilities, throughout and under Warsaw. P. 118.
Were those also food distribution points, if there was any?
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10. Ideological Ecology, Genetics.
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The Germans ripped up Polish plants, and substituted German pure plants - P.126.
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The Germans also engaged in a eugenics program to wipe everything Polish "from the planet." See http://www.dnalc.org/view/15463-The-eugenics-movement-and-Nazi-Germany-James-Watson.html Pure seeds, pure food, for the pure German soldiers. Replace Polish farmers, and Polish and Jewish livestock. Pest control became a Nazi obsession that extended to people. Kill them and replace them with Germans, like an ecological type of goal. P.152.
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11. The Warsaw Ghetto.

Jews were ordered into a restricted area in 1940. P.183. See http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005059
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There were 22 gates to the zoo, then 13, then 4. At the beginning, some buildings straddled the line into Warsaw. "Children wedged through the masonry" to become couriers and get food. P.152.
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The Ghetto - bred lice, disease, typhus, TB, dysentery, famine. There were no medicines provided, no adequate nutrition. Fed the image of diseased Jews. "Jews=lice=typhus" read the posters. Warsaw Ghetto - see http://www.warsaw-life.com/poland/warsaw-ghetto.
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Disease and the courses of history. Note that Napoleon's army was decimated by trench fever, "relapsing fever," types of typhus (book says 500,000 soldiers to 3,000). P.134.
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12. Categorized as non-human:

This concept of defining some persons as non-human, then allowing decimation is a hallowed tradition. It follows the common idea of the religious war being permissible because the nonbeliever is not human, see http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/Perry/holywar.html. Here, the non-human included ethnic groups, mentally and physically handicapped, Slavs, Gypsies. They were shipped to concentration camps: 316,822 out of Warsaw 1942-43. P. 156.
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The non-humans rose up as best they could. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/uprising1.html. See Mauthausen Concentration Camp, at http://austriaroadways.blogspot.com/2009/11/mauthausen-kz-konzentrationslager.html#!/2009/11/mauthausen-kz-konzentrationslager.html
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More were simply shot. See holocaust photos at http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/holocaust/photoessay.htm
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13. Heroic figures, doing what they felt called to do.
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Kalonymus Kalman Shapira - a Hasidic rabbi, mystic, stayed - see http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/shapira.htm. He preserved "life in the face of destruction." He engaged in meditation, visioning, examined thoughts but could let them go. P.157. "Silence the conscious mind." Holiness within. Exaltation. P.158.
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14. Statistics:
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How many of the world's Jews were killed WWII? 30-40%. How many of the Orthodox Jewish community? 80-90%. P. 158. See the US Holocaust Museum, at http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?lang=en&topic=03
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Abraham Joshua Heschel, see http://being.publicradio.org/programs/heschel/ grew up in Warsaw - "Every moment is great, we were taught, every moment is unique.""Zot" as the feminine word for "this," and "is also one of the names of God - the thisness of what is." Rabbi Shapira: nourisher of the spirit.
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Debates on final numbers - see http://debatebothsides.com/archive/index.php/t-34794.html, particularly regarding Auschwitz, where numbers revised apparently from 4 million to 1 million in that camp alone. See Auschwitz post, http://polandroadways.blogspot.com/2007/07/auschwitz-followup-diary-of-petr-ginz.html#!/2007/07/auschwitz-followup-diary-of-petr-ginz.html.
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15. The effectiveness of the Underground.
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The "cichociemni"- the dark, silent ones, Polish agents, with weapons, kits, plans.The Underground. P.168. Listen to this Polish language video, a kind of book review: as you watch. You will understand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKCAJ9fQdQE. Then the martial side, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi36pNBP0po&feature=related
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See http://www.projectinposterum.com/docs/zegota.htm
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16. Liquidation of the Ghetto
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Nineteen forty two. At p.182. July 22, 1942. Mass deportations. Seven thousand into cattle cars, to gas chambers at Majdanek, not the promised "resettlement."
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July-September 1942 - 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka. That left some 55,000. Jewish Fighting Organization, ZPB (Zudowska Organizacja Bojowa) emerged. Remaining Jews - Ghetto became a labor camp.
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Enter the "Wild Jews" - those who lived in the sewers or with no set address, 20-30,000 of them. Zegota, see http://www.zegota.org/, was a council to rescue Jews concealed in Polish households, with founders Zofia Kossak (code "Weronika") , see http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/zegota.htm; and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz (a socialist activist). Pp.187-88.
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Organizations saved 28,000 Jews in Warsaw area. They provided money, documents. See photos, accounts, at http://www.zwoje-scrolls.com/shoah/uprising.html.

17. Ghetto uprising. April 19, 1943. Himmler's push to annihilate the remaining Jews in the Ghetto. First day of Passover, day before birthday of Adolf Hitler. The Ghetto Uprising. Jews set up barricades against the machine guns, tanks. Molotov cocktails - Jews filled bottles with gasoline, jammed necks with burning rags. P.211.
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The idea for ghetto came from from Franco nationalists, the1936-39, civil war in Spain. Is that so? Finns gave the name when Russia invaded Finland. Siege lasted a month. Life on other side of wall as normal, fires, ashes, life went on. See post Germany Road Ways, Buchenwald. Destroyed: 100,000 apartments. 2,000 businesses or industries. 3,000 shops. Jewish weapons found at the end: 9 rifles, 59 pistols, a few hundred bombs, homemade. Killed: 7,000 Jews shot. 22,000 shipped to death camps, thousands more to labor camps. German losses: 16 dead, 85 wounded. P. 212-13.

See http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/wgupris.htm. Photo gallery at http://fcit.usf.edu/Holocaust/resource/gallery/G1941WGU.

18. Disguising Jews as Aryan. P.221.

Language, dialect, colors of clothing, hair styles, religious customs, surgical interventions for physical facial and other characteristics, and reversals of circumcision. The Romans had called that "reskinning." That was from 168 BC, Antiochus IV era. P.222.

19. "Why do we humanize animals, and animalize humans?" A zoo family's question. Animals can overcome their predatory behaviors in a few months, but humans - supposedly civilized for centuries - fast revert to savage. P. 239.

20. Lack of treatments. Penicillin discovered 1939, Britain, but best strain not available for testing and use until 1944, for wounded soldiers.

21. Sewers and escapes: at end of war, 5,000 Polish soldiers escaped out of sewers from Old Town Warsaw, despite grenades and gasoline down the manholes by Germans.
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King Sigmund III Vasa, Castle Square, Warsaw S
The irony about Sigmund is that he was Swedish, Vasa dynasty, ruling Poland at the time, see http://www.castles.info/poland/royal-castle-warsaw/22. Warsaw before the war: 1,500,000 people. By 1946, 500,000. P.307. In crypts, caverns, cellars.

Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum: people remain incredibly vital, daring, emerging and rebuilding like a beehive, without waiting for materials, plans, money to finish. P.307.

Read his "Race and Reich: The Story of an Epoch," see http://www.questia.com/library/book/race-and-reich-the-story-of-an-epoch-by-joseph-tenenbaum.jsp

Old Town, Warsaw, now - column has Zygmunt on top. Reconstructed from the 1643 original. See http://www.um.warszawa.pl/v_syrenka/perelki/index_en.php?mi_id=39&dz_id=2.

23. Now. Tell a Polish joke. We dare you.

And continue reading: This time, James Michener's 1961 novel, "Poland" - get a chapter by chapter overview here at httop://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_%28novel%29. Focus on the impact of random herdings for executions.

Then ask how anyone has the audacity to tell a light bulb joke. The "how many Poles" type.

Then also shelve any ethnic-characteristic-occupation targeting dim joke.

Gniew - Teutonic Knights, Hussars, Castle

2007-09-20T10:40:00.000-04:00

Gniew. See history at//www.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/gniew-ang. It is an also-ran, in the sense that the Teutonic Knights started the castle here as the headquarters for its Grand Master 1200's-1300's, then decided to locate the Grand Master instead at Malbork, see post here.

The castle here has not been renovated back to old-days in the interior (there was a huge fire in 1928, and before that it suffered other damage), but instead houses a number of people and crafts/occupations. I and in the summer there are festivals and re-enactments of jousts here. The open center area of the castle looks like a caravanserai, where merchants and others could bring in the whole group, animals, wares and all, and stay and cook and rest. On the other hand, maybe that is the remains of the gutting by the fire. Need to learn Polish.

The find of the day: the winged cavalryman - the Hussar.

Read about these fearsome, and highly effective, horsemen at //home.san.rr.com/slawek/Tata/papers/Husaria-eng. Click on the section for armaments and the wings - they made a whirring sound as the Hussars attacked. That is a leopard skin draped over his arm (should be on his shoulder). The site describes their discipline, battle tactics, and that they saved the day at the Battle of Vienna, when the Ottomans nearly overwhelmed the city in 1683. Read James Michener's "Poland" on this. See also the post here on Hussars, Mongols, horsemanship, the steppes, impact of Cossacks, roots of a whole culture. Take time with the history at //www.geocities.com/medievalnovgorod/nov02.

The lady is our waitress.

Brick buildings. No stone to speak of, compared to France and other areas - imagine the time and effort to create these huge structures of brick. The castles in Poland have a characteristic blocky, powerful appearance - the opportunity for flying buttresses was limited, I think from what I saw, to lower heights than in places where stone was available. See //architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aa121800b. A guidebook at Malbork said that huge foundation stones were needed for Malbork Castle because it is on flatland at a river, and that the rock was brought in from Sweden by barge or other shipping.

Kudowa Zdroj - Ossuary. Chapel of the Skulls. Plague, 30 Years' War, Death

2007-09-17T19:23:00.000-04:00

Respect at the end. Some reverence for remains. Some places offer it. See the Chapel of the Skulls at Kudowa Zdroj, a small, old spa town on the border with the Czech Republic, southwest Poland. There, bones are stored that belong to victims of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648; see //www.pipeline.com/~cwa/TYWHome., and //www.historylearningsite.co.uk/thirty_years_war.; and Plague. There was a dreadful recurrence of Plague about 1685.
See //www.themiddleages.net/plague.

The remains are kept in a quiet, orderly manner, bones stacked in this small Chapel just outside the center of town.

Skulls are visible from outside. Otherwise, wait for the Chapel to open (closed at lunch for an hour), and enter with a small group for a talk - in Polish - but enough can be understood. Some words are close to ours.

Inside, we were shown a small display of skulls of different nationality types, including Tatar, (see a current fun website on Tatars today at //forum.poland.com/index.php?showtopic=1703; and an ethnic overview at ///www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rop3=109874&rog3=PL). That site, the Joshua Project, notes that some Tatars are blonde and blue-eyed, says the site; and Caucasian, see thefreedictionary.com/Caucasian.

We also were shown the bone results of injuries and what may have caused the injury and the show of healing or not - a break, a blow, a piercing. See stacks of neat long bones, and stacks of skulls. When the talk is finished, the trapdoor is opened, and you can look down to full skeletons below floors.

No sensationalism here, just information at a wayside town, and a window into the past. See also post on the charnel house outside Kutna Hora, The Czech Republic, at Czech Republic Road Ways. We let that pass. It is a tourist magnet, self-conscious, overdone. Compare this modest, dignified, sensible treatment of those who had been in mass graves, out of necessity; with the chandeliers made of bones at Sedlec Monastery, outside Kutna Hora CZ, not that far away. See //private-tours.net/country_tour/number_1/Plague, and post at Kutna Hora, Czech Republic Road Ways above.

Philosophy here. Do people have a right to death. Disconnect if we say we have a reverence for life (some take that to more extremes than others) then treat the bones like something for House Beautiful. More: Deep topics here. Concepts of morality, and where any right comes from to impose one set on somebody else; sacredness, disgust and purity, respect for authority, loyalty. What goes into our responses to someone else's actions, and by what right to judge. See New York Times today, on "The Happiness Hypothesis," book by Jonathan Haidt of UVa. See //www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/science/18mora.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

Dr. Haidt explores "moral dumbfounding," where someone has a strong feeling that X is wrong, but can't explain why. Bones as light fixtures. Usurping another's moral decision-making.

Back to Kudowa Zdroj - Wikipedia has a short history, but no details about the Chapel. While the tour givers are at lunch, enjoy your own at a fast food place. We thought we were ordering a meat pie, and instead out came thin pancakey sweet-sour cream berry-blintzy delights. Excellent. It pays sometimes not to know a language. Compulsory adventureship.

Gdansk - Prussian Blue - Church of Saint Mary. Prussian Blues.

2007-09-11T19:43:00.001-04:00

This splendid brick church took 150 years to complete (1343 beginning); and took just a few bombs in 1945 to destroy. It is now rebuilt. It was Protestant, and has elements of the brick Gothic, Mannerist and Baroque. Here is the famous panel, the Tablet of the Ten Commandments, 1480-90.

And the magnificent window behind the blue pulpit.

Remember that Prussian Blue from your old crayon box. It came about by accident, with a mix of chemicals supposed to produce red. See //www.voiceofcolor.com/en/aboutcolor/decorating_library/history/prusse/. It was the first color, a deep and solid blue, that could be applied to large surfaces. That site examines several colors and their origins and meaning.

Here also is the Astronomical Clock: Hans Durunger, 1464-70. All you need to know about movable feasts, dates, moon phases, and watch Adam and Eve and others parade at noon.

Gdansk - Battle of Westerplatte WWII; German Battleship Schleswig-Holstein

2007-09-10T09:16:00.000-04:00

The unequal battle at this peninsula, at the mouth of the waterway leading to the main Gdansk harbor and docking areas, triggered the start of WWII.

There were 192-205 Polish soldiers trying to hold off the German invasion, with some reasonably substantial guns, but no real fortifications. They expected to be able to withstand a German onslaught for some 12 hours until help came.
See //www.gdansk-life.com/poland/battle-westerplatte.

Help never came. They fought off the German battleship Schlesweig-Holstein for 7 days, not the 12 hours.

The S/W was an old battleship, constructed ("laid down") in 1904, see //www.worldwar1.co.uk/pre-dreadnought/sms-deutschland, but still formidable. The site describes three classes of German battleships: 1) Deutschland class (this one), 2) Braunschweig class, then 3) the later Dreadnought class (commissioned 1906).

Why was the peninsula not simply blown away at the outset, with a battleship? Maybe because the Deutschland class did not have a good "intermediate gun battery." See site. The S/H was later used for target practice by the Russians. See //www.silentwall.com/WestEstonia. See pictures and more info on S/H at //www.bobhenneman.info/schlhol.

Low Polish casualties, some 13-14 killed, 50+ wounded during that entire time, but they could only do so much against the battleship right out there. Surrender finally. Barracks and blockhouses remain. Great courage. Salute.
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Getting to Westerplatte: Tour boats leave Gdansk's Old Town area. Use them. We set off on our own so we could continue on north, went in circles and finally came upon a ferry by chance .
Quick. Into the lot. Get in line.

And on the ferry.

Ferry rule anyway: if you see one, you have to take it.

The view back toward Gdansk was lovely, and we could see the easy tour boats gliding all around without us. Still, good to have the car because we could get around all the views in less time than the long walks. This time we were short (we fit in Budapest and Vienna - pay the Piper).

Leaving was fine because there was only one road, packed dirt.

Gdansk - Old town square

2007-09-09T20:47:00.000-04:00

Spotting medieval figures on facades. Aim your eye to the minutia. Then take in the whole building, below.

The history of a city can be seen in the small things. See the overview at //www.gdansk-life.com/poland/gdansk-history. Poles, Russians, Prussians, Swedes and Saxons, even Napoleon. This became a city known for tolerance - Catholics, Protestants, a variety of beliefs and non-beliefs. See how the town looked before WWII there, and appreciate the work of rebuilding in brick. Heavy World War II destruction.

Globosapiens has a tourist-helpful guide. //www.globosapiens.net/travel-information/Gdansk-392.

See its post-war history at //www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040522/POLAND22/TPTravel/TopStories

Gdansk - Canal, Port

2007-09-09T20:44:00.002-04:00

There is a fine effort in reconstructions to recapture the old views. Usually, though, only a few angles really give a glimpse into the pre-war city.

The Vistula River flows from the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, through Krakow and up to Gdansk and the Baltic Sea. See http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1B1-382095.html. Gdansk has been a major port for centuries.

Gdansk Church of Saint Mary, The Black Madonna. Or Sara la Kali

2007-09-09T20:19:00.006-04:00

Traces of Other Religious Systems

In Art, Symbolism

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Black Madonna, Horns of Mithra? Cathedral of St. Mary, Gdansk, Poland
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The Black Madonna at the Church of Saint Mary, Gdansk, haunts. Early Christianity was a blend of multiple ideas, interpretations, and other systems, such as the gnostics, and even adherents of the Mithraism that Rome fostered (Paul was raised in a town known for Mithraism).
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Each school of thought had strong groups of followers, until the Roman Catholic Church took it upon itself to be the Decider, and killed, excluded, held Inquisitions, Crusades, etc. against those of differing views.
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What is the origin of this particular Black Madonna. There is a tradition in the Gypsy, or Roma, community, for "Sara La Kali" - the handmaid to Mary when Mary landed in southern France. She is the Roma patron saint. Look at the symbolism. Is this Sara la Kali. Also consider another version of that story, where Sara, in a community of Roma metalworkers on the Rhone River, rescues a sinking boat by casting out her cloak, and there are the traditional Three Mary's saved thereby, see http://www.radoc.net/radoc.php?doc=art_b_history_romanireligion&lang=en&articles=true.
This painting in Gdansk:
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1. No babe is to be found. This does not look like a Madonna.
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2. Can anyone translate the information. Translate the Madi Staza Nami at the bottom? Then at the top, Matro Mieusie Ruzia - looks like mother Russia? Is the face black, as Sara la Kali's is traditionally represented, or is it silver that has tarnished?
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But most places polish the old silver. Why would this blacken?
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3. Is it possibly modern? See the sunburst theme around holy heads.
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4. The arc has long been a symbol of the moon, receptivity, even the Holy Grail, see http://symboldictionary.net/?p=1914 .
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5. Mithraism: The bull featured in this pre-Christian religion. This was the official religion of Rome before becoming Christian in about 300-400 CE. See the similarities between the two at Mithra and Christianity, at http://mithra2004.tripod.com./Mithra%20and%20Christianity.htm Symbolisms and life events overlap. See http://mithra2004.tripod.com/Cult%20of%20Mithra.htm
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Meitros is another name for Mithraism, see http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/iranian/Mithraism/mithraism_and_christianity.htm
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St. Mary's is the largest medieval brick church in Europe, 1343. It was constructed over 150 years.

Gdansk - Solidarity - Monument to the Shipyard Workers

2007-09-08T12:27:00.000-04:00

The memorial: three tall, steel crosses;

and the motif of a wall, for the 1980 strike creating the soviet bloc's first independent trade union known as "Solidarity," and standing against the communists. Lech Walesa, who led the struggle, was an electrician, and then union activist in trade unions, politician and promoter of human rights. See his biography at //www.biographybase.com/biography/Walesa_Lech.

The crosses stand for the three workers who were killed in demonstrations in strikes in 1970, earlier. Further demonstrations also were repressed by the police.

The crosses rise from a large anchor shape, for the Gdansk shipyards, with the tall memorial base just showing past the anchor. And as you get close, there are figures reaching, impossibly arched figures, great gashes in the steel.

So many European memorials show brokenness, and agony and struggle; here as well.

At the wall, someone trying to defend himself.

The shipyard again is in the news: New York Times 8/26/07. It is at risk because of a disagreement with the European Union about repayment of certain subsidies not permitted under the EU. If Gdansk has to pay, the port may go bankrupt. Can it be privatized instead? This was the port where Lech Walesa led workers to strike for rights and to organize non-communist unions.

Czestochowa Siege by Swedes 1655 - Battle Re-Enactments

2007-09-08T10:55:00.001-04:00

Those who listen to "Prairie Home Companion" would not suspect that the Swedes of Lake Wobegon were once a deluge, the scourge of Poland, 17th Century. They laid siege to the country and had their rulers, like the Swedish King Carol, on the Polish throne, and at one point in 1655, only Jasna Gora, at Czestochowa, was left to resist. A battle reenactment is held often there -- here is our restaurant Hussar, or winged cavalryman, and costumed waiter (at Gniew, another town).

The battle games in 2003 was canceled, according to its website, but you can see how the Poles - as Americans - enjoy putting together old historical fights. See the Siege of Czestohowa, maps and costumes at www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/Czestochowa/Czestochowa1655. This was a Labor Day event - plan your trips accordingly. Winged Hussars are included. See Hussar post. At one point, the boundary between Poland and Sweden was in Estonia. See www.estonica.org/eng/lugu.html?kateg=43&menyy_id=95&alam=61&leht=3; see also Swedish-Polish wars, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Swedish_wars.

Cavalries: Hussars - "Usars" - Cavalry with Wings; Gniew

2007-09-08T00:20:00.001-04:00

1. Poland's traditional cavalry: The Hussar - this armored cavalryman, with his tall eagle wings apparatus, and leopard skin that here has slipped down his shoulder, is in the town of Gniew. This is the place in north-central Poland that ran runner-up, when the main palace for the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (see Malbork post here) chose his residence instead at Malbork, see posts.

2. Word derivation: The Hussar root sounds like Hazar, and that seems to be a synonym for Khazar, see post on Khazars. They all came from the steppes? And/or the Mongols?

With Cyrillic alphabet and new sounds, spellings vary and we can't tell here if there is a connection. Also, the Jewish conversion- population of old Kiev, Russia, do not appear Mongol, but Caucasian. This takes work. So far we conclude that Hazar and Khazar are Caucasian, without Mongol roots; and that Hussar is also Caucasian, but comes from Mongol background and battle tactics. "Hussar" has several derivations - It may mean "20," apparently, for the Poles, for the 1 in 20 noblemen required to enter the cavalry. www.vor.ru/English/Exclusives/excl_next1075_eng. This site at www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/PolHorses, says "Hussar" comes from "usar" or the word for Serbian and Hungarian mercenaries who fought for Poland, 16th Century.

3. Battle tactics. Mongols brought the Hussar riding skills to the Hungarians. Horses: Hungary and Poland - centuries of perfecting horsemanship, cavalries. See "Polish Horses" at www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/PolHorses. The "coup d'huzzard" was the French for the Hussar style of fast in and out at battle, an equine "blitzkrieg" as the site says. The Serbian and Hungarian mercenaries brought the skills to Poland, beginning of 16th century.

The Mongol tradition was swift, fierce attacks and equally sudden retreats so the other side can't find you. See www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/HowHussarFought. There are Russian Hussars as well as Hungarian. Tatar tactics, as well as Turkish, Russian and those of other cavalries, are laid out at that site.

4. How the Hussars fought. See this site, "Polish Renaissance Warfare," for how Hussars fought, their armor, culture: www.jasinski.co.uk/wojna/comp/comp06. See the "wings" apparatus they often wore - with feathers that made a rushing sound as they charged. James Michener in "Poland" refers to this as frightening to the enemy. I recall he said that the Hussars were instrumental in saving Vienna from the Turks. Page _____. A sound-noise-distraction intimidation tactic like the Scots bagpipes accompanying a charge? See www.celticaffairs.com/Instrument%20of%20War.

5. How they looked. Picture this: Iron Men With Eagles' Wings. See www.rencentral.com/sept_vol1/hussars.shtml. This site shows the wings attached at the waist or the saddle itself? See illustrations at www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/HowHussarFought.

See this photo gallery on Hussars and their uniforms, equipment, wings, and battle gear at work. www.geocities.com/rik_fox/husaria/museum. Husaria - another derivation? In WWII, a form of the wing was symbolically worn by armored units of Poles. See www.myarmoury.com/feature_hussars.

History sites: History of Central Europe; Timelines

2007-09-07T17:51:00.000-04:00

Scroll down to Poland and Lithuania, for an excellent, concise overview at The History of Central Europe, at //mysite.du.edu/~etuttle/misc/europe.htm#Mong.

Polish history - 17th Century partitions, invasions. Russia absorbed the Ukraine area, with its capital at Kiev.

Timeline here: ://www.facts-about.org.uk/history-and-events-timeline-poland.htm

Jewish History - Poland and the Khazars - Hazars

2007-09-05T00:56:00.000-04:00

Distant past. Some sites report that the earliest Jewish settlements in Poland came from Khazaria, that section of Russia and Ukraine, and that represent a different "line" than the European Jews migrating from other European countries. See map at allthatremains.com/Acre/Maps/Story800, "Jews of Khazaria." Many related links given at that site. I see Khazar also Hazar in looking things up. See more on Khazars in Romania Road Ways, and Bogomilia - A Site for the Unsung.

Here, looking back, on this side road, in farmland, a horse cart. See Zakopane post, here, area near the High Tatra mountains, bordering with Slovakia. This use is not in the distant past, but not seen as often as in Romania.

Khazar - also seen as Hazar - then we see Hussar - same root? See own post, Hussars and Horsemanship.

Sunburst Art Themes: Polonia, the Czestochowa Black Madonna, and Lady Liberty

2007-08-29T19:20:00.001-04:00

See earlier post, at Poland Road Ways, Jasna Gora Black Madonna, showing this version of the famous monastery's famous Black Madonna - and comparing it to the Black Madonna "copies" at Gdansk and elsewhere, without the elaborate crowns, and with different gowns.

What taproot underlies and supports the veneration to the cult of Mary in Poland, and especially the crowns and sunbursts behind. Is there more than the usual "queen of heaven" idea.But even that did not creep into Catholicism until the 1950's, if this site is right, so the Black Madonnas have nothing to do with our notion of queen of heaven. See Pope Poius XII in 1954 at www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_11101954_ad-caeli-reginam_en. There he lays out the queenship of Mary.

Enter Polonia? See info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/Huss/WA, and its "Images of Women in Polish Painting," including the theme of Polonia. Polonia, queen, mother, national mother, widow, symbol of Poland, symbol of hope.

Wikipedia mentions nothing of that - using the term as referring to a Polish diaspora. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonia. In 992, the term was used for an area showing boundaries and a description of the area (before "Poland" was named). Here, in a description of early Polish settlements, where Jews were killed because they were believed to be causing the Black Death, the area is called Polonia - www.info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/orig/mieszko, so it seems to be just a geographic term, and I can't find yet references to a Mother - except allegorical Mother Poland?

This site focuses not on the crown, but on the origins of the sunburst theme behind holy people's heads in art and statues. This stresses pagan roots connections to a modern religion with old roots, but is historically interesting in the cultural sense of why we do what we do, at and draw what we draw, at www.aloha.net/~mikesch/sunburst">www.aloha.net/~mikesch/sunburst.

Cultural crossovers. Cultural lures to make a area people comfortable with a new religion or politics. The Statue of Liberty. Sunbursts. Pagan? Fine. Good ideas last. See americansall.com/PDFs/02-americans-all/11.7.pdamericansall.com/ for "An American Symbol - The Statue of Liberty," by June F. Tyler. The sculptor's family emblem?

A sunburst.

Ostrada and the Lake Country

2007-08-27T20:00:00.001-04:00

Ostrada, Lake Country

Ostrada, Lake Pavilion

Grunwald is more of a battlefield preserved memorial park area, so head for the nearest town crossroads leading north to spend the night - to aim for Malbork and Gdansk.

Enter Ostrada: a town with a lake so well hidden from travelers that we did not see the lake while looking for a hotel. We nearly took a 2d floor walk-up corner dubious spot, with exposed car, when around the corner was a more than adequate hotel and far safer parking.

And there was the lake. And the walk along the shore. And the band in the evening with young people and older people, and the little pub with such pierogies as you would love. A splendid starter to any evening.

Swans, Ostrada, Poland

And the swans. We saw many in Poland, even in the salt water of Sopot. See post on Sopot, on the Baltic.

There is a lovely lake country starting about here, where the huge agricultural flatlands just begin to end.

The Onion Dome - Architecture travels

2007-08-20T10:24:00.000-04:00

Onion-shaped domes are characteristic on churches and other buildings in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere - including Hartford CT's skyline. There, just off Interstate 91, a blue, gold-starred onion domes reigns over the old Colt munitions factory, as you pass by. The Connecticut River is at the other side of the Interstate. There is founder Samuel Colt's bronze colt rampant at the top. See this history of the weapon that became standard issue sidearm in both World War I and World War II, and the choice of the onion dome for style: //www.coltsmfg.com/cmci/history.asp

See this article for a good summary of the dome's development: Scroll down to "Concerning the Origin of the Onion Domes and Onion Spires in Central European Architecture," by Hans Schindler at Annotated Bibliography of Eastern European Folk Art, with introduction to Folk Architecture, at www.iabsi.com/gen/public/arch3.

The position is that the shape of the onion does not derive from Byzantine or eastern influence, but instead is "the result of northern craftsmen and Italian architectural influences coming together in Prague in the 16th Century." See introductory paragraph at that section.

Wielkopolska area - Countryside windmills

2007-08-20T10:08:00.001-04:00

Wooden windmills. Useful, reliable, and also housing.
See more, and their locations, by this cataloguer: www.windmillworld.com/europe/poland.

Also read "The Origin and Dissemination of Windmills in Poland," byAdam Szymanski, in the Annotated Bibliography of Eastern European Folk Art, with introduction to Folk Architecture at www.iabsi.com/gen/public/arch3. The earliest mention of a windmill in Poland is from 1271, greatest growth in 17th century. German settlers, Mennonites from Holland, for flour or grain production. Many types, read like a catalogue: post, tower, scoop, paltrock (what is that?), rotating cap and the Mediterranean style; rules for millers, taxes. Also: the site notes that the Nazi destruction of windmills and millers caused great difficult for producing cattle feed (fodder, from the mash) and cattle breeding. Imposed poverty.

There is even an International Molinology Association, see www.timsmills.info/Journal/BULLET59. See a history of windmills at www.telosnet.com/wind/early. This site tells how to make the flour to make the bread, is UK origin, but we all eat bread. Go to www.botham.co.uk/bread/mill1.

The Wielkopolska area also was the center for horsebreeding - the Wielkopolska itself - see the different breeds of Polish horses through the centuries at www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/PolHorses; and the post on the Hussars, the great cavalry and its wings that whirred and rushed as they rode.

Invasions: Geo-politics and shepherds. The lure of the flatland; defenses down

2007-08-20T09:54:00.001-04:00

Looking up geo-politics, the connection between geographical characteristics and invasion.

On some sides, Poland has no natural boundary to define it from its neighbors. It has served as a literal war path - door mat to those pushing through their doors roughshod to somebody else's.

France has a similar problem on some sides, thus its attempt at a Maginot Line, and the trampers went right around. See europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa070601a. That Maginot Line, that the Germans circumvented, is not surviving. See www.geocities.com/athens/forum/1491/.

So what were the Poles to do other than they did, up in the flat lands, without the ability to defend? Those distant hills are hardly mountains, and then comes the flat. Read "Poland" by James Michener, Random House 1984, to see what did happen to them.

With all this, then rethink the Polish or other ethnic - or other target attack non-jokes. These slip like lethally bad odors into mass emails, despite efforts to use our own filtering maginot lines, spam blockers, to keep them out. Never works. The lure of the open ground, the inability to fort up. Just last week: see a Polish non-joke morphed into a "Polish immigrant" worse non-joke. Words kill.

Roadside reminder art: Driving and Ads

2007-08-20T09:43:00.001-04:00

There is great art in and from Poland, see http://www.pbase.com/scatts/artpolish; but there is also fun in roadsides.

Warnings are needed, acknowledges this site that is very down on driving conditions, see www.4x4poland.com/driving_Poland. Click on the road signs menu to see explanations of the graphics used.

But there is also good humor. See these roadside faux cops. Traffic calming, and - believe it or not - a reasonable (if temporary)chance of success without the negatives of verbal warnings or the threat of a chase. Also meets budgetary constraints, and is low maintenance. We even saw local-plated cars slow up. At least for a while there was peace on the highway.

Jay Walljasper in his book, "The Great Neighborhood Book," New Society Publishers 2007, cites places where an outsize roadside gimmick will slow traffic better than signs.

Ads without words will also do it. What is the explanation for this Roadside Rameses II, newly arrived from Abu Simbel; or is this from the Temple of Karnak. Do an Images search. Could be either. Drive on.

The one here did more than slow us down, obviously. Full stop to take the picture.

Down the road about a half a mile was the explanation: a sign for The Egyptian Bar.

Auschwitz followup - "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942" and other diaries

2007-07-30T13:38:00.000-04:00

1. This book, now in English, is worth reading: "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942" as edited by his sister, Chava Pressburger, Atlantic Monthly Press 2007. See /isurvived.org/InTheNews/PetrGinz-diaries.html. New York Times review, April 10, 2007, article by Ashley Parker.

Petr was a Jewish boy whose mother was Aryan, and whose father was Jewish. He wrote of the events of his life while in Prague under the German Occupation. He ultimately was killed here at Auschwitz - in Polish, Osweicim - at age 16. This is a picture of the crematorium and gas chamber facility at Auschwitz. There is a second concentration camp almost adjoining, Birkenau. They are often referred to as Auschwitz-Birkenau. I am not sure if Petr went to Birkenau or Auschwitz. See both at remember.org/camps/.

The book includes some of his drawings, poetry and parts of stories: some also from his time at the ghetto at Theresienstadt - Terezin CZ. See Czech Republic Road Ways

We put together our photographs of parts of Prague and other towns that Petr writes about,. These are visual markers, that make the pages of entries come alive for us. Our photos, and history references, are at this site: Places of Petr Ginz. The photos are not just of Prague, where he lived. They include the ghetto at Theresienstadt - Terezin CZ where he was sent, and here at Auschwitz - Osweicim PL, where he died.

2. Compare to Anne Frank. With this new book, compare Petr. and his reporter-like approach, to Anne Frank of Amsterdam and her deeply introspective logs -- the mind of the most famous child-diarist of World War II. See Anne's home at The Netherlands Road Ways. She had been hidden away in a secret annex, and also was sent to Auschwitz for a time before being transported further to Bergen-Belsen, www.auschwitz.dk/Bergenbelsen.htm, where she died. See www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/frank.htm.

The girl had been confined, with little to do but focus on her interior life and the few people always around. The boy had not been so limited - he remained doing errands and going to school, out and about with his friend Popper in Prague, seeing and reporting on specific events of the occupation. He is specific in what happened when and to whom. He was confronted with decimations of family and way of life, daily and directly. Is it true that busy people do not have the luxury of introspection, or is busy-ness a filler because the person is simply not introspective. See the reviews and debate at The Places of Petr Ginz/

More of Auschwitz and its photographs are in an earlier post here, a/k/a/Osweicim (town).

. Now meet Rutka Laskier, who wrote her diary during some four months (January through April) 1943. Rutka Laskier, was from Bedzim, Poland, and died in Auschwitz. Rutka had been in hiding, as had Anne Frank.

For other holocaust and other war diarists among children and adults, see Europe Road Ways: Themes and Common Threads, post on wartime diaries.

Links

2007-06-30T11:26:00.000-04:00

We write out linking addresses, rather than use the blue underlined shortcut, for fear of copyright issues. Copy and paste as much of the link as you need to get to the site, starting with the home page and adding only as necessary.

Malbork Castle, Teutonic Knights (site a/k/a Marienburg

2007-06-19T21:35:00.001-04:00

Malbork Castle was known as Marienburg to the Germans. Where countries have been invaded, occupied, borders have changed through the centuries and people tossed about, remember to search for multiple versions of the same place's names. For example, here is information about the period following the Polish victory at Grunewald, the Siege of Marienburg. See answers.com/topic/siege-of-marienburg-1410.

Without knowing Marienburg is Malbork, a whole segment of the history here would remain obscured.

There was a effort by the Poles-Lithuanians-Russians to the Germanic orders out of the entire area, after the Battle of Grunewald. That effort failed. Look at the site, on the water, and the size of this castle. Some failures result from conditions, not lack of heart. But there was also failure in planning and execution.

Watch whom you invite to help you out. The Teutonic Knights were invited to help the Polish-Lithuanians fight the Prussians, see donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/chrono. And then they didn't leave but instead took over. Marienburg was the capital of Prussia, says the site. No wonder the German-Polish centuries-old back and forth about the area.

Malbork Castle's structures - Three Purposed-Areas

2007-06-19T21:31:00.001-04:00

Brick archways, walls with roofs, towers. Malbork is a series of nested clusters of buildings with differing functions - defense on the outside, moving in to the general living areas, and the third is the Grand Master's quarters. All huge.

That is a wooden covered bridge going to the main gate at Malbork. Long history: Malbork was originally the administrative headquarters of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, an organization dating from the Crusades, in 1309; then sold to Poland in 1457 for old debts, and went to Prussia in 1772; Germany in 1920 after the First World War; back to Poland in 1945, after the Second World War. See www.bartleby.com/65/ma/Malbork.html. "German Secular Medieval Architecture," says Bartleby.

Good overview: "The Resurrection of Malbork Castle," at www.bu.edu/econ/faculty/kyn/newweb/economic_systems/NatIdentity/Poland/EE/MALBORK.html.

Malbork Castle - Brick Gothic

2007-06-19T21:13:00.001-04:00

Brick Gothic. To me, a new concept. Does Malbork qualify? Malbork does not have the towering steeples usually in this category, so probably Malbork predates the concept of gothic, and is a mere castle. Brick gothic in the cathedral sense is indeed at Gdansk (Danzig), and see the countries where these are featured at www.eurob.org/index.php5/Citiesounties;3/4 . Germany now even has a Brick Gothic Road, since 2004, highlighting this architecture. Also see brick gothic in Wikipedia.

One thing clear: where flat land and agriculture predominate, brick is the building material of necessity - no rocks around. And brick is labor intensive and difficult. See how to build a brick wall at ri.essortment.com/howdoibuildb_rjuw. No wonder militaristic societies are those with plenty of stone. Just pile them up. Throw them and duck behind your wall. Plenty of time after construction left to invade somebody. Such as your less rocky agricultural neighbor. Is this concept apt?

Meander: Once we passed a farm, on that huge expanse of flat, agricultural space in mid-Poland, and there was a single huge boulder in the middle of a field. Old glacier dropping?

Started us thinking: We see virtually no rocks in this area of Poland. No stone walls, no stone houses, no stone castles in this flatland. Some hills, small ones, but mostly the levels. All people can use is brick. How many bricks to a building stone? What is the differential in labor time to produce?

While there are crops in the field. And look at the huge sizes of these brick structures. It would take up many growing seasons just to build these.

This castle is on a river, so rock for foundations could be brought in. For a history of Malbork, see malbork.pl/en/index.

But back to the issue of wars. Without rocks, what do you pick up to hit your neighbor with when you get mad?

Does location with likelihood of invasion (no natural borders to speak of), and lack of ready rock and natural defenses have more to do with being overrun than a concept of inherent national character?

Malbork Castle in ruins 1945: Reconstruction

2007-06-19T21:00:00.001-04:00

Look at Malbork in 1945, after Nazi occupation. Can anything be recoered from places in this shape?

Coincidence. Today's newspaper, Hartford Courant, had an article noting that US soldiers in Iraq were being given playing cards. These do not have the 52 most wanted. These have archeological sites, and artifacts, with the idea to promote their preservation.

Yes, so long as items are not in smithereens. That word may be from the Irish, "smiderini," meaning fragments. See m-w.com/dictionary/smithereens. But it costs and takes decades.

Here are photos of the reconstruction - apparently enough of the wonderful carvings on the capitals, and archways, and staircases and walls, were left in chunks and could be reinstalled.

Set school children loose here and have them photograph every human activity they find in the carvings. It would take them months, and they would learn more about medieval life than in books.

Malbork Castle - Teutonic Knights, Grand Masters

2007-06-19T17:18:00.001-04:00

Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights. Their headquarters at Malbork Castle, medieval, is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. See
the- orb.net/encyclop/religion/monastic/opsahl1.

This Roman Catholic Order as a medical-nursing organization to support pilgrims and the wounded from the Crusades. At Malbork Castle, they had their headquarters from 1309-1457. The Battle of Grunewald was a defeat, but there was inadequate follow-through, and the Knights remained in their stronghold at Malbork. See allgdansktours.com and allgdansktours.com/tours/malbork-castle.php for laymen's summaries of the history. Not fancy, but helpful.

When that Crusades era ended, and the Knights were out of work, they reinvented themselves over time as virtual mercenaries, attacking infidels that included Christians that had not been converted by their particular sponsor. They retained their extensive hierarchy of positions, roles.

They still exist, and at least this site says they have a new purpose. See adambennington.com/military_orders/teutonic_knights. This site is not clear on the new activities, but is a Vatican site, so read closely: chivalricorders.org/vatican/teutonic.htm.

One Grand Master is missing a hand. I recall a castle pamphlet explaining. Will find.

Then, on the grounds, in the old stables, is now a fine restaurant, with its own Knights. The impression is of impregnable armor in the reconstructed mannekins. Only the eyes show.

Then, there are the guys in the parking lot making a living. We enjoyed that also.

Grunewald - 1410 - Polish victory over Teutonic Knights. Grunwald

2007-06-19T11:22:00.002-04:00

Battle at Grunwald 1410
(later a/k/a Tannenberg)

Polish and Lithuanians Defeat German Teutonic Knights

Grunwald, Poland; monument, Polish Victory over Teutonic Knights

1410 - A battle date, and defeat for the Teutonic Knights, a milestone for old Germania, religious and political.

See arms-armor.cz/battles/grunwald/index.php3Heavy losses both sides. How many were involved varies. This site gives a modest number: grognard.com/zines/ph/p0304. It posits 39,000 "allies" (Polish, Lithuanian, others) and 27,000 Teutonic Knights. Sleepers, now, beneath the ground.

A Vatican source posits Knights, at 83,000 in the 1410 battle, and therefore outnumbered by the Poles and their allies at 160,000.

But the site acknowledges that the outcome was not certain based on that alone. See this lengthy narrative of the Teutonic Orders at chivalricorders.org/vatican/. Go to the end. Read about the current activities of the Order, and where it is now most active. We had thought it defunct. Not so. We tried going to the link for the official site for the Teutonic Knights, but it did not come up.

Grunwald. Also known as Tannenberg. The battlefield. Northern, rural Poland.

The Knights, also known as the Hospitalers of St. John, became prominent during the Crusades. A simple search for Teutonic Knights turns up images of them in their white tunics, black crosses, horsemen, iron-looking plate mask helmets.

Their history: sites like this one --atthe-orb.net/encyclop/religion/monastic/opsahl2 --offer the outline chronology of their organization, from papal recognition in 1113, through the Tannenberg-Grunwald defeat and the organization's subsequent bankruptcy, and final expulsion from position of power in 1500, from the Peloponnesus.

Grunewald 1410- The Battle of Tannenberg 1914. Grunwald. History Repeats. World War I and II

2007-06-18T11:59:00.003-04:00

Grunwald 1410,
Fast Forward to Tannenberg 1914

Grunwald 1410, Poland; Tannenberg 1914. Memorial panorama. Battle Lines

First, 1410. Battlefield layout .

This is a setting not to be missed. It is so flat. No place to hide. No wonder the slaughter.

Grunwald, Poland; Battle lines, relief, 1410

Panorama of a war 600 years ago. Horses, pikes, knights. 1410. Poles and Lithuanians win against Teutonic Knights. Both sides with huge losses.

Tannenberg, Battle, 1914, World War I, Germans defeat Russians

Russians also were on the side of the Poles and Lithuanians: see countrystudies.us/russia/7.

Second, 1914. Defeat rankles. So, say some theorists, this is the same site where, at the outset of WWI, Germany returned to fight an old enemy, the Russians. Back to its old Waterloo. Year 1914. See www.firstworldwar.com/source/tannenberg_hindenburg.htm.

There is the idea that Germany chose this site to revisit an old defeat and turn it into victory, when there would have been many alternate sites - the level land of northern and central Poland suggests other places were as feasible. This time, Germany becomes the victor, encircling and defeating the Russian forces, halting the Russian offensive. Read the account of the Russian cavalry commander at this site: firstworldwar.com/source/tannenberg_gurko.

This site gives a cogent account of the context of the battle and issues underlying the choice of site: grognard.com/zines/ph/p0304. It is easy to read because it is typewritten, not glitzy. Scroll down to the map of the battlefield. Take time to even read it aloud, to yourself.

Victory myths. Read more on similar ideas how battles turn into legend, even contemporaneously, and become a foundation for a new motivating paradigm supporting one side or the other. We mythologize the reasons for defeat or victory. See findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3719/is_200101/ai_n8946351. Again, copy and paste as much of the address as is needed to get there.

The cycles of defeat and victory here became concrete. The Poles had erected a huge monument to their medieval victory. After WWI, the Germans leveled that and put up their own; then, after WWII, the Poles leveled that and put up their own again. National identification with past victories and defeats - whether in Ireland, here, or anywhere.

For a Primer on World War I, see 42explore2.com/ww1. This site is a help intended, I think, for school students and homework, but it also helps life-students like you and me. Now it is time to read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book, August 1914, for a Russian's view of the battle. Here is more about it and him: kirjasto.sci.fi/alesol. Go also to this site for books on WWI, and other war books. http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/gwbks12. Study war some more.

Humiliation is a hydra. See pantheon.org/articles/h/hydra. Defeats plant seeds.

Populations - including Lemks

2007-06-18T11:22:00.000-04:00

POPULATIONS, AND THEIR GROUPS, RELIGIONS, NEWSPAPERS AND CULTURE
See www.polonya.org.tr/national%20minorities.html.

Through the centuries, invaders, migrations, neighbors, and originals have lived, separated, mingled. Listed at the poponya site are: Czech, Turkish, Lithuanian, Belarussian, Lemks, Germans, Armenians, Roma (Gypsies, Romany), Russians, Slovaks, Tatars, Ukrainians, Jews,

Of those, the Lemks were unfamiliar. It turns out that they are/were related to the group also in Romania, the Wallachian shepherd-nomads (in Romania and Greece, called Vlachs there). See
www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/ph/pnp/magu.htm. There is a national park area where the group lived, after migrating from the Balkans, in a long process. Only a few remain. See pictures at Romania Road Ways; and Greece Road Ways.

Itinerary after the fact

2007-06-16T18:36:00.001-04:00

ITINERARY
Our trip unfolded this way: enter Poland from Lavoca, Slovakia.
Then to Zakopane, ski and hiking resort in the High Tatras;
Krakow, old capital;
Osweicim (Auschwitz);
Czestochowa and Jasna Gora Monastery (Black Madonna);
Warsaw, the capital;
Grunewald, and the battle leading to Polish and allies' defeat of the Teutonic Knights;
Ostrada;
Malbork, castle home of the Grand Masters, Teutonic Knights;
Gdansk,; Sopot, and the beach;
Gdynia;
Gniew (castle almost became the home of the Grand Masters, Teutonic Knights);
Running short on time so day-long run to Wroclaw;
Swidnica, to relax in the countryside and for its plague column;
Kudowa Zdroj, and its ossuary of skeletons from the Plague and the Thirty-Years' War;
and across to the Czech Republic and Hradec Kralove there.

Music - Czestochowa, Warsaw, Ostrada

2007-06-05T15:18:00.001-04:00

We heard our first polka at the hotel across from Jasna Gora, in the next dining room, where a banquet for one group was going on. We went round and round the radio for more. No beer-barrel was ever heard.

Warsaw street sounds.

And a rock band on a long dock pavilion, at Ostrada, near Malbork, going to Gdansk.

Czestochowa - Jasna Gora, the Monastery

2007-06-05T15:04:00.000-04:00

Jasna Gora Monastery itself.

It has housed the original Black Madonna since 1382, the painting brought from Hungary. See http://www.sacredsites.com/europe/poland/index.html.

The Madonna is featured on the outside
in many places.

No photographs are permitted of the original inside.

Czestochowa - The Black Madonna; Jasna Gora Monastery; also Gdansk, Wroclaw Black Madonnas

2007-06-05T14:09:00.001-04:00

Black Madonnas

At Czestochowa, Jasna Gora Monastery, is an original Black Madonna, one of a long list of many Black Madonnas in multiple countries . See, for example, the list at campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/blackm/blackm.html. Most are at places of pilgrimage, and many are attributed with stories of miracles.

See others we found, at Europe Road Ways - Themes.

Photographs in sanctuaries often are prohibited. Here is the fair use copy of the Black Madonna at Jasna Gora Monastery at Czestochowa, the version as sold in the gift shop.

See the elaborate crowns, additional headdress elements.

We were not allowed to photograph the original. Do an images search for Black Madonna Czestochowa, or Black Madonna Jasna Gora, and see the variations.

Look at the detail for comparison with other versions. The gift shop version has a glorious set of crowns, and yellow robes, one patterned on the Madonna, one plain on the Child.

The images are changed at will - a buyer can choose from a range of complexions in the gift shop, if dark skin does not meet somebody's theological or social needs.

I picked the dark skin because the one I saw in the church had dark skin. Other people were choosing lily whites, or light tans, or sunglowed.

Here is an apparent copy of the Czestochowa Jasna Gora Black Madonna, at a church in Gdansk. It is possible that we mixed this one with the Black Madonna at Wroclaw - we are checking.

Here there is no crown or elaborate headdress on the Madonna or child.

The robes, dark and print, with a differing color for the child, is also different from the gift shop version. See photos at www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/Czestochowa/Czestochowa1655.htm.

The site itself relates to the siege of Czestochowa in the early 17th Century, defending against the Swedes, when only Jasna Gora remained fighting - so you need to scroll down past that to the painting.

And here is one here Wroclaw. Again, it looks like a copy of the original in the sanctuary at Jasna Gora.

The paintings in Gdansk and Wroclaw show very dark complexions for both the Madonna and the Child. The painting in Czestochowa also shows a very dark complexion (the lines there are apparently from damage some centuries ago).

And at this site, still no elaborate crowns, but the clothing is different from that in the gift shop. www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/image/6.2.03/trochimczyk_fig3.jpg

More variations. Go further. At another site, there is a completely different set of colors - they hardly look alike at all except for the faces and pose. Go to www.emergingpig2007.pl/files/programme.pdf.

At this site, several different versions of the Madonna are shown all at once. See www.sacred-destinations.com/poland/czestochowa-jasna-gora.htm. Here, the Madonna is shown as a mosaic, no crown, and blue gown. See www.sacredsites.com/europe/poland/index.html.

So: To the gift shop. I thought I was buying a picture of the original from the church. I don't know what I bought. What universal sales interest - dupe the buyer - is at work here?

Here is the monastery from the outside.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp - Osweicim

2007-06-05T13:24:00.000-04:00

Auschwitz to the Germans, Osweicim to the Poles.

Pope John Paul II lived in Wadowice, near here.

I read today 6/5/07 that there is a new publication of a young girl's diary, not Anne Frank, but "the Polish Anne Frank" or Rutka Laskier, who died here in 1943. See www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,,2096090,00.html.

See the now-tidy streets, a grid of brick barracks buildings, experiment centers, many barracks or administrative centers now separate museum buildings so people from the different countries can see their particular countrymen's relics, and personal belongings, and read about them.

There are ovens, crematoria and gas chambers, set into the hillside. Many explanatory signs. We learned that you look for the tall chimneys, and low grates. Indicia of what went on. See photo at Auschwitz follow-up here, post dated 7/10/07.

Auschwitz is well visited. And, appropriately, at no charge.

After Auschwitz, however, look up Buchenwald, at Germany Road Ways; and Jasenovac at Croatia Road Ways; and Terezin at Czech Republic Road Ways. At Buchenwald, only the foundation areas of most buildings are left, with one large museum structure housing all the displays. At Jasenovac, nothing but a few structures are left, and even the museum is closed with its contents having been shipped to the Washington DC Holocaust Museum.

At Terezin a/k/a Theresienstadt, there is an old garrison town that had also served as a prison facility - even housing Princip until his death, the assassin whose act triggered WWWI). The Nazis turned this walled fort town into a ghetto to hold Jews pending their further transport to concentration and other camps.

The historic fort-ghetto now is repopulated, in bits, with renovations; and now some signs and indications of what the cage areas and railroad tracks, and buildings were used for. There are monuments and explanatory tablets, but few people visiting. A homeless-squatter kitchen operates, hotels seem to be coming. Still, a ghost town, with some green showing.

Which approach does the most justice to the people killed.

We lingered more at Buchenwald and Jasenovac. Those are haunting because imagination fills in. Auschwitz presents as sterile, in its efficiency in herding tourists and labeling and defining what is seen.

Krakow - Wawel Castle, and main square. St. Mary's

2007-06-05T12:46:00.005-04:00

Krakow (Cracow) Poland, Wawel Castle

For a handy review of where these cities are located in Poland, go to ://www.wordtravels.com/images/map/Poland_map.jpg/

And, if you have a handy little internet gadget in your communications device, here is an interactive Google map of Krakow - locate yourself when you are there, then see what is nearby. This site comes from a comment sent to us promoting hotels, but we do not use it for that purpose here. See Interactive Map of Krakow at ://www.roomwithaviewkrakow.com/interactive-map-of-krakow/.

Krakow - or Cracow - North of Zakopane -- is not far from the border, just past the High Tatras mountain area.

Cracow is the Old Capital, from 1038-1639. Then matters of administration and power moved to Warsaw, to the north. See www.krakow-info.com/history.htm. Pronounce it "Krak-ooff" or "Krakuff." There is no cow in Krakow.

Krakow is on the Vistula River, a trade route north and south since ancient times. Here is Wawel, the Castle on the hill above the river - and views of the main square, Rynek Glowny, down a fine long avenue. from the castle.

Krakow, Poland, Marienkirche, Main Square (Rynek Glowny)

Inside Marienkirche is an Altarpiece for the High Altar featured in the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Spring 2007 at page 7; by Veit Stoss est 1447-1533 (German). Others of his commissioned works are at the castle and a marble tomb monument in the Cathedral. The subject of the altarpiece is the Death of the Virgin.

Krakow, Poland, St. Mary's Cathedral, Marienkirche

St. Mary's Cathedral (Basilica) dominates.

We chose to eat at a Russian restaurant. Pointed at things and saw what came - but we did recognize borscht.

There is also the the streetside cafeteria alternative, with limited seating and many elbows and fingers pointing at what is being ordered, at the many "milk bars." These are state-sponsored eateries that are inexpensive and filling, even very good food - traditional. See news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1937351.stm and www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1318872,00.html).

On all these addresses, use as much of the address site as needed to get you there. We do not do direct linking because of copyright concerns. See www.bitlaw.com.

There are webcam sites available. See www.worldlive.cz/en/webcams-135-poland.

St. Mary's Basilica, in Krakow's main square. And the square itself. Rebuilt after 13th Century Tatar invasions. See www.inyourpocket.com/poland/krakow/sightseeing/venue/17091-St._Mary_and_8217;s_Basilica.htm. See its interior at www.cracow-life.com/poland/krakow-st-marys.

Krakow is now an "in" Destination. See the New York Times article from Sunday 5/27/07 -- "Poland's Second City Is First Choice For The Young," by Denny Lee. Krakow's main square was never-bombed, and still has its medieval appearance --Rynek Glowny. Read the article at travel.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/travel/27next-1.html.

Whet on a few sentences by Mr. Lee: "Unlike in Warsaw, which was largely destroyed during World War II, Krakow's stone churches and castles - some dating back to the 10th century - remain gorgeously intact. Older Poles still talk about how the occupying Nazis had apparently rigged the entire city with dynamite, but fled before detonating a single charge."

There is a fine university there, and the old Jewish district called Kazimierz, was used as a backdrop in the film, "Schindler's List," says the article.

Wars are an integral part of the Polish experience. For a history of wars in Poland, Renaissance 1450-1699, see www.jasinski.co.uk/wojna/conflicts/conf01.htm. Click on the 1506 Tatar invasion section, and see the old map, showing borders back then, at www.jasinski.co.uk/wojna/spirals/s-map.htm#moscow. It gives an idea of how empires and powers have pushed and pulled through the centuries, turning Poland into any shape, any size that suited whoever won at the time.

Zakopane - The High Tatras - Ski, hike, resort plus traditional rural

2007-05-31T18:30:00.000-04:00

The town of Zakopane is a high-end sports-oriented resort in the High Tatras, mountains bordering Poland, and Slovakia. It offers skiing and hiking and resort living - beautiful, large homes, elegant and impossibly clean big cars, people and shops, alpine-type hotels, outfits for every outdoor occasion off the covers of the finest sporting goods magazines anywhere. Fine spring skiing still going on. See www.zakopane-life.com/; and www.ezakopane.pl/poland/places_to_visit.html.

Do an "images" search for Zakopane, and consider it over Vale. Lodges and Inns - rustic luxury, as well as the affordable. A destination place,. Fly into Cracow . Log fire even at May breakfast. Spring skiing all over.

The area around Zakopane is traditional, so the area is a good introduction to Poland. On the way in and out are the old style wooden houses and churches.

Cross these areas early in the afternoon at the latest. We came from Slovakia at Levoca at about 4PM, crossed the border and expected Zakopane to be closer than it was. Got darkish sooner. Snaking road, but at least enough other cars around. Tatras looming, loop and hairpin, and the sun kept moving. There were hiking and ski lodges, so we could confirm where we were and could well have stopped. Kept on to Zakopane and it rose up in a sudden magic valley.

The money. Five currencies this trip. At border areas, decision is to stop while in Slovakia and spend the night, convert more cash to Slovakian (no credit cards some places rural), or hop the border to Poland and use the Polish money we already had. Decided to spend down Slovakian at the gas station, tank fill up, water and snacks, and keep on. Have always found hostels, hiking lodges, and good roads in mountain parks. We prefer to keep going.

Zakopane traditional area

2007-05-30T18:33:00.000-04:00

The area around Zakopane is traditional, so the area is a good introduction to Poland. On the way in and out are the old style wooden houses and churches.

But the twisting roads, steep hillsides and forests are also haunting reality-reminders: WWII movies of escapes-fear, panting, panic, chases and dogs.

The wooden churches of southern "Little Poland" are on the United Nations World Heritage List - UNESCO. See /whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=1053

Many houses are large.

Some of the traditional homes are carved and stenciled, with white inside the stenciling.

There is the occasional horse-cart, doing farm work and family transportation.

Advance reading

2007-03-24T18:18:00.000-04:00

James Michener's "Poland," from 1973. This book is not as gripping as his earlier, one-author tomes, but good for the geographic and cultural reasons why Poland evolved and was overwhelmed by other powers throughout history periodically, and with what consequences.

The section on WWII was overwhelming. Absolutely riveting. How that nation survived psychologically, how the pieces of it were forcibly rearranged, just read it. Then do a long salute to those lives, and weep for the stupid jokes that substitute Poles, blondes, lawyers, whatever the Target Du Jour, when the ignorant sip their coffee together at the local coffee shop and snicker at other people.