Berlin

When buying a ticket to leave Europe, it turned out that the cheapest option was actually to have a one-day layover in Berlin. I certainly didn't mind this, as I had never been to Germany before. In fact, for as much as I have gone around Eastern and Southern (and South-Eastern) Europe, I haven't really spent any time in Western Europe aside from a long afternoon in Helsinki and a few days in Scotland. In a weird way, West Berlin was more exotic to me than Bulgaria, which was familiar.

The most striking thing about Berlin is the difference between East and West, even years after the fall of the wall. Odder still is that the transition between East and West is not at the wall itself, but rather in the Alexanderplatz, under the tallest building in Germany about a mile east of the Brandenburg Gate. This is actually a pretty stark contrast, with buildings on the west end of the plaza looking western, and those on the east end looking like Nowa Huta, the Communist Epcot district of Krakow. These differences extended not only to the buildings, but also to the people walking the streets. I typically wear jeans and a t-shirt or turtleneck and sweater depending on the temperature. In West Berlin I felt too informally dressed, and in the East, I felt formally dressed. In East Berlin it seems like everybody has a tattoo or three, but not in the West. East Berlin looks an awful lot like Poznan or Warsaw. West Berlin looks vaguely like parts of Chicago and parts of Wichita, Kansas. I knew I had been in Poland for a long time when East Berlin felt more like home than West Berlin.

If you'll pardon the expression, I had a "blitzkrieg" tour of the city itself, seeing a lot of the more touristy stuff and dropping in on the fantastic German History Museum, which had some beautiful old manuscripts, armor, the hat Napoleon wore at Waterloo, money from the Weimar era, and some of the grimmest electoral posters I've ever seen: "Vote Catholic Center and maybe the Nazis won't cause a World War" is the tone of some of them. Unlike our current heated political rhetoric, I can't say that those posters were too wide of the mark. For one thing, calling your opponents a bunch of racist Nazi fascists wasn't a slur, it was descriptive. The Tiergarten was a very nice, leafy park, and I was tempted to board a rowboat and paddle around one of the ponds. I didn't, not knowing if it was allowed or if the boat was sound.

The most offensive thing I saw in Berlin was the city's Holocaust Memorial, across the street from the U.S. Embassy. It is comprised of a bunch of black blocks of varying heights, but there is no clear label telling you what, exactly, you're looking at. It is one of those terribly avant-garde installations that could commemorate anything from genocide to the founding of the Lego company. And unfortunately, it is treated as something frivolous, a sculpture of ambiguous meaning that can be used as a playground. I saw couples making out while seated on some of the blocks, high schoolers giggling and taking photos of themselves straddling the blocks, people jumping from block-to-block, all the things that would be outrageous at any Holocaust memorial, but are especially repugnant when taking place in the capital of the nation that made such memorials necessary.

However beautiful the city was, and however much I enjoyed my tour, I could not help but feel uneasy in Berlin. It is a city built on conquest. Prussia was a backwater of the Holy Roman Empire until Frederick the Great made it relevant militarily. It became a capital of world stature after the German Confederation was put together In that city, some of the ghastliest crimes in history were planned and implemented. Reminders of that abound: you can still visit the stadium Hitler built for the 1936 Olympics, and it's still called the Olympic Stadium. The Reichstag is the same one that was burned in 1933, leading to the Enabling Act that gave Hitler dictatorial powers. The Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Monument are both celebrations of Prussian militarism, and the tree-lined boulevard between them (Strasse 17. Juni) was to be the centerpiece of Albert Speer's re-imagined, monumental Berlin. You can get to Wannsee on the U-bahn (subway) and see where they put together the Final Solution. Much as I respect Ronald Reagan, I think it was an exaggeration on his part during his speech at the Berlin Wall to call that city a place of freedom. 

I also realized that, had the Germans not blown up, burned down and looted Warsaw in 1944-45, not to mention not started the war in the first place, Warsaw could have been just like Berlin, a hip place to go for American cosmopolitans. In fact, before the war, Warsaw was called the Paris of the West. After the war the Allies dumped all kinds of money into the reconstruction of Berlin, and the Soviets spent lavishly on East Berlin too, in order to keep up. All Warsaw got was a Palace of Culture from the Soviets and Socialist architecture from the same, after having 80% of its buildings destroyed and 60% of its population killed during the war. Of course, Berlin was destroyed by the war too, and the Soviets were unbelievably nasty when taking the city. Berlin is also a tribute to Communism, and all the suffering that brought on everything east of the Elbe. Had World War II never happened, perhaps that catastrophe could have been avoided. 

Back in Wilmette: One year and some-odd months later

I have taken a bit of a sabbatical from writing on this blog, largely because in the last few months I have been busy readjusting to the United States. I returned home in August, and since then have been re-adjusting to life in the United States and starting a PhD program at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). I do, however, want to finish up this blog in an orderly fashion, a desire I am reminded of by the end of the year, which one year ago was an occasion for me to take stock of how the start of the grant was going.

My reflections and memories of my time spent in Poland bring out mixed feelings, even after I have moved on in my life. The experience was both less and more than I had expected, but on balance I am glad I had a rare opportunity to spend a year abroad, something I think every American should do at some point in their lives.

Poland is a fascinating country because it is not sure what kind of country it wants to be. Extremely capitalist? Euro-socialist? Inclusive and open? Homogenous? Free-wheeling? Wedded to tradition? Religious? Irreligious? Statist? Libertarian? These are all questions that, in the U.S. at least, have kind-of default answers, and it's a matter of degree and political orientation. A Republican and a Democrat will have very different answers as to what kind of country they want America to be, but at least they have answers. In Poland, it wasn't so clear, at least to me, that anybody could tell you clearly what kind of Poland they wanted.

However, the consensus was that what the average Pole wants is different than the Poland of today, but is not sure how to accomplish it. The most frustrating part of Poland was this seeping and serious Polish fatalism: some things suck, but we can't do anything to change them, so why even bother. We can make some sardonic jokes, and while life may be miserable, but at least it's familiar. This attitude is understandable considering Poland's history: for the last 200-plus years, there wasn't a whole lot you could do to improve your situation aside from moving to Chicago. Poland's decisions were made for her in Vienna, Berlin, and especially Moscow. Under the Communists, displaying individual initiative to improve your own station made you an enemy of the state. The resulting attitude of stoic, learned helplessness is not something that can be extirpated by 20 years of freedom and self-determination, particularly when other aspects of the culture (a fearsome bureaucracy, respect for and deference to authority) are fundamentally opposed to change.

What needs to be changed? First, bureaucracy. It seems like you can't do anything without the approval of half a dozen people with overlapping authorities, all of them jealous of their own prerogatives and suspicious of other departments. Second, that deference to authority. I'm not arguing that The Man should have it stuck to him whenever and wherever possible, but there's a difference between a healthy respect for authority and blind obedience to it. There is a Polish saying: "the egg cannot be smarter than the chicken." If you are lower on the totem pole, it is assumed that you know less than your boss does, and should listen to his words of wisdom even when you know that your boss is wrong. I once disagreed with my boss on a point of chemistry, which led one of the other students to let out an audible gasp. This is in contrast to the approach I've seen so far at Caltech, where it is expected that you know more than your boss does about your particular project. In fact, if you don't know more than your boss does, that means you aren't doing your job.  
I think, however, there is reason for optimism. Poland is increasingly in contact with the West, not only through television and the internet but also through travel, outsourcing of jobs to Poland, and study abroad. These last three hold the brightest hope: foreign firms bring foreign know-how and foreign attitudes. Most importantly, they bring jobs: as Poland becomes more prosperous,  people may become more dissatisfied with the status quo. As more Poles have contact with the West, they will begin to realize that society can be different than the one to which they are accustomed. Finally, ever-more Poles will be exposed to these trends, while not having lived under Communism. And the young generation is composed of the biggest bunch of smartasses you ever did see.  

Częstochowa

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

A few weeks ago I participated in my first pilgrimage, to the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa. This is perhaps the most important religious site in Poland, and every year people walk to it from around the country, sort of like Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Others, of course, don't have that much time or religious devotion and take a bus instead, as I did.

The funniest thing that happened to us happened within minutes of our stepping off the bus. We saw a "Bureau of Youth" or some such which featured a giant fiberglass shark biting into the facade. The three of us started taking pictures, and a completely random woman who had to have been at least in her mid-sixties walked up to us. She started telling us about the courtyard of a particular building that was in horrible condition despite the fact that the landlord was getting money to fix it up. She also said there were a number of "ladies of the night" who could be seen there all the time, sometimes with skirts, sometimes with no skirts at all. Would we please take a picture of all this so that it could be written up in whatever newspaper we worked for?

In a Polish context, this actually isn't a weird experience, which tells you something about Poland. If this were, say, a 20-something woman, that would be weird, but older people are expected to be busybodies and generally keep everybody honest. Grannies form a kind of Police Auxiliary, as well as a Politeness Gendarme, and are Overt Agents. I don't think this woman actually lived in that building, but just knew about it and thought it was outrageous. And here were three people taking photos, two of whom spoke decent-enough Polish. It seemed logical enough that we worked for the papers, and we did say the photos would appear "someplace." Of course, that someplace is Facebook, but we didn't want to disappoint. We did check out the address we were given, and the courtyard was actually in excellent condition by Polish standards (and trust me, I've seen quite a few that weren't). We didn't see any shady dealings either. Maybe we had the wrong address.

The monastery is clearly the most important thing in town. Polish cities tend to have three basic layouts. Kraków is arranged around a central square, with the city radiating out from what was once the city hall. Radom and Częstochowa have a church, and the city is focused on a big boulevard that forms a straight line from said church. In Częstochowa that straight line unfortunately goes right through a power plant. The third city layout is Warsaw's, where you have three centers that sort of bleed into each other, because Warsaw is special, just ask the residents.

The centerpiece of the entire monastery complex is the painting of the Black Madonna, to which miracles have been attributed. The biggest miracle of all was the successful defense of the monastery against the Swedes in 1655. There is a side-chapel dedicated entirely to this painting, which is covered at noon and uncovered at 1:30 every day amidst great solemnity. This hour and a half gives the staff time to clean up the chapel, which is a little bit gritty as more or less every single person in Poland has been there at least once. I was there for the covering of the painting, which was done to the blaring of trumpets and booming of tympani. Security ultimately had a hard time ushering everybody out of the chapel. The walls are decorated with all sorts of plaques, memorials, and trinkets left by various visiting groups. The main church is also spectacularly Baroque, though the proportions of the church do feel more Gothic (tall and skinnny).

As I have previously noted, while Poland officially has a separation of Church and State, and while the Church does not have much actual temporal power (to its frustration), Polish national identity is tied up in the Catholic Church. Częstochowa is not just a religious shrine but a patriotic one. Many of those plaques read something along the lines of "Dedicated to the men of the Xth Regiment, who with their faith in God, honor, and country, fought for a Free Poland." "To the patriots murdered by the Nazis, who today sit at the right hand of God."  The Black Madonna is the Queen of Poland. I cannot stress enough, Jasna Góra receives pilgrims who come for religious reasons, but also many who come for patriotic ones.

Two statues have pride of place at the monastery or right in front of it, one of Jerzy Popiełuszko, a priest murdered by the Communist secret police, and Stefan Wyszyński, Primate of Poland from 1948-1981 and a big anti-Communist. I think there was a statue of John Paul II there someplace, and I would be stunned if there weren't. The thing is, all three of these men are national heroes and patriots. 

Aside from the monastery, there doesn't seem to be much going on in Częstochowa. There are some souvenir stands right outside the monastery entrance, some cafes along the main drag, but it seems like most people do their pilgrimage and then blow town. What we saw of the city looked nice enough: it reminded me of Radom but more extensively remodeled. All told, a most interesting experience.

The Warsaw Uprising, 69 years later

The Kotwica, symbol of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army)

On August 1st, 1944 at 17:00, the German occupiers of Warsaw received a nasty surprise in the form of the largest uprising in Occupied Europe. And today, at 17:00, air-raid sirens wailed for a full minute as some held aloft red flares, commemorating that event.

As the Red Army advanced and it became increasingly clear that the Germans were about to lose the war, the Polish Government in Exile in London found itself at a crossroads. If the Red Army were to take all of Poland, there was no reason to think that they would agree to an independent, democratic Poland after the war was over. If, however, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army, henceforth AK), the Polish resistance army, were to take and control major cities such as Warsaw before the Red Army arrived, the Government in Exile might just have a chance to influence post-war Poland. In July 1944, the London government ordered General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski to launch the uprising at his discretion.

This is not as far-fetched an idea as it seems: Yugoslavia, for example, was essentially independent from Moscow during the Cold War, to the point where Stalin tried to assassinate Marshal Tito a couple of times. This was only made possible by the fact that Tito's partisans were largely responsible for clearing Yugoslavia of Nazis and Nazi collaborators, with the Red Army providing some support. The Soviets more or less promised similar support, broadcasting on Moscow radio that the time to rise was now. 

The initial stages of the Uprising were very successful. In the first four days the Germans were largely expelled from the city, and the insurgents waited for relief from the approaching Red Army and support from the Western Allies.

But no support came.

The problem was that the AK, unlike Tito, was not in the least interested in Communism. Stalin already had a Polish puppet government set up and ready to go, and feared that if the uprising were to succeed, not only would that hand a political coup to the Western-oriented London government, it would leave behind an organized, victorious fighting force opposed to Soviet domination. So, Stalin cynically let the Germans finish off the AK for him.

The Red Army had been engaged in heavy fighting to the east of Warsaw in July, but by August the advance stalled. I don't want to wade into why as that's disputed, but many Poles will tell you that Stalin more or less ordered the advance to stall. By mid-September the 1st Polish Army (of the Red Army) took Praga on the east bank of the Vistula. By this time the situation in Warsaw was growing desperate as German reinforcements slowly re-took the city in house-to-house fighting. The AK used the sewer system to connect the disparate pockets of resistance, but those pockets gradually shrank. The Red Army did launch a couple of assaults to try to cross the river, but they were wholly inadequate. Stalin also did not allow British or American cargo planes to land at Soviet airfields, which prevented supply drops to the embattled insurgents. The RAF did try regardless, but it simply wasn't enough.

By October the uprising had largely been put down. The Germans fortified the city and did not withdraw until January 1945. As they withdrew, Hitler ordered the complete destruction of the city. By the end of the war, Warsaw looked like this:

The Old City of Warsaw

General Eisenhower in the main square of Warsaw's Old City

80% of the city was destroyed, between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Warsaw Uprising, and the vindictive German destruction of the entire city as they withdrew. The Uprising killed around 16,000-20,000 Home Army soldiers and around 100,000 civilians out of Warsaw's pre-war population of 1.3 million.

Ultimately, the Uprising was a catastrophe for Poland. The London government was more or less shunted out of any kind of influence in deciding the future of Poland. The Communist (PRL) government first hunted the surviving members of the AK as counter-revolutionary elements, then tried their level best to stamp the AK out of history. Imagine that instead of your granddad getting a medal and the praise of windbag politicians for storming Omaha Beach, he had to flee the country like Edward Snowden, and be regarded as such by the folks at home. That's what my grandfather had to do. He was an officer in the Polish army and a member of the AK though I don't know if he took part in the Warsaw Uprising or not. At the end of the war he ended up in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. It was not safe for him to return home as the Soviet authorities were busy arresting people with that kind of background. He met my grandmother in that camp, and they moved to Chicago in 1950. My dad was born 4 months later. This is by no means a unique story, or even an unusual one. A portion of my youth was spent listening to similar stories, which is why the Polish Diaspora contains some of the most rabid anti-Communists you'll ever find.

The Polish dislike and distrust of the Germans and the Russians baffle some Americans, including some who should really know better. All I have to say on that score is, look at that picture of Warsaw, and imagine that's New York. We hate the movie aliens who do that to our cities on the silver screen, and they're not even real. Or heck, if you're from the South, tell me how you feel about General Sherman. 

The Uprising changed the face of Warsaw. That entire city is at most 70 years old, including the "Old" City, which had to be completely rebuilt. Skyscrapers are a relative rarity in Poland, but Warsaw's city center is full of them. Warsaw has always felt a little bit like Chicago to me: the streets are broader, the buildings are in a more modern style and if you go to certain parts of Milwaukee Avenue, the people walking around look exactly the same.

Another legacy of the uprising and what came after is this sudden rush to talk all about it. In the last 20 years, those counterrevolutionary elements of the AK suddenly became great Polish heroes. Like all great Polish heroes, they fought for the freedom of Poland against overwhelming odds, held on longer than they had any hope of doing, and ultimately failed at great cost. This transition happened just as the survivors of the uprising got old and started dying off.  It was bittersweet to see some of the veterans of the AK at St. Mary's Church today: as boys, girls, men and women they engaged in street fighting that no less a figure than Heinrich Himmler compared to Stalingrad. They lost friends to that fighting, 69 years ago. I fervently hope that the likes of it are never seen in Poland again.

Poland and Religion Part II: Poland and its Jews

I would like to preface this post by saying that I'm hesitant to write it. Everybody seems to have an opinion on what the attitudes towards Jews is, was, or should be in this country where millions of them once lived and thrived and where millions of them were murdered by the Nazis. I've heard Poland called an antisemitic country, but I don't think that's fair. I've heard some intimate that Polish antisemitism doesn't exist. That isn't fair either. The fact of the matter is, as with so much else in this country, the truth is complicated and unclear. Which is what makes this an important post to write.

The problem is, people get very defensive about this particular issue. Polish people in general often feel under attack here, that they've all been unfairly tarred with the same brush. Unfortunately, I think that underpins continuing antisemitic sentiment: the Jews hate us, so we hate them right back, so there. Many Jewish people have heard family stories about Polish antisemites, or Poles who weren't sympathetic or helpful to Holocaust survivors in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. So, trying to defend Poland against accusations of widespread antisemitism is often met with "don't call my family a bunch of liars!" which is understandable. So if you are on one side or the other of this issue, please read this post in its entirety before sending me a bunch of hate mail about how I'm either slandering Poland or I'm whitewashing history.

Poland was once one of the most (if not the most) enlightened countries in Europe when it came to Jewish rights and privileges. In 1264, Bolesław V Wstydliwy granted privileges to Jews in Poland, which were expanded upon by Kazimierz III Wielki in 1334. Meanwhile, in 1290 Edward I kicked the Jews out of England, and they were not allowed to return until the time of Oliver Cromwell. During the Polish Renaissance, however, if you said that Jews used Christian blood in making Passover matzohs (a topic that triggered serious investigations in Germany), you had better be applying for the position of court jester. Many Jews who were kicked out of Spain in 1492 immigrated here, where conditions were better, and by the 16th century Poland was perhaps the center of the Jewish world. This is not to say that antisemitic riots didn't happen, but it is important to note that these happened everywhere, often with State sponsorship that was largely absent in Poland. From what I understand the situation in Poland changed for the worse in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it is important to note that the whole entire Polish state gradually started to unravel at this time as well. The problem is, there is very little stress or emphasis placed on this history in the West, or worse, the Polish government's attitude towards Jews is often conflated with the Russian government's attitude towards Jews, which was never very good.

Of course, the biggest bone of contention is the Holocaust, the majority of which took place in Nazi-occupied Poland. The camps still cast a long shadow here: Auschwitz is only a hour bus ride from here, and the Kraków Ghetto was located just across the river centered on a street that is creepy to walk down even today.

The camps were here because the Jews were here, not because the Poles welcomed the Holocaust. The phrase "Polish Death Camp" is one that causes a lot of anger here, as it implies that Poles were responsible for setting them up and operating them. They weren't. Even had they wanted to work as concentration camp guards, the Nazis would not have let them as Slavs were low on the racial totem pole, supposed to be nothing more than a slave race. Of the people recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, the largest number of them are Polish. The Polish Underground State was very involved in the rescue of Jews. Those who say that the Poles didn't do enough to prevent the Holocaust often forget that 1) the General Government was not a collaborationist regime. Hans Frank ruled with an iron fist. 2) Helping Jews in any way, shape, or form, such as giving or even selling them a loaf of bread, was punishable by the summary execution of you and your entire family. Poland was the only country where this was the case. And the Nazis weren't kidding about that. 3) The Poles actually did launch a massive uprising against German occupation in August 1944, focusing on one city with the Red Army on the other side of the Vistula. It didn't work, and Warsaw was burned to the ground. Active resistance to something like the Holocaust was probably impossible. Oh, and 4) the Roosevelt government knew about Auschwitz, thanks to the efforts of Poles who got themselves deliberately arrested, sent there, and then escaped. The American and British governments knew what was going on, and it was thanks to the efforts of Poles.

This is not to say that there weren't pogroms perpetrated by Poles during WWII: there was at least one, at Jedwabne. Some people snitched Jews out to the Nazis, or blackmailed Jews for their own personal gain. After the Holocaust, there definitely were Poles who were glad the Jews were gone or who didn't help those who had survived. Many Poles during the war just tried to keep their heads down and survive. German occupation in Poland forced people to make impossible decisions every day, so before we condemn those who were passive, we have to remember, we weren't there and don't know what it was like. This entire history does not reduce itself to something as simple as "the Poles helped the Nazis murder Jews" or "every single Pole helped Jews escape." Too few people, in my opinion, consider both sides of the question.

But what about Polish-Jewish relations today? This is, again, complicated. When a film about Jedwabne came out last year, it was extremely controversial: a Polish film that showed Poles in an unflattering light. Some suggested that this was tantamount to treason, and the starring actor occasionally appeared on placards or something, in the middle of a Star of David, with the word "Żyd" or "Jew" in big letters across his forehead. Apparently he also got death threats. Antisemitic graffiti is fairly common here, largely the work of soccer hooligans and similar hoodlums. These people are actually just about the most feared and despised people in Poland, and do it in order to provoke a reaction. I've also heard that the hooligans are in teams of "Jews" and "anti-Jews." In a way, it's kind of like gangsters playing Cowboys and Indians.  

The problem is, I see a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding, both from the West and from Poland. On the Polish side, the typical stereotypes about Jews abound. I once heard two guys settling accounts, and they insisted on settling to the last penny, saying "we're settling up like Jews." Many shops or businesses will have a painting of a Hassid or several carved figures of Jews behind the counter, as it is said to bring good luck with business and money matters. I saw a stupid slapstick play on the Rynek that featured a stock character who was supposed to be Jewish, though he was portrayed in just as unflattering a light as the other yokels in the play. People actually didn't find the show all that funny, though here that's sometimes hard to tell.

In terms of visceral, open antisemitism (as in, actual Jews being called nasty names or being bothered in any way), I have not seen or heard of any of it. The one Jewish guy I know who was born and raised in Kraków says he's never had any problems, and he's very open about his ethnicity. The Fulbrighers who are Jewish haven't reported any problems because of their faith, and at least one of them is actually planning on settling down here. Another has a steady Polish girlfriend. While you do hear and see things that make you cringe, that does not seem to extend to anything more than just words.   

The West also displays ignorance in judging Poland harshly without considering circumstances. In many cases people probably don't think they're behaving in an antisemitic fashion. Stereotypes are often times the only way Polish people have to relate to Jews, as they haven't really met any. It's easy for us to say "well, why don't they overcome these stereotypes," but let's draw an analogy. Say that there had been a serious effort to exterminate black people in the United States in the 1940s, let's say that it had largely succeeded, and let's say that those who survived mostly moved to Liberia. A number of people at the time, and later, would have thought this was a darn good idea. Several generations grow up not really meeting any black people, so the current generation's perception of blacks is instead shaped by the popular culture of the 1920's and 1930's. That would mean most Americans' only experience of black people is filtered through Al Jolson in blackface, Gone with the Wind, The Birth of a Nation, stories your great-grandfather told and the notion that blacks are unusually afraid of ghosts, and that rubbing a black guy's head is good luck. What do you think attitudes would be towards black people if this were the case? Would people be aware that all of this was racist? Probably not. As a side-note, I should also point out that the 30's weren't a great time to be Jewish in America, either.

To continue with the analogy, if you think white guilt is bad now, imagine what it would have been had a Holocaust happened in the United States. Imagine, also, the culture we would have lost. There would have been hardly any Duke Ellington or Count Basie, no John Lee Hooker, B.B. King or Howlin' Wolf, no Miles Davis, no Ray Charles, and probably no Elvis, Janis Joplin, or Eric Clapton either. There would have been no Martin Luther King Jr. or Ralph Ellison or August Wilson. We would have no idea what we had lost, only that it would have been remarkable had it happened.

I see a similar thing in Poland: there's this nagging sense of guilt and gradual realization that Polish culture suffered a huge loss with the loss of the Jews. In the Kazimierz district of Kraków, where the Jewish Cultural Festival is currently underway, there is some effort to re-create Jewish culture, but it's always felt a little artificial to me, down to the guys trying to get you to come into their restaurant by talking like an Alter Kocker, but in Polish. There is an effort to keep the culture alive, but because so few Jews are left in Poland that has to be done by people who are not of that culture, i.e. Polish Catholics. It's a "Jew-ish" experience. The end effect is rather like the white kids in the States who try to be "gangstas": it can be funny. But again, imagine that those white wannabes were the closest thing that we had to, say, P Diddy or whatever his stage name is these days, and suddenly that same thing becomes tragic.

There is a Jewish revival going on in Poland, and a number of our Fulbright fellows are a part of it. Indeed, my colleague Denise Grollmus has done podcasts for The Guardian on exactly this topic. Kraków still has an active synagogue, though the only kosher grocery store in town shut down for lack of customers. Kazimierz, and all things Jewish, are kind of hipster-y. I understand Warsaw has a burgeoning Jewish population as well. A number of Poles are discovering that their maternal grandmothers were Jewish, making them Jewish as well, and some people in that situation take up the faith and the ethnic identity. There are immigrants from abroad who are gradually coming back to Poland, and cultural festivals such as the one in Kraków are well-attended. Dara Weinberg, one of our Fulbright Scholars, said that this revival is vital for changing the narrative, of how Jews view Poles and how Poles view Jews. Until or unless the two sides start talking to each other, and understanding each other, I'm afraid there's still going to be a lot of unwarranted mutual hostility.         

   

Lots of Choirs!

It's been a while since I've posted something, but I hope to post a lot in the next few days as there's plenty of stuff to write about. Last weekend I took part in the 4th International Kraków Choir Festival, bringing together about 30 choirs from 11 different countries, including Northern Ireland and Singapore (!) The festival was arranged over four days, with concerts and a contest divided into a number of different categories. I had a chance to sing in two of these contests and hear, all told, around 11 hours worth of live choral music. One thing that I have always loved about Kraków is that there's almost always something cultural going on, and quite a few of them (such as this festival) are free and things that you just sort of stumble into. 

Now, I've been in some choir or another since middle school, except for a small break the last two years of college, but I think there's only been one time prior to this one where I spent so much time wrapped up in music.

The choral festival was a good educational experience as it illustrated variables that go into making a group sound good or awful. For one thing, unless you are absolutely sure of your group, don't have them perform Mozart: every little error a choir makes is instantly noticeable in the vast majority of his works. One contest was an excellent illustration of how difficult it is to sing in the morning: there was one group that had serious problems singing at 10AM but was very good at 7PM. In the morning, the tenors clearly had not warmed up sufficiently and were missing the top third of their range. A men's choir from Northern Ireland had serious issues one evening but was extremely good the next day, partly in response to the acoustics of the churches in which they sang. The concert in which these gentlemen had trouble was one in which there was both a considerable echo and yet "dead" for the performers: when our group sang there, I had a hard time hearing anybody except for myself, the guy next to me, and the woman in front of me, and that plays havoc with tuning, balance, and blend. When the same choir was in another space, one that was smaller and "warmer", those problems disappeared. 

My two picks for best-in-show were the group from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a group from the University of Malmo in Sweden. The judges more or less agreed.  Both of these choirs picked some very difficult pieces to perform from the standpoints of difficult and/or strange cords to tune, ones where diction and phrasing were of paramount importance, some that were polyphonic and others where entrances and exits had to be very exact, otherwise the piece would fall apart. The technique of both groups was truly superb and I was very happy to listen to about an hour worth of music from each group.

The awards for best-dressed, however, go to a men's choir from Sweden who dressed in white-tie attire with Student caps, which I understand are a very European (and particularly Nordic) thing. Imagine, if you will, Count Dracula inexplicably wearing what looks like a U.S. Navy officer's cap, and you get the idea. Runner-up goes to a Polish choir from Kraków that not only dressed in elaborate red robes, but also had the guts (or insanity) to add choreography to a piece written by J.S. Bach! There were also some children's choirs who were very cute and also quite good for their age group. One group of Russian girls between the ages of about 7 and 12 was absolutely adorable, particularly in terms of the various ways they handled being on stage: some kind of stared around the church in awe, others were very, very serious and still others were smiling their heads off but attentive. Right before the first pitch was given, two choristers even came sprinting down the aisle, having missed lining up earlier. Finally, after the final piece was finished and the director took his bows, the look of relief on his face was understated yet priceless.

My parents were in town for this particular extravaganza, and I think it was a treat for both of them. My mom did a lot of performing as a violinist when she was younger, and I think she sometimes misses it. This also gave her the insider perspective on what was going on.

There are some other differences I've noticed when singing with a Polish choir, but that, alas, is another post.

Trip to Hungary

Stefan Batory, King of Poland 1576-1586, but a Hungarian by birth

Polak, Węgier — dwa bratanki,
i do szabli, i do szklanki

- Poles and Hungarians are brothers,
with both sabers and shot-glasses

Lengyel, magyar — két jó barát,
együtt harcol s issza borát.

- A Pole, a Hungarian, good friends
fight and drink wine together

As the United States so amply demonstrates, any major world power is going to have a lot of people hating its guts. Poland, having been a major power in Eastern Europe, combined with the fact that Poland keeps getting invaded by Germans and Russians, doesn't really feel a lot of love from the neighbors. Heck, from what I understand even the Lithuanians aren't big fans of Poland, partly as the dual monarchy increasingly became the POLISH-Lithuanian Commonwealth as time went on. Like a pop song, Eastern Europe sometimes has me questioning, where is the love?

Well, there's an answer for that: Poland-Hungary. Interestingly enough, they were once part (or in Poland's case, part of it was part) of the same country for quite some time.

Then this happened

  The good feelings between the two countries appear to be very much mutual and very deeply rooted, as I saw on my recent tour of Hungary with the members of "Cantata", The Academic Choir of the Politechnika Krakowska. Indeed, the Hungarians helped the Poles during World War II, taking in a lot of Polish refugees and allowing them to live more or less normal lives despite the fact that Hungary was fighting on what our tour guide euphemistically referred to as "the other side" during World War II. In a museum, I saw a Polish language paper that was 1) well-printed and 2) reporting the death of Reinhard Heydrich, a.k.a. a Nazi so brutal and devoted it kind of creeped Hitler out, as a lead and very welcome story, two things that could never have happened together in Poland at the time. The Nazis weren't happy that Poles were taking refuge in Hungary, but apparently Admiral Horthy basically told Hitler to go peddle his watercolors. The Poles returned the favor by not taking part in the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Hungary in 1956, though in fairness the PRL government had a lot of problems close to home, like an uprising in Poznań. But still, they probably could have spared a few tanks if they had really wanted to.

Władysław Gomułka always kept some spare tanks lying around, just in case.

We spent the bulk of our tour around the shores of Lake Balaton, which is apparently the largest lake in Europe but actually quite shallow. We were hosted by the choir "VOX", in the town of Balatonboglar. And they took that hosting responsibility very seriously. I don't know how this trip was financed exactly, but all I know is I paid 150 złoty (about 50 bucks) for a five-day tour during which transportation, accommodation and meals were covered, and we had all of our dinners with VOX at places of their choosing, including one where the owner (and, as we found out, mayor of a neighboring town) was a tenor in the group. The surrounding area is good wine country, partly the result of ancient volcanic activity that left the northern edge of the lake looking oddly like The Lord of the Rings could have been filmed there. We had a chance to sample a considerable amount of said wine (all of it homemade), along with Palinka (also homemade), a fruit spirit with a taste somewhere between slivovitz and straight vodka. It was of course rather popular among our crowd, and I joked about starting a "Ruch Palinkota" back in Poland. 

Of course, having lengthy discussions with the members of the other choir was another matter entirely: nobody in our choir spoke Hungarian, and while we had an interpreter with us as well as a Polish woman who'd lived in Hungary for over 30 years as our guides, there were only two of them and 40 of us. Oddly, the attitude Poles have to the Hungarian language is an almost exact parallel to how Americans think about the Polish language, namely, "uh, how do you even pronounce it?" A few of us were able to have pleasant conversations with a Frenchman living in town in French, and German or Russian were generally the best bets to go with. Unfortunately, I don't know any of those languages ("ein bier, bitte" is about the extent of my German), so I was reduced to the few words of English anybody knew and wild gesticulations. This amused some of our choristers to no end, with one saying that despite the fact very little communication was going on, he'd never seen two people so engrossed in conversation as I was with an older gentleman, whose name is Imre.

Despite the language barrier, the climate was very warm and welcoming. We sang a few of our songs, they sang a few of theirs, there were a couple that we all knew so we sang together. And I even got to solo a couple of times on "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot!" And unless you count two persons who shall remain nameless (and genderless, though you can probably guess) who were drunkenly mulling over tying bedsheets together to sneak out of our hostel through the window after curfew, there were no particularly outrageous shenanigans I could see.

We sang two concerts and a mass on this trip, one concert in Balatonboglar together with VOX and a mass followed by a concert at the Polish parish church in Budapest. It's nice to sing in a mixed choir again, something I haven't done since high school and which I've missed for some time. I've been rather surprised at the amount of music our choir learns in a short span of time, and a few of those pieces hadn't been extensively rehearsed beforehand. However, I think both concerts went quite well and I have now sung my first piece in Hungarian.

Balatonboglar is a cute town of about 3,000 inhabitants and apparently hosts a horse race every year. We got to see guys driving two-horse hunting buggies through an obstacle course featuring a series of very sharp turns. The combination of traditional dress and traffic cones with tennis balls on top of them was a sight to see. We took a day trip to Keszthely to see some palace or another, inhabited by some seriously rich dudes who seriously built 103 rooms over a span of 200 years and 8 generations. The carriage house, currently a museum of carriages, is itself the size of about 2 American single-family homes, and American families don't stint on their housing space either. You're looking at a palace where the garage would be a nice place to live in. We had to put on slippers over our shoes before visiting the palace, as the floors were all wood parquet. The tour started to get boring after a while, as all the furnishings and portraits and Chinese vases and Italian furniture and French clocks and French vases and Chinese furniture and Italian clocks started to blend together. Though I risk my status as a card-carrying Republican saying it, I got a very visceral understanding of the appeal of socialism just by looking at that place.    

Budapest is continuing to be a tease. This was my second time in the city, but neither time could I claim to have really "seen" it. The first time was several years ago, driving to the Balkans and getting lost in Budapest in the rain. The second time (this one), we had four hours in the city. Our guide decided the best thing to do with those four hours was to show us all of the major sights at breakneck pace, including the most elaborate entrance to a swimming pool I have ever seen, with heavy Byzantine motifs celebrating washing one's hair. We also saw a Basilica, Parliament (from a distance), the Presidential Palace, and a subway station. We did see both Buda and Pest, and if I understood our guide correctly, Budapest is actually a city run on a federal system: each District governs itself. I wonder what happens if one of the decides to secede?

Pictured: Mayor of the XXI District

In other political news, I've heard that Hungary is unfortunately slipping down a semi-fascist path. Now, I didn't test this personally by standing in front of Parliament yelling "Viktor Orban is a schnook" and seeing what happened.

I doubt he would have been amused

Anyway, one of our singers asked one of the Hungarians about politics, and they said that things are gradually deteriorating to the point where if you're going to complain about the government, it's best to do it quietly or not at all. The EU has been worried about Hungary for quite some time, as the government has cracked down on press freedoms. The government itself is worried about the rise of a neo-Nazi party, Jobbik, which like all extremist groups does well when times are bad. It is all very unfortunate and I hope that both hard and softcore totalitarianism are just passing fads.

I had a wonderful time in Hungary, our hosts were fantastic and we had a chance to see a number of sights. I think I'd like to go back to Budapest, the question is now, how to find the time?