01/08/2010

Lublin, Poland

So...August is upon us, 3 weeks left now- how time flies....

After another lovely breakfast at the Waksman (highly recommend it if you stay in Lublin), I met Slaw at 9am and we set off in the care to Madjanek. At the reception there was an American asking for directions and then about trains to Krakow- it appeared we were to be getting the same train later.

The memorial at Madjanek is the first attempt I have seen of a reconstruction- it is a mixture of reconstruction/ exhibition (a site for education) and artistic, meaning memorial. The memorial- "Monument to Struggle and Martyrdom" and the "Mausoleum" were built in 1969 when Poland was a state of the Soviet Bloc. The monument is formed of an arc (on the site of the entrance)- the texture is symbolic of ashes, twisted bodies or the destroyed abodes of the people who passed through here- these memorials are always polysemic. The big stones that lead to it are representation of the guards, the small: those who fell, too weak on the march. The path leads downwards- to the hell that lay beyond . Situated just 4km on the outskirts of Lublin, the camp was once 3x this size and just on the edge of the City. Farms that it cut through were evacuated, the houses of the next door worker's estate had the windows of the side of the camp boarded up permanently.

The road which Madjanek is on is called the "road to Madjanek marches"- a commemoration in itself. Originally there was a 600m no construction zone around the perimeter, however in the 1970s some of the site was built on. The original name of the camp was Kriegsgfungenlager (POW camp for Soviets from September 1941), however its name soon changed to Koncentrationlager Lublin, the true name was never Madjanek (a name given by locals because it was near the worker's district). This name struck after the war and was adopted by the State- like Auschwitz, they perhaps did not want to have their town only associated with death.

The memorial site is very large, after the monument, there is a field of barracks to the right, some of which house an exhibition. The first is the "Bad und Disinfektion I" hut. Here are the changing/ shaving rooms, then a long shower room- I shudder- Slaw tells me that this was used as a real shower room- delouse, keep up the pretence (and pacify the victims) because Zyklon B worked better when the environment was wet and hot. Behind this are 2 dark rooms, each with a steel door and peep hole at either end, a grate hole in the ceiling and pipping around the floor. I am told Zyklon B was dropped from above and wall. This is one of the most awful places on earth- should we recreate it? what makes peopl want to see it? Should it be memorialised in such a way- left to live on? Or is keeping it as it was representation of how life was frozen in time for a whole community- which just stopped and disappeared: one we must not forget.

The exhibition is exposed as follows:

Hut 1- 1 side about the SS and the other about the prisoners and transportation (this area is on the sorting baracks)

Hut 2- Continues to talk about work, execution, transports onwards and Polish resistance and liberation.

The gallows from 1 of the fields is displayed. The display and Slaw explain the end of Madjanek- liberated 23rd July 1944, there is a report from the Illustrated London News (double-page spread) of the atrocities and yet no intervention is made directly to the other sites. Auschwitz continues until January 1945.

In December 1994, 7 members of the lower ranking staff of the camp were executed- 1000s attended- was this the first commemoration/ celebration on the site? Slaw mentions that today is exactly 66 years to the day of the beginning of the Warsaw Rising- 01/08/1944 which lasted 2 months. He explains that the Soviets dropped leaflets calling for an Uprising, but once it broke out they declared the actions of the Polish reckless and blamed the Polish Government in London of political motives. As I discover later, the battle of Polish Home Army and Partisans continued against the Soviets for another 11 years. Madjanek was a home to many of them after the war.

Slaw explains that during the Nazi hold over Lublin, 26,000 Jews were transported to Belzec. The rest to Ghetto na Majdame Tatarskim- they were told they would live and many came out of hiding, however in November 1942 they were exterminated at Madjanek.

The third barrack contains maps of territory during the war, camp sites and Lublin sites- a 3D model of the camp lies at the back. In the fourth barrack is an installation: "SHRINE TO AN ANONYMOUS VICTIM" by Tadeusz Myslowski intended as the sign explains for "reflection, meditation and prayer". The black pebbles represent death, the white: the spiritual dimension. 52 lamps shrouded in barbed wire are the flickering fragile lives that came through the gate of Madjanek. The dark lamps- the end of human existence. At the end of the barrack is a secular alter- symbolising danger, it is accompanied by an alphabetic book of the nationas transported to Madjanek on a lecturn. The memorial is accompanied by the sounds of lost voices- prayers from different religions and in different languages and a long dissonant piano chord plays: the lost voices.

Soon after the war, trees were built on the site to bring life to the ground again, however people began to see it as a "nice place to walk" so the trees were cut down.

In the next camp field there is a hut displaying the large bunks (during early period people slept on the floor or created straw mattresses). The 2nd hut shows the later, smaller bunks and a 3rd- a small selection of the shoes collected here- there are thousands- I cannot believe the member - the barrack smells of rot- you can imagine the sense of life decaying...not just in the apparel but from the humans who wore them.

There are several statuettes around- a castle, a tortoise and a lizard which were created by inmates because one of the guards had an artistic nature. The tortoise also came to symbolise the life of Madjanek- "work slowly" (in order to survive). At the end of the 2nd field there stands a monument- the "three eagles"- a column built in 1943 to decorate the field for the Nazis. It was the first memorial, finished even before the camp was liberated- the prisoners had thrown some ash inside the memorial secretly and for them the birds did not represent Nazism, but freedom.

Around the mausoleum are two more memorials- the crematoriums: the ovens and searching tablet still intact, a symbolic graveyard with gravestones for every nation imprisoned and murdered here in the back room and a Sarcophagus in another room- with the remains of the corpses burnt here around July 1944. Behind the mausoleum is a plaque and trenches to commemorate the Harvest Festival massacre 3/11/1943- all day executions after the Sobibor revolt, 18,400 here- the largest killing in one day. Across 3 sites (must recap on what the other 2 were and find out more about this) 42,000 people were killed in the one day- the most during the whole period of WW2.

300 men and women were kept alive, the women to sort clothes/ the men to burn the bodies, after which the men were executed and the women sent to Auschwitz. After this there were no more Jews in the Lublin region, except for a tiny minority who were being held prisoner at the Gestapo prison at Lublin castle- these prisoners survived the war, up until the last days before liberation when the Gestapo massacred all the inmates of the prison, when the Soviets and Polish appeared at the castle they commented on the "stream of blood".

At the mausoleum there is a poetry extract by a Stutthof survivor- "Let our fate be a warning to you". In the mausoleum the ashes and dust lie, some of which was rescued from the security zone farm land here it have been used as fertilizer- which is awful. The memorial at Madjanek was designed by a survivor from Auschwitz.

Slaw tells me of the many other sites around Lublin, the Flugplatz (air field camp) which has now been built over, the umschlangplatz (the ramp at the meat factory from where, deportation selections were made to Belzec)- there are plans for a memorial here, but the factory has gone into administration and therefore there are issues about the ownership of the site.

The next stop on the drive back to Lublin is Lec zynska 61- opposite now lies an innocent children's playground. When the orphanage near Grozka (Jewish) gate was liquidized, the children were marched here and shot. Just past the site is an unusual, modern memorial created as a community project between Grozka and a local school. It is a piece of graffiti art which states "Memory is life".

Grozka gate are involved in many commemorative "actions" (do actions speak louder than words? Is this a better way to keep memory alive than plaques which do not get seen or memorials which just seem to blend into the environs?):

-Child marches and umslangplatz to Madjanek marches

-Facebook page of a young boy from the Ghetto

-Getting school children to send postcards/ letters to children of the Ghetto once a year

There is also an artist who has created a project entitled "I miss you, Jew": http://www.tesknie.com/index.php?id=32, the intention of this project is to provoke people to use the word Jew is an empathetic way, taking away the derogative use of the word in Polish culture. Encouraging a need to remember the Polish Jewish communities that are lost, there is a similar artist display on a building in the Old Town.

The Ghetto memorial has been temporarily moved to the new town (whilst its original area is under renovation)- it is Matzeva shaped and adorned in a Ghetto poem entitled "song of the murdered Jewish people". Around the platform, the places of death are named: Zamosc, Krepiec, Sobibor, Madjanek, Belzec, Trawniki, Ponialawa and Buelzyn.

Near Lithuania square there is a memorial to Jozef Czechowicz, a polish poet who was killed in an air raid here in September 1939. In commemoration, 1000s of people do a march through Lublin once a year reading the parts of his poems that reflect each area along the march.

The old Jewish quarter use to surround Lublin castle, in pre-war Lublin there were 40,000 Jews here and 100 synagogues. All that reminds us of this now is the name of the Gate: "Jewish Gate" and the last remaining street lamp- flickering, but always left on- to remember this absent community. Further down in what was the old Jewish quarter is a memorial: 1944-1955 controversially placed- it is a memorial to the partisans and Polish Home Army who were killed by the Soviets whilst still fighting for their lives after the war.

At Lublin castle, used as a prison by the Russian Empire, Gestapo and Soviets, there are 6 plaques at the entrance commemorating the different communities held here by force. Inside there is a museum (an art gallery and collection of folk art attributed to the Lublin region: still highly agricultural), one of the last rooms is a small photographic commemoration of the massacre 22 Lipca 1944 by the Nazis at the castle, 400 people were shot that day. The photos are those taken by the liberators.

Also in the gallery/ museum was a large table, called the "devil's paw-print" table 17th Century (when this was a courtroom)- legend has it that a noble man bribed a judge to judge in his favour against a peasant woman- she declared that even the devil would have held a fairer court, so that night the devil himself held court and she won, the judge 's hand print was burnt into the table.

Whilst in the castle we also visited the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, its interior is decorated in the most amazing Russo-Byzantine frescos- awe inspiring!! We visited two of the large churches in Lublin, their interiors are amazing- Polish church architecture really expresses the devote nature of the country's people Decorated in gold leaf, detailed biblical frescos and white arcs -amazing! The 2nd church is famous for the "Black Madonna" painting which in 1939 apparently cried blood- 1,000s of people flocked to see it (despite the war and the strict controls Soviets put on people entering the city)- there are still two stain marks on the picture- it is said she cried for Poland. The church found that the substance wasn't blood, but it has never been identified.In this church there was a small board with photos and information commemorating the Priest Blogostowiony Wladyslaw Goral who was taken to Sachsenchausen by the Nazis and died in 1945- he has been blessed.

Whilst in Madjanek I bumped into Roger from my hotel (the American I mentioned earlier), we offered him a lift and let him join us on the tour. He bought us drinks at lunch and some food for the train journey. The train to Krakow is loooong: 5 hours, but it is good to have someone English (well…American) to chat to on the way. He is an American-Jewish guy from Boston who is a high school history teacher, we talked about films, the Holocaust, Europe and the US.

At the Goodbye Lenin met a girl from Cork and in my room are some boys from Bracknell- small world. It is a funky hostel- a free welcome drink on arrival, basement bar is playing punk and hard dance!