Auschwitz-Birkenau: Beyond Twisted

"Time has no power to erase these memories."  A filmmaker at liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945

A large encased exhibit is filled with human hair, 700 tons of it discovered after the camp was liberated in 1945. The hair of thousands of victims, mostly women, mostly infested with Zyklon B and other lethal poisons. The hair of stunned prisoners brought like cattle to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp outside of Krakow, Poland.

Another exhibit houses thousands of pairs of eye glasses, ordinary glasses that belonged to human beings blinded by evil, then murdered. Glasses piled up like the victims of the gas chambers here, 400 to 500 to 1000 or more at a time.

Another large window exhibit contains a mountain of suitcases, the last remnants of the precious possessions of Jewish victims who couldn't begin to imagine the horrors awaiting them. The suitcases bear the names of their owners. I feel compelled to say the  names to myself, like a prayer list, but the tour Jud and I are on moves ahead and I have to push on; I cannot get them all. I feel guilty. One suitcase is marked simply "M. Frank." Did this suitcase, perhaps, belong to a relative of the young Anne Frank? Did the suitcase of "I. Meyer" belong to a father and mother separated from their young children, sent to the right or to the left, never to be seen again?

Room 6 in Block 6 contains the sad and forlorn remains of these traumatized children: an exhibit of their shoes, so small and worn out; of their clothes, little cotton dresses and hand-knit caps and sweaters; a few books, some toys, a once-lovely doll whose head is severed from its body, its face smashed in. Or is that a real child?

We walk through the gas chambers. We see the extant evidence of mass murder. We see, but we do not comprehend. An exhibit contains thousands of empty Zyklon B containers, testimony to its extensive use and effectiveness in killing hundreds and thousands of innocent and captured people at a time. Terrified people in the throes of evil, stripped naked, packed like sardines in a small room, the door closed firmly, the gas turned on, hundreds dead within 15-20 minutes. The makers of the gas made a killing, too. Better than guns. So cost-effective. So profitable.  I feel sick to my stomach.

Then there are the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which worked round the clock, scattering human ashes like snow over the ground of the camp and beyond, into Krakow itself.   Oscar Schindler, in one scene in the Stephen Spielberg movie, filmed mostly in Krakow, wipes ashes off a car in disbelief and a growing moral outrage that was in short-supply at the time, anywhere.

The tour seems endless. Just when you think you have seen it all, our knowledgeable guide leads us to other horrors. Here is the killing wall where victims were set up like props and shot outright, there the portable gallows where people were hung in front of an audience of family, friends, and emasciated prisoners in various stages of traumatic shock. The daily life of Jews subject to random shootings, starvation, torture, and one inhuman act after another.

We walk on in a daze. Here, our guide says, pointing to blocks 14 and 15, are the medical buildings, places that prisoners tried to avoid at all costs, where medical experimentation took place on human subjects, where women were steralized, where the sick, diseased, and over-worked were sent to die by lethal injection.

And that small square by a kitchen? That's where the Jewish orchestra played marches to muster prisoners to the yard so that they could be counted accurately by the SS, then sent to back-breaking work to die. The musicians played their instruments, but had no voice; they were used to play death marches for their fellow prisoners. I cannot grasp this reality, this torment. It seems so demonic, pitting victims against victims struggling to survive this nightmare in any way they could.

"The devouring of human life," the brochure says. But language seems inadequate. First Poles, some 728 "political prisoners," when Auschwitz was established in 1940, then Jews, along with gypsies and others, who met a fate unimaginable, on a scale beyond belief. Over 1.5 million murdered. Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The pre-meditated, meticulously planned annihilation of human beings.

Primo Levi, an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor, calls it "the gray zone," a realm beyond good and evil, beyond morality, beyond any language we know. How anyone survived is a miracle.

"The Holocaust left us with a basic vacuum in terms of human meaning," says a priest-scholar, "which, if it remains unfilled, can open the door to other ideologies equally destructive of human life at all levels."

The physical remains and documentation of the horrors of the Holocaust hit you in the pit of your stomach. Photo after haunting photo of victims, in striped prison garb, peer at us through sunken eyes filled with fear, disbelief, dread, deadness. Condemned to extinction. "You are witnesses," they say. "You are witnesses to this gigantic factory of death. Do not forget us. We are real. What happened to us is real. Do not forget us." Time cannot erase these memories. Nor explain them. Beyond language. Beyond twisted.

Magical Budapest

History museum, painted ceiling Opera House, eagle, elephant, view of St. Mathias across the river.

I am in the magical city of Budapest, mourning for my brother Loren. He would have loved it here.

Budapest has a complicated and sorrowful history, a history of destruction and reconstruction over many centuries. The story is well told in the columned Hungarian Museum of History, a beautiful classical structure. Loren knew this story well. He would have filled me in.

After marveling at the beauty of the museum, which is right across the street from our funky hostel, the Lavender Circus, my PCV friend Jud and I went from room to room, from one era to another. It is a chronological presentation from medieval and Renaissance times, with their artisanal traditions and exquisite craftsmanship--jewelry, fabric, metal work, furniture--into the 20th century, dominated by World Wars I and II, Nazi atrocities, and harsh Stalanist regimes. The displays, artifacts, documents and memorabilia are fantastic, often accompanied by authentically produced dioramas in rich detail and some of the earliest historical film footage. A fascinating journey through time.

Much like Ukraine, in some ways, Hungary has a tortured history of foreign invasions, occupation, war, dispersion, resistance, loss, and rebuilding. Budapest has been victim of all of it. While looking at grotesque statues of fearsome soldiers definding the city, in front of the Buda castle or in Heroes Square, I think I heard Loren say something about how necessary it might have been at the time, but how senseless it seems now. Sounds like Loren. He not only knew this complex history, he also knew that Hungary, inspite of its dark past and struggles, fiercely hung on to its identity through the worst of times. Loren understood this on many levels.

Budapest is now in its glory. It shines with magnificent architecture, great parks, bustling squares, great shops and restaurants, friendly people, and the fabled Danube River. Sometimes I think I see Loren peering out from spires and gargoyles, on Buda palace, around St. Stephen's Basilica, from St. Mathias Church, in Heroes Square and the Fine Arts Museum, around ancient palaces that have been reborn as museums. He's often behind angels and chubby cupids and lovely floating women painted on the ceilings and walls of these awesome churches, the Opera House, the History Museum.

I passed a statue of a large cheerful elephant in front of The famous Gerbraud restaurant in Vorosmarty Square, the heart of Pest, and Loren could have been hiding behind it. I looked for him, but I didn't see him. I think he might have been playing hide-and-seek behind that elephant, an animal he was fond of for its lumbering persistence. He might also be around the many statues and carvings of lions and eagles that are everywhere, on buildings and bridges and parks and walkways, all over Budapest. Symbols of courage and freedom. Symbols Loren loved.

Jud and I especially enjoyed our walks along Andrassy ut, a boulevard so full of fantastic architecture from every historic period that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Champs Elysee of Pest, Andrassy ut is graced with grand buildings in gothic, classical, baroque, art nourveau and other styles. Many of the older buildings were once almost rubble, destroyed during wars, some still pock-marked with bullet holes, but most have been lovingly restored over time. It is a feast of the senses to walk along this boulevard, and best of all, it's on the way to the Opera House.

In fact, Loren pulled us inside, and last night Jud and I saw the most ethereal ballet I have ever seen in one of the grandest Opera Houses I've ever been in. The surroundings were breath-taking. The dancers were heavenly, so fluid, so elegant, so masterfully trained (at the Hungarian National Ballet), and the choreography, the lighting, the music so exquisite, that we were transported to another realm. I felt closer to Loren.

As long as Jud and I keep moving, I am okay with Loren fading in and out. But when I am still, the silence is too great. I want Loren by my side, talking to me, going on and on about everything he knows and wants to tell me, like we did in Costa Rica, on our Southwest and Utah adventure, or our Florida explorations. No intermediaries. No gargoyles, spires and statues. Just Loren, with me in Budapest.

History and Hope

Holocaust Memorial, Kiev.

I was in Kiev over the weekend for a meeting of over-50 year old PCVs. It was great to be with close friends. We had our SNAC (Senior Network Action Committee) meeting at Peace Corps headquarters. We learned that the newest PCT Group 38, now in training in Chernigov, has many more seniors, many more over-70, than our group and previous groups did. Lillian Carter would be pleased! So are we.

After the meeting we had a grand tour of Kiev given by Dr. Valeriy Gontarenko (Dr. V), who grew up in Kiev and shared the glories and stories of his historic Podil neighborhood, one of the oldest in Kiev. We went to other sites, through a craftsmen and artisans neighborhood, to Parliament, the President's House, and majestic government buildings near bustling Chrishatik Street, the heart of the city, and to see St. Cyril's Church Museum, adorned with beautiful paintings.

We also went to the Holocaust memorial (above right) in Babi Yar, the large ravine outside of Kiev where over 33,000 Jews were rounded up and killed in cold blood on September 29-30, 1933, perhaps the largest two-day massacre of the Holocaust. Dr. Sasha Gonta met us there to share more information about this tragic event, one which the Soviet government didn't acknowledge and is only relatively recently being uncovered and discussed publicly. The Holocaust tragedy is also told in the documentary Babi Yar, by Anatoly Kuznetsov, based on the chilling and horrific experience of a survivor who played dead on top of thousands of corpses of loved ones and friends, artist Dina Pronicheva.

I cannot imagine the horror. I cannot imagine surviving. We walked the grounds aware that we were treading on a huge cemetary with thousands and thousands of unmarked graves, the voices of the massacred silenced, but not forgotten.

We also remembered another atrocity, the Holodomor, the starvation of 8-10 million Ukrainians in 1932-33 who, by order of Stalin, were forced at gun point, torture and threat of death or exile to Siberia, to give up their grain, all of it, their grinding wheels, their food. Controversy surrounds the details of this tragedy, and some deny it, but modern scholars have placed it in the context of Ukrainian resistance to Stalin's forced collectivization of their farms.

Our PCV friend Ilse, whose mother was born in Ukraine and fled with her husband to America in the1940s (Ilse's not sure how but with the help of friends), says her mother told many stories about this famine and her own tragic loss of several family members. It was good to have Ilse and her husband Carl with Jud and me on this visit.

It was president Yushchenko who had the Holodomor Park Memorial built to the victims in 2007-8 (photos right, the former president with his daughter). It includes a modern obelisk, along with the bronze statue of a starving young girl and a circle of grinding wheels. Very moving. It is set in a beautiful park near the Kiev Pediersk Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves, the oldest orthodox Christian monastery, started in 1015. The old and the new. Good and evil. Sacred history and holocaust history.

The Holodomor is one of the newest memorials in the capital city of Kiev, and it is filling the need to remember. Thousands of daily visitors and hundreds of flowers and lighted candles placed at the site attest to its power to move us. Yushchenko, I think, was right about this.

But president Yushchenko's obsession with historical truth and remembrance became unpopular, and he was accused, for example, of favoring history over solving present-day problems. Still, Ilse thinks he will go down in history as a good president. I agree. Not soon, not now, but in time.

He will be, perhaps, the Ukrainian equivalent of Turkey's Ataturk, who instituted a republic on the foundation of preserving the past. Istanbul is now a tourist attraction for millions of visitors from all over the world because of it. It can happen here.

The generation that witnessed the Holocaust and Holodomor is fast disappearing, so first-hand accounts of these tragic stories will be lost if they are not told, collected and preserved now, and if we do not have ways to remember them. We need to be the voices of the dead, a community of memory.

We need our memorials not only to celebrate our heroes and heroines, but also to remember the dark moments in our history, to remember the losses, the killing of the spirit. Scholars remind us time and again that if we don't remember our history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Uncovering the secrets and lies of the past is difficult, but it can be a positive first step toward the future. It can be part and parcel of plans for social action, economic development, and social change, in Ukraine as elsewhere. In time, all these goals will converge.

Istanbul is a great contemporary example of such convergence. Ukraine will one day use its history to illuminate a vibrant present. It will become, like Istanbul, a destination for honoring the past and looking with hope toward the future. History and hope. In time, Ukraine, in time.

Going to Severodonestsk

I had to go to Severodonestk last week to sign off on a new bank account for the Peace Corps grant to Victoria for its “Know Your Rights” project. Not surprisingly, the Peace Corps-approved ProCredit bank does not have a branch in Starobilsk.

Severodonestk is a medium-sized industrial town about 60 miles from Starobilsk. It is not very attractive, with lots of Soviet-style buildings and belching chemical factories. Maybe I just didn't see the nicer parts of the city. Or perhaps it's that Spring hasn't arrived there yet. The town square is pretty, however, with a majestic cultural center, and the town features a huge bazaar covering several blocks between the center of town and the bus station. A pleasant walk. Dozens of plastic flower vendors added color to the scene, an irresistable lure for me, and I bought some pure white calla lilies as an Easter present for Luba.

But it took two hours to get there, on a crowded bus without shock absorbers on one of the worst roads in Ukraine I think. We bumped along at 30 miles per hour, hitting every pot hole. They were hard to avoid. The ride was jarring and jolting. People and packages went flying. We were on top of one another.

The bus ride back to Starobilsk was even worse. Travelers outnumbered buses, and people outnumbered seats. Instead of lines, there were crowds of people pushing and shoving, including babushkas with huge packages and bags plopped everywhere. One large woman shoved me aside and put her gigantic bags at my feet to block me even further. It was a different woman than the one who shoved in front of me at the cashier's counter when I bought my ticket. These shoving babuskas kept multiplying. Where were the sweet kerchieved-babuskas when you needed them?

My lilies stuck out from my shoulder bag, looking very pretty and perky I thought. But the pushing and shoving to get on the bus knocked off the white flowers so I ended up with long green plastic stems looking as forloin as I was feeling. Some passengers were kind enough to pick the callas off the ground and give them to me, not as pure white as they had been, but I managed to salvage a few. I was pushed onto the bus by three or four people and ended up, discheveled and disjointed, at a window seat.

On top of all this Ukrainian surrrealism, the jet lag from my trip home sent me drifting. I couldn't keep my eyes open, even with the shoving and pushing. More people threw themselves onto the overcrowded bus as I unwillingly slipped in and out of sleep. My tiredness took over. I awoke at one point to find a big bag on my lap. There was no room for it any place else. Such are the perils of a PCV in a far-away village in Ukraine.

By the time we got back to Starobilsk I wondered about the joys of travel. But it's not just here, I reminded myself; bad roads and obnoxious people are everywhere. I added another notch to my Peace Corps adventure belt, and saw the Calla lilies smiling at me.

Whirling Dervishes, Captured Tourists: The Sacred and the Secular

A friendly, smiling, English-speaking PR man (that's what I took to calling them) stops us in our tracks in front of a restaurant as we walk along the Divanyolu Caddesi, the Tram street and I believe the old Roman highway. It's a ubiquitous drama: the main means of pulling in business in Istanbul. It works, too.

He asks where we are from, chats amiably, then gets down to business: he wants to tell us about the evening's whirling dervishes ceremony and sufi music concert. His job is to sell tickets, and he is good at it. Great food, great entertainment, he assures us. We look at each other, check the menu, and buy our tickets.

These pitches are hard to resist, like those of the rug salesmen who are stationed at every tourist site and about a few blocks apart throughout Sultanamet.

There's no avoiding them. The rugs are beautiful; the pitch is a lesson in art and cultural history; and the apple tea is delicious. They treat you like sultans while trying to convince you to spend your money. The shop owner talks about the rugs in vivid detail, while his helper dramatically unfurls rug after rug. I wish I had bought a dozen rugs; I felt bad after every pitch, as if letting someone down.

We had talked about seeing the whirling dervises so we succumbed to this friendly pitch with pleasure. It was a good deal. Both the food (fresh seabass) and the ceremony were memorable. The PR man had filled the restaurant. We were captured tourists.

The whirling dervishes ceremony, a swirl of white billowing skirts, has its roots in Sufism, a mystical form of Islam dating back to Persia. The dervishes were followers of poet and philosopher Mevlana Rumi. In this modern age, as I understand it, the dervishes ceremony is more spiritual than religious.

The purpose is still the same: to get closer to God. The dervishes twirl into a meditative state, their turning accompanied by Sufi music--a violin, flute, bass board, and hand drum--evoking the sights and sounds of ancient Turkey.

A pamphlet on the ceremony describes it this way: "Departing from his ego,a dervish turns toward truth and spiritual perfection, returning a fulfilled, mature, loving person devoted to service to all creatures without prejudice or discrimination of belief, race, class or nationality."

We were witnesses to this transformation. The dervishes in reverie beam with serenity, an aura of bliss surrounding them.

As Rumi said, "This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet."

Is it any wonder why Turkey fascinates? We were tourists captured in the lyrical love poem that is Istanbul.

Turkish Delights

"The Greek colony of Byzantium was transformed into Christian Constantinople in AD 330 and became Islamic Istanbul after the Turkish conquest of 1455....For over 2,000 years travelers have been dazzled by the marvels and mysteries of Istanbul."
John Feely, Istanbul (Penquin Books, 1996)

"It's amazing where life takes you if you take life as it comes," I wrote in my last post on Istanbul. 

I was thinking about how I got from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Starobilsk, Ukraine, and from there found a way to Istanbul for Christmas 2009. It just happened. A convergence of time and place, a twist of fate, perhaps. Not that Jud, Jason and I didn't do some planning, but life just seemed to take us there.

Author John Feely is right: we were dazzled. Istanbul, a penisular city of 15 million people, brims with things to see and do. We absorbed as much as we could, and marveled at the city's beauty and diversity. We were also taken with simple things, like how clean the city is, everywhere we went; how excellent the public transportation system; how bright the lights, how clear the nights; how friendly the people, how welcoming, and so many spoke English.

Istanbul's textured life, woven from the threads of many cultures, fills the senses and feeds the soul like an exquisite Turkish carpet. Elegance and attention to detail are woven into the fabric of its urban life. The blend of cultures is as sublime as a Persian rug, as delicious as a Turkish stew.

The grand mosques and palaces, the lively neighborhoods, the busy harbour, fantastic shops and restaurants, the great bazaars, predominate. Yet, many Turkish delights on a more modest scale than those fit for emperors and sultans also amaze and amuse.

Topkapi Park on our way to the FerryWe were on our way to catch a ferry at Eminonu to take us across the Bosphorus to Asia when we discovered we could walk through a park. It was Topkapi Park, part of the grounds of the magnificent Topkapi palace and the famous Archeological Museums. Compared to these massive and elegant architectural giants, the park is simple and quiet. It was a nice day and we decided to keep walking rather than visit these popular tourists attractions. This kind of spontaneous thinking about where to go kept us from ever going inside either the palace or the museums, but, we assured each other, we would do that on our next visit.

I loved walking through the park at a leisurely pace with Jud and Jason. As we passed flower gardens, fountains, and a statue of Ataturk (a hero I want to learn more about), we could see the bustling harbor through the bare winter trees. The branches formed an archway that framed the harbour and the tall minaret of a mosque like an Islamic stained glass window.

Sometimes on the way to doing something you happen upon something else, lovely surprises. The Park was one of them. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from novelist Ursula:LeGuin: "It is good to have an end to journey toward: but it is the journey that matters in the end."

Standing in AsiaNone of us had been to Asia, so we liked the idea of taking a ferry across the beautiful Bosphorus to the other side of the city, the Asian side. It's incredible to me that Istanbul has a European and an Asian side, a true gateway between east and west. I think it's the only city in the world that can make this claim. The Bosphorus was a valley that split apart thousands of years ago to form the European and Asian continents. Just the idea astonishes.

We found the right ferry at Eminonu and took our seats. The crossing was pleasant but it seemed momentous, as if we were players in a great historical drama. Jud met an interesting man who formerly worked for NATO, lives in Budapest and was visiting his native land. The man invited Jud to visit anytime in Budapest. I told Jud I'd be happy to accompany him. PCVs can be very bold!

We walked off the gangplank into a another beautiful park, this one full of cafes, flower vendors, and shops. We didn't get very far into Asia. We were just glad to say we had been there. We stood on Asian land. We strolled a bit, smelled the flowers, and sat for a delicious cup of apple tea. 

The Egyptian (Spice) Market
Warm hospitality and the vibrant colors of spices are among the main ingredients for a wonderful Istanbul adventure. That's why there's nothing like going to the Spice Market on a gray, rainy day. The colors of cinammon, saffrons, chilis and other spices from Egypt lit the Bazaar even when the lights were out. Yes,

in fact the lights did go out while Jud and I strolled among the various stalls buying some spcies and teas for gifts. No problem. Candles were light, lanterns fired up, and the colors of the Bazaar burst forth like fireworks in a dark night sky on the 4th of July.

BookstoresWalking along the tramway is a good way to see the city, and catch a ride if need be. The walk is wonderful for capturing the sights and sounds of Turkish culture, and that's how we happened upon two great bookstores. We spent quite a bit of time in the first shop browsing through books about Istanbul. We resisted the temptation to buy books (hard to do) and walked across the street to the second bookstore, called "Window to the World." This is a modern bookstore with a wide selection of books on every aspect of Turkish history and culture. "The widest selection in the world," its advertizing boasts. 

Imagine browsing through books on Anatolian design ideas, Turkish cuisine, Iznik ceramics and carpets, Islamic architecture, Byzantine art, the Ottoman empire, the Bosphorus, Turkish poetry. Many of these books are in English, which meant Jud and I could spend hours going through them. And we did, I think to the manager's dismay. When I wrote down the above quote from the John Feely book on Istanbul (turns out he's one of the best-known authors on Turkey), the manager came to look over my shoulder. I put the book aside and went browsing again, selecting a package of beautiful notecards to buy, a dozen different tile designs. Jud noticed the transaction and said it looked like I was making amends! I think I was, but now I wish I had bought a few books.

A Turkish coffee and delicious pastry at a nearby cafe topped off our leisurely tour along the tramway. Turkish delights!

Discovering Instanbul

The Blue Mosque with its six towering minarets reaching to heaven glimmers in the night sky. The call to prayers beckons the devout for the fifth and last time today.

I have just arrived in Istanbul from Starobilsk, a long travel day, but I am called out too. I unpack a few things, then go for a walk around The Antique Hostel in ancient Sultanahmet Square, where I am staying: might as well get my bearings. PCV friends Jud and Justin have yet to arrive.

The bustling streets are aglow with white and blue lights, mostly blue and brilliant; lively patrons fill shops and restaurants even in this off-season. The Turkish people are happy and friendly, eager to talk, know where you are from, have your business, serve you food, sell you treasures, sell you a rug, with a hot cup of delicious Turkish apple tea. It's a mild evening, mild after coming from freezing Ukraine.

Around another corner I go, and that's when I see it: the Blue Mosque. I didn't realize it was so close to our hostel, and it takes me by surprise. Actually, it takes my breath away. I feel my spirit soaring. Such beauty and majesty. I am transported to a glorious Ottoman past. I am mesmerized.

When I turn to the right, to the West, another amazing sight: directly across from the Blue Mosque, beyond beautiful fountains, is the domed basilica of Hagia Sophia or Ayasofya (Holy Wisdom), an architectural feast, complex and layered. It is older, perhaps wiser. Begun in the reign of Constantine around 340 and rebuilt three times, it was a major church of Christendom for over 900 years. It was then a mosque for 481 years. It is now a museum, thanks to the foresight and wisdom of Ataturk, revered first president of the Republic of Turkey, and his historically conscious successors up to the present. Ayasofya watched, I'm sure with pleasure, as the Blue Mosque ascended, watched as over 35,000 blue tilies were carried to its interior to glorify Allah, watched as the faithful came to pray. A living mosque to this day.

Behind Hagia Sophia is the Basilica Cistern, even older than Ayasofya, a restored underground Roman cistern, one of several hundred that still lie beneath the city. It was built by Emperor Constantinius I to provide water to a growing holy city, the Rome of the East, and later restored by Justinian. It's beautiful columns have stood firm for centuries.

Sultanahmet encompasses incomparable Byzantine, Roman, Ottoman and Islamic architecture. It is the soul of a city that straddles two continents, Europe and Asia, a glorious bridge across the Bosphorous to the worlds of East and West. I have never experienced such a blending of cultures. What a fabulous journey.

I look up in the sky and behold a bright crescent moon and a neighboring star shining down on the Blue Mosque. A replica of the Turkish flag. The heavens and earth conjoined. I am in Istanbul.