We are all tired. I am done with dead people and have slowed down on Haym Arbet. I can’t get my head around grammar. I simply forgot the terms and references in English. Either I hear something correctly or I don’t. I can’t make a chart. Fran and Susan and I make a quick dash in the rain to a museum, or the synagogue we haven’t yet seen. There, I ask a lovely 40-something with children how real live Jewish life is in Vilnius. (as opposed to non-living Jewish life) Although she is quite happy and feels relatively safe, the numbers are not in her favor. As the survivors die, there will not be enough self-identified Jews to replace them. Another city to honor a lost civilization.
It has turned decidedly cool here, and the day shortens by a very noticeable, and sad 5 min a day. Hot steamy DC will be a real shock! I wish this experience would never end. Most people are restless and anxious to get home. Fran, Susan and I are struggling to reach our end notes. I have to forcibly pull away from the city and this intense and vibrant unreality. I will miss this time and place. I try to imagine the -30 C winters, ice on the cobble stones, just to rub away the magic.
Looking back, I am amazed that we have learned to understand a lot, speak and read a little. I have words in my pen.
The cacophony of languages from tours passing by our corner has become soothing, French, English, German, Russian, Hebrew. Even languages I don’t understand are pleasant sounding. Judenstraase, Rue de Juifs, Zydu.
I chat with the Irish restaurant owner next door. She describes how she found a tunnel under her property when she was renovating. It runs from the Old Synagogue, behind her place, down through the old Ghetto and past the gates. Old Catholic catacombs, coal chutes, connected with deep tunneling? Smuggling? People? Goods? A survivor has stopped in for tea and pointed out the bedroom where his family slept. He said he would never return. I give her the name of a survivor to help clarify. Perhaps she will find answers. She says she sees and hears ghosts and asks me what to say to them. I say “Sholem Aleichem.”
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Day After
Not far from the city is the one remaining Jewish cemetery. Two others were destroyed, and what has been salvaged was moved here. There is a mixture of new and old graves here. Having seen the site where the bodies of 400 Jewish children who were exsanguinated in the Ghetto for blood transfusions for the Nazi soldiers, it is a relief to see a fresh grave site, flowers, a new stone. The recently dead, the naturally deceased are a refreshing variety of dead people.
On to the killing field of Ponari. Depending on estimates, between 70 and 100,000 people – mostly Jews were killed there between July 1941 and July 1944. The pits for burning, the pits for children, the pits for shooting. It is inconceivable in this immense pine forest. Tree crickets sound, wind rustles the tall trees. I am sick.
On to the killing field of Ponari. Depending on estimates, between 70 and 100,000 people – mostly Jews were killed there between July 1941 and July 1944. The pits for burning, the pits for children, the pits for shooting. It is inconceivable in this immense pine forest. Tree crickets sound, wind rustles the tall trees. I am sick.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
MADE IT!
Yesterday’s excursion offered an interesting glimpse into Lithuanian Jewish relations on the ground. We wanted to enter the 9th Fort in Kaunas, a place where Jews were rounded up and shot during WWII. As August 15 was a Holiday, the museum was technically closed. However a group had arranged access, and so there was a guard who could let us in. A harsh exchange with our guide prompted him to say he had enough Jews. She said we were American and gave him some cash. He said we could enter but we shouldn’t talk to the Jews. Yuck. Many people in our group wouldn’t go in.
The Synagogue in Kaunas was lovely. Liberal enough to have had a choir loft. I saw a Bible in Hebrew and Russian for the first time. We walked around with a Lithuanian student in our program who is from the city. We caught a glimpse of a sign in Russian and Yiddish and were told it was the former site of a Jewish orphanage and trade school. Another Synagogue is now an auto repair shop. The richness of the old world and the barrenness of the present reality are always with us.
And... More intrigue on the Fascist/Communist partisan issue. The brash, controversial founder of our program is at the center of it. He has been ostracized by the university, but is still seeking to get student support. It is hard to know if the agenda is his career, the nature of exhibits, or the fate of the few remaining partisans.
My party was fabulous. Fully half the program showed up (free wine goes a long way) and the weather in the garden was perfect. I was toasted, I told jokes, Happy Birthday was sung in English, French, Hebrew and Yiddish. I got a huge bouquet of roses and a number of books. The ones in Yiddish I will never read, but they will remind me of a good time.
Now that the days are getting shorter and the weather cooler, I am preparing to reenter.
The LOUD multiple conversations have become jarring.
I worry about the fate of the proud, small community post partisans. I am pleased to see a few dozen young people interested in this lost world, but wonder, really, what will happen. The beautiful partisan women who are our guides cannot NOT tell their stories. Will their stories be told in a decade?
I go over the guide book and am amazed both by what I have seen and what I will not see. I need to see the Synagogue. (Every Friday at 5 I have talked myself out of it!)
The rest is optional.
The Synagogue in Kaunas was lovely. Liberal enough to have had a choir loft. I saw a Bible in Hebrew and Russian for the first time. We walked around with a Lithuanian student in our program who is from the city. We caught a glimpse of a sign in Russian and Yiddish and were told it was the former site of a Jewish orphanage and trade school. Another Synagogue is now an auto repair shop. The richness of the old world and the barrenness of the present reality are always with us.
And... More intrigue on the Fascist/Communist partisan issue. The brash, controversial founder of our program is at the center of it. He has been ostracized by the university, but is still seeking to get student support. It is hard to know if the agenda is his career, the nature of exhibits, or the fate of the few remaining partisans.
My party was fabulous. Fully half the program showed up (free wine goes a long way) and the weather in the garden was perfect. I was toasted, I told jokes, Happy Birthday was sung in English, French, Hebrew and Yiddish. I got a huge bouquet of roses and a number of books. The ones in Yiddish I will never read, but they will remind me of a good time.
Now that the days are getting shorter and the weather cooler, I am preparing to reenter.
The LOUD multiple conversations have become jarring.
I worry about the fate of the proud, small community post partisans. I am pleased to see a few dozen young people interested in this lost world, but wonder, really, what will happen. The beautiful partisan women who are our guides cannot NOT tell their stories. Will their stories be told in a decade?
I go over the guide book and am amazed both by what I have seen and what I will not see. I need to see the Synagogue. (Every Friday at 5 I have talked myself out of it!)
The rest is optional.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sexig is Sexy
I did see the KGM/Genocide museum today. It was horrific. I understand what this weird sotto voce controversy is about. The should not be labeled Genocide, as the terrible post WWII years were about non ethnic, political, Soviet-Era oppression, Siberian exile, torture and famine. It should certainly be a museum. The cells in the prison are unreal. I am remembering my trip to Alcatraz with Sydney. It’s hard to compare, but I don’t recall Alcatraz with torture chambers or execution cells. But this should not detract from the other horror, if detract is the right word. The Jewish community seems afraid that the Shoah will be marginalized. After this weekend I am done with dead people.
Well, my crowning achievement was reading Goldihairileh and the Drei Beren. Unstaged readings available on request. The fairy tales and songs help to lighten the heavy weight of memorials, graveyards, historic walks, killing fields.
And did you know that Bialystok was considered part of Yiddish Lithuania? I am
told that I and my family are pure Litvak. So from a Litvak point of view we have major cred. Vilne was known as the "Jerusalem of the North." My father prided himself on speaking Litvak Yiddish but he always said he was a Polish Jew. In the end,ver veyse?
I guess I am 4 for 4 grandparents now. Many people here have made genealogy a serious hobby/way of life. I enjoy my new friends well enough to attend a conference in the US to see them, but I have exhausted the current information I have, and I suspect that I will not look for more, at least now. This has been incredibly rewarding and my favorite summer camp!
:-)
It's gotten cool and it's getting much darker each day. My birthday is tomorrow, and after another excursion, I’ll have a brief reception for the program, then dinner with friends. My secret slogan is Sexig is sexy. I’m glad to be far away from real life.
Well, my crowning achievement was reading Goldihairileh and the Drei Beren. Unstaged readings available on request. The fairy tales and songs help to lighten the heavy weight of memorials, graveyards, historic walks, killing fields.
And did you know that Bialystok was considered part of Yiddish Lithuania? I am
told that I and my family are pure Litvak. So from a Litvak point of view we have major cred. Vilne was known as the "Jerusalem of the North." My father prided himself on speaking Litvak Yiddish but he always said he was a Polish Jew. In the end,ver veyse?
I guess I am 4 for 4 grandparents now. Many people here have made genealogy a serious hobby/way of life. I enjoy my new friends well enough to attend a conference in the US to see them, but I have exhausted the current information I have, and I suspect that I will not look for more, at least now. This has been incredibly rewarding and my favorite summer camp!
:-)
It's gotten cool and it's getting much darker each day. My birthday is tomorrow, and after another excursion, I’ll have a brief reception for the program, then dinner with friends. My secret slogan is Sexig is sexy. I’m glad to be far away from real life.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Pilvishok
It is nearly 11 pm and I am set for Pilvishok tomorrow AM. After many days of
bright brilliant balmy days, a cold, dark rainy front is coming in. Tomorrow’s weather should rival the weather in June 1998 in Poland.
Years ago I had copied my old tenth grade Heights High family tree into my PC. It keeps getting stored on newer PC’s in my “old Fam” folder. To assist in finding a trace of my grandmother Edith’s family I cut and paste the document into an email which I just sent to myself and will take with it on my blackberry! What a difference a hundred years makes! I am looking for her family (Ginsberg) and their ancestors, Gentleson and Vistenetsky.)
Fran and Susan join me, and our tour guide, Regina is a delightful sprite who has brought along books and maps to supplement my meager information. As she reads to us in Yiddish, it occurs to us that we have started to understand. (It helped that I had read an English translation online.)
We opt to go the scenic route and so I get to see the storks again. I had forgotten that an African species summers in huge nests in the chimneys of this part of the world. The pastoral landscape rolls by.
The weather is nicer than I expected. The countryside is magnificent. We stop at a few formerly Jewish communities, and see glimpses of synagogues and a few memorial cemeteries. (These consist of a stone headstone marking the location of the cemetery with a few remaining grave stones around.)
The countryside near Pilvishok is magnificent. The village is at the confluence of two small rivers. Huge silvery poplars glint in the sun, contrasting with the dark firs. The wooden “shtetel shacks” are similar to what I’ve seen. Two rooms and a stove in the middle. I ask and am told that the shacks are typical of both Jewish shtetels and the general rural population. The land appears to be very fertile, the plots around the houses overflow with flowers and vegetables. We take photos up a street of visually interesting homes. We head to the cemetery which is now marked by a fenced-in area of 5 headstones and a marker. A cold rainy wind begins to bluster, and as I enter the small area, I immediately see a stone inscribed Ginsberg in Hebrew! Well, given that there were only 900 Jews there in 1931 when DovBer, son of Aaron, died, I feel that we are family. I mark his grave with a stone and notice that there are other stones there already. I will never know who else has been there. We say a prayer and go into the nearby restaurant. Herring, soup, fried meat blintzes and stuffed cabbage with boiled potatoes. It’s beginning to feel like soul food.
We next head to the WWII killing field. On the way, Regina stops an elderly man for directions. She asks him (in Lithuanian) about WWII. He is eager to talk. He was 19 when a blitzkrieg started in June of 1941. Within 4 hours the village was nearly leveled. Even in Lithuanian, it was very clear how vivid this memory is. Asked about Jews, he listed a few prominent names, (none of mine) including someone whose factory was used after the war as headquarters for a (failed) collective farm. He then reached back for a memory of Jews and Tashlich (throwing away sins during high holidays) at the river Pilva which marks the entrance to the city. Asked about the cemetery, he said it was dug up by the Soviets in the 60’s when indoor plumbing was installed in the city. I had failed to notice the present absence of outhouses.
One would never find the field where Jews were killed. There is a foot high stone marker covered with grass on the side of the road. We trudge through then light a candle and say a prayer at the small marker deep in the fields which, thanks to the Russians, fails to mention who the 1000 were. Outside this beautiful little town, in the middle of nowhere, no one will ever come to re-revise this history.
It pours when I return. Daylight is shortened by nearly five minutes a day, and the cloud cover is extremely gloomy. I must figure out how to report this in Yiddish for class since I played hookey.
bright brilliant balmy days, a cold, dark rainy front is coming in. Tomorrow’s weather should rival the weather in June 1998 in Poland.
Years ago I had copied my old tenth grade Heights High family tree into my PC. It keeps getting stored on newer PC’s in my “old Fam” folder. To assist in finding a trace of my grandmother Edith’s family I cut and paste the document into an email which I just sent to myself and will take with it on my blackberry! What a difference a hundred years makes! I am looking for her family (Ginsberg) and their ancestors, Gentleson and Vistenetsky.)
Fran and Susan join me, and our tour guide, Regina is a delightful sprite who has brought along books and maps to supplement my meager information. As she reads to us in Yiddish, it occurs to us that we have started to understand. (It helped that I had read an English translation online.)
We opt to go the scenic route and so I get to see the storks again. I had forgotten that an African species summers in huge nests in the chimneys of this part of the world. The pastoral landscape rolls by.
The weather is nicer than I expected. The countryside is magnificent. We stop at a few formerly Jewish communities, and see glimpses of synagogues and a few memorial cemeteries. (These consist of a stone headstone marking the location of the cemetery with a few remaining grave stones around.)
The countryside near Pilvishok is magnificent. The village is at the confluence of two small rivers. Huge silvery poplars glint in the sun, contrasting with the dark firs. The wooden “shtetel shacks” are similar to what I’ve seen. Two rooms and a stove in the middle. I ask and am told that the shacks are typical of both Jewish shtetels and the general rural population. The land appears to be very fertile, the plots around the houses overflow with flowers and vegetables. We take photos up a street of visually interesting homes. We head to the cemetery which is now marked by a fenced-in area of 5 headstones and a marker. A cold rainy wind begins to bluster, and as I enter the small area, I immediately see a stone inscribed Ginsberg in Hebrew! Well, given that there were only 900 Jews there in 1931 when DovBer, son of Aaron, died, I feel that we are family. I mark his grave with a stone and notice that there are other stones there already. I will never know who else has been there. We say a prayer and go into the nearby restaurant. Herring, soup, fried meat blintzes and stuffed cabbage with boiled potatoes. It’s beginning to feel like soul food.
We next head to the WWII killing field. On the way, Regina stops an elderly man for directions. She asks him (in Lithuanian) about WWII. He is eager to talk. He was 19 when a blitzkrieg started in June of 1941. Within 4 hours the village was nearly leveled. Even in Lithuanian, it was very clear how vivid this memory is. Asked about Jews, he listed a few prominent names, (none of mine) including someone whose factory was used after the war as headquarters for a (failed) collective farm. He then reached back for a memory of Jews and Tashlich (throwing away sins during high holidays) at the river Pilva which marks the entrance to the city. Asked about the cemetery, he said it was dug up by the Soviets in the 60’s when indoor plumbing was installed in the city. I had failed to notice the present absence of outhouses.
One would never find the field where Jews were killed. There is a foot high stone marker covered with grass on the side of the road. We trudge through then light a candle and say a prayer at the small marker deep in the fields which, thanks to the Russians, fails to mention who the 1000 were. Outside this beautiful little town, in the middle of nowhere, no one will ever come to re-revise this history.
It pours when I return. Daylight is shortened by nearly five minutes a day, and the cloud cover is extremely gloomy. I must figure out how to report this in Yiddish for class since I played hookey.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Trouble in Paradise
Recalling Italian lessons with talk about restaurants, walks in the park, a trip to the museum, a film etc., I kept missing more conversational Yiddish until I realized that unless I go to Brooklyn, there really couldn’t be much in the way of tourist patter. We are all tourists visiting the language, but there isn’t a place to go.
I have been made aware, more than once, of recent controversy about The Jewish Partisans of Vilne. I am told that there is a nationalist movement in the Baltic States that would like to minimize the Holocaust. This would keep any Lithuanian collaborators safe, and forestall indefinitely reparations. The minimization is being done by “elevating” Soviet murder and persecution of Baltic Christian nationals as another (equal to the Holocaust) genocide of the 20th century. There is at least one bill before some EU commission. It is very hard for me to ascertain the full truth of the debate. As a result of it, however, there is some noise being made to label the few Jewish partisans of WWII as Soviet terrorists of some kind. There have been threats, a call for a trial, and even revocation of permission to live in Lithuania. These few people are well into their 80’s! It has been said that our program and the whole Jewish Institute are window dressing behind which lurks a government that likes the hard currency of students and tourists far better than it likes Jewish Lithuania. Or we are being manipulated in the reverse to create political dissent within the student ranks. There have been a few super secret meetings. The intrigue is intense.
Off to the land of Saraleh and Bereleh, the protagonists of our primer. They could be called Dickeleh and Janeleh but that sounds a bit X rated. Actually, Bereleh IS a Dickeleh. Our book, published in NYC in 1947, is so full of boy/girl stereotypes. I’d like to start a Facebook page to trash Bereleh, who always thinks he is SO smart and struts about the house demanding food and drink while his mother and sister are in the kitchen. Run Bereleh Run! I’m gonna smack you.
I have been made aware, more than once, of recent controversy about The Jewish Partisans of Vilne. I am told that there is a nationalist movement in the Baltic States that would like to minimize the Holocaust. This would keep any Lithuanian collaborators safe, and forestall indefinitely reparations. The minimization is being done by “elevating” Soviet murder and persecution of Baltic Christian nationals as another (equal to the Holocaust) genocide of the 20th century. There is at least one bill before some EU commission. It is very hard for me to ascertain the full truth of the debate. As a result of it, however, there is some noise being made to label the few Jewish partisans of WWII as Soviet terrorists of some kind. There have been threats, a call for a trial, and even revocation of permission to live in Lithuania. These few people are well into their 80’s! It has been said that our program and the whole Jewish Institute are window dressing behind which lurks a government that likes the hard currency of students and tourists far better than it likes Jewish Lithuania. Or we are being manipulated in the reverse to create political dissent within the student ranks. There have been a few super secret meetings. The intrigue is intense.
Off to the land of Saraleh and Bereleh, the protagonists of our primer. They could be called Dickeleh and Janeleh but that sounds a bit X rated. Actually, Bereleh IS a Dickeleh. Our book, published in NYC in 1947, is so full of boy/girl stereotypes. I’d like to start a Facebook page to trash Bereleh, who always thinks he is SO smart and struts about the house demanding food and drink while his mother and sister are in the kitchen. Run Bereleh Run! I’m gonna smack you.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Sof Tog
Everyone hits the wall at some point, the Yunger included. Immersion courses are not for the faint of heart.
I save Saturday for normal things like decent internet, laundry etc. I watch the weddings again. The very young brides in white frou frou, and their gallant husbands. The bridesmaids wear dresses of bright matching colors; the grooms wear a tie of the same color as their dresses. Today it seemed that 50’s and 60’s American convertibles were the limos of choice to lead the large bridal parties around the Old Town so as to allow for multiple photo ops. In general the streets are filled with exuberantly tasteless fashion.
I enjoy a Lithuanian folk festival on TV. The women look like babushka dolls, twirling with their partners who wear feathered hats and felt kerchiefs. The songs sound vaguely Tibetan. Help me out, Sydney. I think the melody is minor and the harmony in 4ths. Is this even possible? Would it sound Tibetan? Three million people here, who have been subjugated for more years than not. They speak a language which is Indo European, but related only to Latvian and Sanskrit. How isolated.
I am noticing how loudly Yiddish is spoken and am sensitive to the din of languages around me, in school, in the street, on TV. I can’t help but remembering Mos Isely in Star Wars. I recall that Lucas was recreating his old childhood neighborhood.
Today we toured Trakai, lovely castle in the middle of a lake. Home of Karaites, rebel Crimean Jews who distained Rabbinic law in Turkey and ended up as castle guards in Lithuania. Don’t ask! The story is told in garbled translation. I can’t quite connect it all. I have found a guide to take me to Pilvishok – my maternal grandmother’s birthplace. It’s not that far from here. Distances aren’t what they used to be.
For that matter, technology helps people translate, communicate, record, photograph, video, etc. The very active presence of technology is quite in contrast to the past which is emphasized.
The sunsets get earlier and earlier very quickly each day. Birds and crickets clamor. Or perhaps I didn’t stay up late enough for sunset a few weeks ago. I miss the interminable lightness.
I save Saturday for normal things like decent internet, laundry etc. I watch the weddings again. The very young brides in white frou frou, and their gallant husbands. The bridesmaids wear dresses of bright matching colors; the grooms wear a tie of the same color as their dresses. Today it seemed that 50’s and 60’s American convertibles were the limos of choice to lead the large bridal parties around the Old Town so as to allow for multiple photo ops. In general the streets are filled with exuberantly tasteless fashion.
I enjoy a Lithuanian folk festival on TV. The women look like babushka dolls, twirling with their partners who wear feathered hats and felt kerchiefs. The songs sound vaguely Tibetan. Help me out, Sydney. I think the melody is minor and the harmony in 4ths. Is this even possible? Would it sound Tibetan? Three million people here, who have been subjugated for more years than not. They speak a language which is Indo European, but related only to Latvian and Sanskrit. How isolated.
I am noticing how loudly Yiddish is spoken and am sensitive to the din of languages around me, in school, in the street, on TV. I can’t help but remembering Mos Isely in Star Wars. I recall that Lucas was recreating his old childhood neighborhood.
Today we toured Trakai, lovely castle in the middle of a lake. Home of Karaites, rebel Crimean Jews who distained Rabbinic law in Turkey and ended up as castle guards in Lithuania. Don’t ask! The story is told in garbled translation. I can’t quite connect it all. I have found a guide to take me to Pilvishok – my maternal grandmother’s birthplace. It’s not that far from here. Distances aren’t what they used to be.
For that matter, technology helps people translate, communicate, record, photograph, video, etc. The very active presence of technology is quite in contrast to the past which is emphasized.
The sunsets get earlier and earlier very quickly each day. Birds and crickets clamor. Or perhaps I didn’t stay up late enough for sunset a few weeks ago. I miss the interminable lightness.
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