From time to time, I look back at writings I did in Keith Eisner’s writing class, or other writing knick-knacks and think, “this could be worth a quick blog entry” for a bit of fun or self-revelation. Below is such a writing from three years ago:

I have a dusty, pock-cratered, now flimsy box which my parents – probably my mother – used to put together birth announcements, congratulations, and pictures of my birth, some 67 years ago.  In the box is a blue knitted banner with the name “Danny” on it.

I went by the name Danny for about 13 years.  My parents called me Danny. My sisters called me Danny.  Other relatives and friends called me Danny.  I called me Danny.

As the teen years came upon me, Danny was jettisoned. I would be Dan from now on – I thought.  It was an adjustment for others.  Some called me Dan, others  – mostly older folks – kept on with the Danny identifier.

But Dan, somehow, never felt quite right.  I would introduce myself to others. Meeting me for the first time, people would call me Don. Or Tom.  Or virtually any mono-syllabic name that came first to their mind.  

When I hit 21 years of age, and went to The Evergreen State College for the first time, I decided that my real identity would be as Daniel. It felt right. And… was almost never mispronounced.

There was a downside, however, to this new, embraced identity.  When I would introduce myself to others as Daniel, and they returned the name “Dan” I felt disrespected. I was judgmental and dismissive of them for doing so, thinking “why are they arrogant to think that the name Dan was somehow more intimate than Daniel and that they somehow deserved or earned that right to intimacy. Instead, it marked for me the opposite.

I want to be a tolerant person.  Thinking the best of other’s intentions. But on this matter, I’m apparently inflexible. Whomever calls me Dan now, has just lost three pegs on my scale of respect… and it just drives me nuts. 

What’s in a name? More than there should be for me… but alas, when it comes to calling me what I wish to be called… that seems to be that.

The remainder of our 2025 European visit was to the beautiful and heroic rolling hills and sacred shores of Normandy. Yet, the story about HOW we sojourned in this land must start with a sunken realization in Prague, two weeks earlier. My goodness!  I forgot my international driver’s license at home.  I even forgot where I put it at home, asking Alex to try to find it and have it expressed over to Lithuania but then giving him no successful leads as to where I had left it. (That was resolved upon my return when I guessed correctly where it was stowed.)

So, the planned rental car pick-up at De Gaulle airport needed cancelation, as did the beautiful rental home in the country outside of Bayeux.  With Jean’s French-speaking aid, we secured train tickets from the airport to Normandy and back again, got last minute (crummy) accommodations, and used public transportation and our own foot power to get to the sights we sought.  Does all that sound like we’re complaining?  Well, Jean had been in Europe for close to a month and we both needed to marshal our energies to gain value from this last leg of the trip.

Our first train ride took us to the city of Caen. After checking into our Ibis by the train station, we walked up to the historical area.  I dined on fish and cheese casserole, Jean had port and sausage with tomato sauce, we imbibed our first glasses of Normandy cider (there would be more such imbibing in the next couple of days), and we stared at the street scene by the Chateau de Caen. 

The Chateau de Caen – It’s a thousand year old castle constructed in William the Conqueror’s era (before being labeled the Conqueror, his nom de guerre was William the Bastard.

I’ve always thought of the word “chateau” as either a sweet little home or part of a proper name. The Chateau This, or the Chateau That.  But in Caen, the chateau was THE Chateau.  Built around 1060 by William the Conqueror – well HE didn’t build it. his subjects/minions did that trick – it is an enormous castle structure, with supplemental buildings within the larger chateau campus grounds.  

We went to the Tourist office where we signed up for a tour that included Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. We also tried to find a hotel for the third night in Caen, as every place we looked at had been booked up.   We finally found a hotel to stay at near the Chateau, which ended up being the worst night of the trip!  Loud street music, all hours of the night and early morning.  The biggest downside of my misplaced international driver’s license.

The following day we took a city bus up to the WWII memorial museum, spent time exploring the exhibitory, and had a brief cafeteria-style lunch. Our tour began at the museum grounds and was led by a lovely and earnest young woman. We were joined only by one other family of three from Indiana.

At the WWII Museum in Caen.

On the approximately one-hour drive to the D-Day invasion sites, our guide started with her explanations of the reasons for WWII. We were able to engage in dialog on this and emerging topics in the van.  Upon arrival at the coast, we visited a German bunker site first, then on to Omaha Beach. Then we were driven to the American Cemetery.

Nazi bunker site, with extended views toward the west.

Our guide, explaining the significance of the site and the process of invasion.

Overlooking Omaha Beach.

The entire European trip for me was an exploration of heritages. Mine. Jean’s. My Jewish People’s. And here in Normandy’s beaches and cemeteries, my American heritage.

At the American Cemetery, I had a personal connection.  The gravesite of a father of a friend back home, was one of the thousands whose death was memorialized at that cemetery. My friend, Cleve, was born as his father, with the same name, was being shipped overseas for military service. They were never to meet in person. So, it was important for me to bring back to Cleve written materials that the cemetery provides to family members and friends of the fallen, and to bear witness to the sacrifices that were made in the fight against the Nazis.

Upon receipt of the written materials, a cemetery staff person drove us out in a little electric buggy to Cleve’s dad’s grave. He brought sand from the beach and rubbed it against the marble cross which extenuated the labeling.

Thousands of grave markers. If the deceased religion was Christian or unknown, they were given a cross marker.

If the deceased was Jewish, they got a Star of David. There were a handful of these at the cemetery. To our host’s knowledge, there are no Muslim Crescents nor symbols from other religions.

My friend’s grave site. The driver brought sand from Omaha Beach and spread it across the etch description in order to see the images more clearly. He also brought two flags, of France and the US, to mark and honor the fallen soldier.

The cemetery’s memorial grounds.

From there we drove back to the memorial museum. Then Jean and I took the bus back downtown. We had galettes at a lovely outdoor restaurant.  Our table neighbors were from Manchester, England, and we both realized that we were going to Bayeux to see the Tapestry Museum the next day.  But they were going later.

The next morning, we took the train to Bayeux.  The Tapestry Museum featured a work that was done, most likely, soon after William the Conqueror did his thing in 1066. It told the story, in pictures, of the Norman Invasion. We learned much about the history of the period and the history of the preservation of the extraordinary tapestry over a millennium.  As it turned out, the tapestry museum would close within two weeks for renovation, and the tapestry temporarily brought to England for display. (Really wonderful article about transfer here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ev1z6d5go . Also important discussion about the number and purposes of Tapestry penises!) So, we were fortunate to view it in Bayeux.

A Bayeux street scene on market day.

At the Tapestry Museum, there are interpretive signs. Note, it says not to take photography, but that isn’t in this location! It’s at the tapestry itself.

Bayeux church. And this isn’t even the cathedral!

We took a walk in a nature park between the train station and Bayeux central city. The Cathedral is in the background.

Throughout our trip, we have seen magnificent medieval churches in virtually every town and city… dotting the countryside with splendor. Bayeux was no exception. After a lovely lunch of fish and rice in cream sauce (Jean had spaghetti), we visited a spectacular cathedral, lazed around for a while in town, then headed back to the train station for our return trip and last night in Caen.

And now for something completely different. Random thoughts on the way to and from Giverny and our travel back home.

1. It is a thrill for me and a joy for her, as Jean converses easily with French-speaking natives.
2. Looking out the train windows, I’m seeing brown cows huddling up together, basking in the sun.
3. European transportation systems: Buses to light rail to intercity rail to airports…planned and frequent and convenient. Beautiful modern light rail in Caen.
4. An early morning walk in Giverny. Unpeopled streets on a warm early morning stroll in a tiny village – the opposite of our Prague experience.
5. The Monet Garden was as tranquil as possible on the last afternoon with couples enjoying its beauty. Pictures taken, kisses earned and welcomed.
6. The check-out girl at the Monet Garden gift shop, when asked about her job after a long day, exclaimed with a sigh how some people can be so rude.  But then after a few pleasant words between us, she said, “but not you!”
7. The taxi ride to Giverny from the train station was from a diffident taxi driver. The draw for tourists to Giverny was beauty and tranquility. For the folks needing to make a living… not so much.
8. The place we stayed in the village was run by a Shanghai-born and raised couple.  Lovely people. She ended up driving us back to the train since we could find no other means.
9. Back to the juxtaposition as a place of tranquility. When we were in Giverny, Israel was at war with Iran and Jean watched Jon Stewart talk with Christiane Amanpour and Ben Rhodes about the horrors of war and historic blunders of US and Israel political leadership. That same day, we ran into two 30-something Israeli women in town.  They are stuck, not able to return home during the war.  Making the best of it with Monet, but…
10. The next early morning, the Giverny streets are cool and empty, but the forecast is for 95 degrees in the afternoon.  By that time, we would be at the airport waiting for our flight to take us home.

I have no consummating words for this intense European trip. I am writing this blog entry nearly three weeks after returning home. Clearly, the Holocaust-related sites have thrown me deeply. Processing those horrors, along with the sweet memories of Jean’s familial connections, along with the beauty of the architecture and other extraordinary human creations, along with current political events, and along with all the daily responsibilities of my life has me feeling a bit spent.  A bit confused.

But I guess that’s not only to be expected but also understood. Afterall, along with Jean, we planned for this mélange of experiences (who said I can’t speak French!). And we certainly got that in her four-plus weeks in Europe and my two-plus weeks.

About 10 years ago, a distant cousin on my mother’s side, Andrea Israeli, worked hard to find genealogical connections from our Lithuanian heritage. A small village in the northeastern portion of the country, called Antoliepta, was most likely the derivation of the family name Antolept.  My mother, born in Orenburg, Russia during World War I, was given the birth name Rifka Antolept.  My grandfather changed that last name and those of his immediate family to Jaffe after moving to America.

Andrea found, quite surprisingly, that there were still relatives living in Lithuania from this side of the Antolept family. More than 95% of Lithuanian Jews were killed during the Holocaust, but with an act of speed, luck and wisdom, an Antolept father escaped to Azerbaijan right before the Nazis took over the country. He returned after the war to marry another returnee. Andrea also discovered that the offspring of this couple, two daughters named Asia and Ela Guterman, were alive and well in our family’s mother country of Lithuania. They both spoke English, and both ended up attending an Antolept family reunion in New York City held 7 years ago.

(As an aside, the horrors of Lithuanian history have not fallen solely on the Jews.  Ela’s husband Audrius told us of the fate of his own uncle who was captured by the Russians in 1940, thrown onto a train, and died on the way to Siberia. No food or water was provided for any of the passengers.  His crime?  As Audrius put it, “he had a college degree.”)

Since the reunion, many in our Antolept family continued to communicate with Ela in particular and everyone found great value in this international connection. As a delightful example for me personally, the last time I was in South Africa with my beloved cousin Sybil two years ago, Ela was on Zoom as Sybil taught an internationally attended Yiddish class.

My sister Laurie and brother-in-law Robie joined with several other Antolept relatives to visit Lithuania about 5 years ago. I promised Ela that Jean and I would visit her and Adrias when we could, and she eagerly encouraged that connection. This visit is the fulfillment of that promise.

Our Lot Airlines flight from Warsaw to Vilnius was a short hop.  Upon arrival Audrius was there to pick us up and drive us to his and Ela’s home in Kaunas.  The core purpose of our visit was just to spend time with Ela and Audrius on their home turf.  And we were rewarded for that with their kind hospitality and Ela’s extraordinary cooking!  But visiting Jewish heritage sites in both Kaunas and the capital city of Vilnius were also on the agenda.

The history of Jewish Lithuania is central to the story of Judaism and the Jewish people over the last 700 plus years. Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” and was the seat of Ashkenazic scholarship and religious practice. The Vilna Gaon, born Elijah ben Solomon Zalman in 1720, was a leader in rabbinic academism, and the foremost counter-puncher to the growing mystical Hasidic movement. 

Statue depicting the Vilna Gaon in Vilnius.

I, of course, have no intellectual basis for weighing in on such matters… but my “heart” tends to go with the rationalists, not the mystics.  Nancy Snyder, a friend at our temple, recently provided me two books on Jewish mysticism, and I was surprised to learn that one basic ethical formulation of Jewish purpose, “Tikkun Olam”, which translates to “repair the world,” comes from the mystical tradition. The Hasids love exultant dancing and that’s good too!

Ela and Audrius set Jean and I up with two guided tours.  One in Kaunas and one in Vilnius. Each centered on Jewish heritage.

But on our first afternoon, Audrius took us on a walk by their home to the remnants of the Seventh Fort of the Kaunas Fortress. The Fort was built in the late 1800’s by the Russian Empire for the defense of Lithuania. It was taken by the Germans in WWI without resistance.  But in WWII, its most dark period commenced, as it was the first concentration camp in Lithuania.  An estimated 3000 to 5000 people were killed there, mostly Jews.

Audrius and Ruka at the Seventh Fort

The next day we met our tour guide, and off we went to significant sites in Kaunas.  She brought us to the Sugihara House Museum, residence of the Japanese diplomat who heroically saved an estimated six thousand Jews from the clutches of the Nazis. His story is inspiring and worthy of a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

From the heroism of Sugihara, our guide brought us to the Ninth Fort of the Kaunas Fortress.  It has been preserved as a museum and memorial site to untold numbers of murdered Jews. Here are some pictures and stories from the Ninth Fort.

My, how relevant to us, with our recent visit.

Monument at the Ninth Fort, Kaunas

Unlike at Auschwitz, the killing here was mostly through shootings, with the bodies dumped on the land that outstretches the photo.

Our guide then took us to central Kaunas.  Creative street artists and lovely pedestrian walks make the modern city a pleasant and engaging place to live. 

Well, Lennon’s vision about peace without religion has an intimate tone, after seeing the Ninth Fort and all the preceding monuments to hate.

One active synagogue remains in Kaunas, and I was delighted to see that on it’s exterior entrance wall was the saying:

כִּ֣י בֵיתִ֔י בֵּית־תְּפִלָּ֥ה יִקָּרֵ֖א

In transliteration that is Ki Beiti Beit T’ifilah or in English “For My house shall be called a house of prayer.” That is the same expression we have above the bema in our synagogue in Olympia which is named Temple Beth Hatfiloh… a house of prayer. I saw that same Hebrew statement above the entrance to the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius which we visited the next day.  

A few observations and photos about our trip back and forth to Vilnius.

First of all, the trains are comfortable, run exactly on time, and the tracks are smooth. 

Upon departure from the train station, our guide, Ausra, met us and we went on a walking tour. Immediately outside the train terminal we saw a bus with the front scroll reading:  VILNIUS   Ukraina.

First stop in Vilnius, some hamantaschen from the cafe Balebosta.

And here’s the farmer’s market right next door.

Here’s the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius, with the same Hebrew expression for a House of Prayer as we saw in Kaunas, but this time with an ediface that looks very well maintained. Note the photos on the front are of the Israeli hostages.

Recognize the statue? Why, he’s a kinda local. The mother of Leonard Cohen of “Halleluyah” fame, was born here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

We visited Vilnius on shabbat, so Jewish sites (other than the synagogue of course) were closed.

Vilnius’s main square was lovely. Note in the distance, folks are gathering around a circular object.

A close up of that object reveals that it is a two-way window onto a street scene in Paris. You see them in the rain while we bask in the sun. The next day, we are bound for France!

Jewish remembrance street scene in Vilnius.

Let’s close this entry with a bit more about our visit with Ela and Audrius.

First, a paragraph on Ela’s cooking.  Blintzes. Hot beetroot soup. Beef and potatoes. Herring with scallions and boiled potatoes. Roasted chicken with asparagus and rice. Curd and semolina pancakes with homemade rhubarb jam and wild blueberry jam. Ela told a classic joke.  What’s the difference between a Jewish mother and an Italian mother?  Answer?  The Italian mother says, “eat this or I’ll kill you.” The Jewish mother says, “eat this or I’ll kill myself.”

Oh yes.  And Audrius made the coffee that Jean proclaimed as “very good.” He also does the dishes. Credit where credit is due.

Ela and Audrius’s garden was gorgeous and it gives both of them great joy. As does Ruka their wonderfully sweet collie dog.

After family stories, discussions on the topics of the day, and general schmoozing, our all too short stay with cousins Ela and Audrius was over.  The next morning we took a van to the airport, ate a delicious “business class” meal courtesy Air France, and it was off to Paris. Our trip behind the old Iron Curtin was over.

This voyage into Eastern Europe had fostered a boomerang of emotions. The exuberant tourist street carnival of central Prague mixing with the evolving historic stories of Jewish abundance, survival, destruction, and tenuous rebirth; onto the delightful and fortunate connections with Jean’s Polish family heritage; followed by the deep dive into the abyss of human evil resulting in depraved carnage.

As we drove away from Auschwitz, I needed a break. Time to consolidate feelings and thoughts.  We were looking at a four-hour drive to Warsaw. Time for some KFC chicken along the highway for goodness sake.

Greasy and salty, for goodness sake.

When we initially flew into Poland two days before, arriving at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport (in Polish spelled Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie ), we had paused to listen to a young girl, perhaps 10 years old, playing Chopin on a piano in the baggage claim area.

If music is the tonic that calms the savage beast, Chopin is the Schweppes of tonics. (Wait… Schweppes of tonics… that can’t be right.)

On our highway approach to Warsaw, Sebastian oriented us to the city we were about to enter, providing historical context and more modern analysis of its municipal role, development and politics. 

At the end of WWII, approximately 85% of all Warsaw structures were completely destroyed or at least uninhabitable. Pre-war, it had been both the nation’s capital and its largest city.  With Krakow substantially intact, there was serious consideration for moving the capital.   But Polish authorities were determined to rebuild Warsaw.

They rebuilt the central city in a fascinating way.  Looking to essentially recreate the city at its most elegant, instead of modeling the main downtown area on pre-war architectural designs, they sought to emulate Warsaw in its 16^th and 17^th Century prime. Of course, there were no photos of that period, but they did have paintings by Polish artists.  Combined with construction diagrams and select photos of buildings from that period, they went about recreating the exterior building and streetscape aesthetics.  They did such a superb job at this re-creation that UNESCO labelled their product a World Heritage Site. This is a highly unusual step for UNESCO which mainly focuses on historical preservation, not modern re-creations.

Here are some scenes from this re-created heart of town:

Sebastian and Jean along the sidewalks of Warsaw.

After checking in to our hotel, Sebastian gave us a quick tour around the neighborhood before parting with us for the evening.  A few highlights:

As the opening salvo of the 1980’s independence movements in the Eastern Bloc from the Soviet Union, there is great honor in Poland bestowed not only upon the Solidarity labor movement, with its leader Lech Walesa, but also the roles of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paull II in supporting and inspiring the nation’s push for liberty.

And Gary Cooper?

Having taken in the brutalist architecture of the Soviet era for the previous few days, and already oriented a bit to the oppressiveness of the Eastern Bloc state ruling class, I found myself having newfound support and respect for Reagan’s assertions that the Soviet Union really was an “evil empire.” 

Walking down the streets of Warsaw, we saw a house that Chopin was said to live in, and we also enjoyed street benches built along sidewalks which played excerpts from Chopin at the touch of a button!

Sebastian pointed out the WWII-era bullet damage to some of the corridor’s historic monuments.

On our last night in Poland, Jean and I ate a delicious meal of non-Kosher (!) delicacies and walked back to the hotel, more relaxed and at ease from the rigors of the long day.

Shh. Don’t tell my rabbi about the pig’s knuckle that kept on appearing on menus and I found (apparently) necessary to test it out on my last night in Poland.

The next morning brought us a return to Chopin airport and our flight into my family’s homeland.  With the tragic histories of Auschwitz behind us and Jewish Lithuania ahead of us, Warsaw did indeed provide a relaxing and healing intermezzo.

It was a sobering, drizzly morning in Krakow as we drove the 90 minutes necessary to reach the Auschwitz-Birkenau World War II Nazi-run death camp, the site of the largest mass murder in human history.

When faced with overwhelming emotional turmoil, there can be a tendency to fall back on more limited observations. I was a parks planner for most of my career.  And Auschwitz has been, since 1947, a national historical park.   Arriving at the tour entrance parking lot, I found myself thinking of the organizational challenges in processing so many visitors through such a dramatic place.  I observed the parking attendants’ motions, the signage, and the security procedures.  Yes, this was psychological self-protection, but it wasn’t denial. It wasn’t yet denial.

Public demand for the nearly 4-hour tour of the camps, has led to a several month reservation lead time necessary to assure an English-speaking tour.  We hadn’t planned that far ahead. Our reservation, therefore, was for the Polish-speaking tour, with Sebastian placed in the strenuous position as translator.

We passed through the ticketing, security and tour organizational stages and then our group set off.

As it turned out, the tour contained little that I had not already heard or read.  Yet it was, of course, a soul-crushing experience, nonetheless.  Readers of this blog are warned that the rest of the entry may be very emotionally difficult to read. You are given a gracious excuse if you wish to simply take a pass and move onto my next entry.

The large-scale facts are known.  An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the two camps from 1940 to 45. 1.1 million of them Jews. The fatality rate in the camp was about 90%.  Others died on forced marches away from the camp, starvation and at other war sites. Non-Jewish fatalities included Soviet and Polish prisoners of war, the Roma, and other political and ethnic groups deemed undesirable by the Nazis.

Our camp tour guide showed us the location where the infamous sorting process took place upon entry. A thumb pointing to the left or right by a Nazi doctor determined one direction for women, children, the elderly and the enfeebled. Those souls were led directly to the gas chambers. The other direction led men, and a few women fit enough to work, to be kept alive as long as they were able to contribute to the building of more barracks, sewing of the guards clothing, and providing other practical support useful to the efficiency of the killing process. Then of course virtually all of them too were gassed or died from exertion and/or starvation.

What were perhaps the most devastating, immediate and personal emotional realizations for me, revolved around the actions of the Nazi staff, which were both sadistic and yet somehow institutionally normalized. Yes, the apparent primacy of efficiency in the killings spoke to a classic depiction of the Nazi enterprise as a highly organized operation. Yet, what happened again and again at Auschwitz was cruelty and torture just for its own sake by thousands upon thousands of military and “civilian” staff. Even with some of the torture impeding the efficient killing machine, there was a reveling in the opposite of empathy. No, much more than the lack of empathy, there was a seeming joy in hurting others. Of course, the Germans have a word for that – schadenfreude – which reached a kind of infamous apotheosis at Auschwitz.  Also infamous was the lack of consequences for the sadists.  It is estimated that only 15% of Auschwitz personnel were ever processed through the post-war legal system.

As mentioned above, the first half of the tour found us with a Polish-speaking guide. Sebastian served as our personal translator but was prohibited by the official guide from translating more broadly to the remainder of the primarily English-speaking tour group. The reasoning for that rule had a certain logic, but it failed to make sense when confronted by the reality that 90%+ of the audience didn’t understand the Polish language. The guide told us that Auschwitz would be admitting more than 2 million visitors this year. So, in accepting the language barrier, we found ourselves… ahem… just following orders.

The second half of the tour was at Birkenau, located 3 km from Auschwitz. We clambered upon a bus, sitting in numbed silence, as we were driven to a dark destination of mass murder.  Here, any elements of the “concentration” of prisoners yielded to the sole function of the site. It was a death camp, not a concentration camp. Vast fields of aligned barracks held, at their peak, up to100,000 prisoners at a time. All but a very few perished.

This Birkenau part of the tour was led by an English-speaking Polish Jew. Our tour group had been permitted to merge with another group because Birkenau was out-of-doors, so her English would not interfere with other groups in cramped quarters.  The difference at an emotional level between these two guides was profound. The first guide had been doing this for 5 years.  The second guide for 12. At the end of the tour, I asked the second guide “how can you psychologically do this work for so long?”  She said that she lost family here and elsewhere in the Holocaust and felt a moral obligation to the task. 

Before we all departed, our Polish Jewish guide had one final message to deliver. She said that Auschwitz was not the beginning of the Holocaust.  The beginning was hate. Then came increments of “otherness.”  Of separateness. Jews weren’t allowed in the same schools. So, they had to make their own schools. Jews weren’t allowed on the buses. So, they had to find their own way home. Jews could only live in specific areas. Those areas became known as ghettos.  They had to wear a Star of David. They had to and had to… and it got more and more egregious. And violent. Until the Jews (or Roma or other undesirable minorities) become Untermenschen – below human.  

Our guide said that the most important thing is to not allow this to start. To not degrade others because of their group status. She said it was important and admirable that we had come to Auschwitz to learn and experience the atrocity. But now we must go out and take these lessons, these sensitivities, and apply them to our lives.

I leave this entry with a few references.  Sebastian suggested reading “Zone of Interest” and watching a recent Netflix movie about Herman Hess’ home life at Auschwitz. Our Polish Jewish guide had recommended “Hope Is the Last to Die,” a book by Halina Birenbaum. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315703664/hope-last-die-david-welsh-halina-birenbaum

These are contributions to what has become a vast repository of expositions, known generally as “Holocaust Literature.”

At the beginning of the tour, guides lead their groups from the park’s initial visitor check-in area through a long, slightly inclined passageway into the main Auschwitz camp.  It is a powerful means of preparing the visitor for a different place and time. This same passageway, used for leaving the camp and returning to one’s daily life, is at a correspondingly very gradual decline.

Passageways.  As a person who aspires to a moral life, as a Jew, I really can’t fully leave Auschwitz. It is now a part of who I am and a motivator for making a positive difference in the world. And oddly enough, the Auschwitz entry and departure passageway, and the words inclining and declining and their multiple meanings, have struck me with an ultimate take from the entire camp experience. 

We should be INCLINED to accept the reality of Auschwitz, and we should DECLINE to forget its message and meaning. May it be so. שיהא זה כך

We had a very specific agenda for our three days in Poland.  Jean’s grandmother and grandfather were born in Polish villages about 25 kilometers separated from each other yet actually met in the US.  We wanted to visit each Polish town and make whatever connection we could with Jean’s family heritage. She had been given some material from siblings to facilitate that effort – such as birth certificates and personal letters – but there really was not a lot to work with.

Since neither Jean nor I knew Polish (Jean taught me that Dzień dobry means “good morning” and Dziękuję means “thank you” and I basically pronounced it as Jean does this and Jean does that!), and their birth towns were small, we decided that we needed to hire a Polish-speaking guide with a car. I went on the internet, found a site which specialized in local Polish guides, and started communicating with a guide named Sebastian Urlik.

Almost immediately I recognized that I hit the jackpot with Sebastian. He was fluent in six languages and dedicated to international understanding. (His politics was also on the Polish liberal-democracy side, as he bemoaned the recent election which was won – though appeals are in place – by the more right-wing anti-democratic side.)

Sebastian appreciated our mission to connect with Jean’s family.  He also was supportive and encouraging of our desire to connect with my Jewish heritage (more on that in a subsequent blog). So, working ahead of the trip, we established a detailed itinerary that included visits to three settlements important to Jean’s Polish heritage.  The small villages where her grandmother and grandfather were born and the larger town – Toruń – where Jean had had an address of a cousin that her older sister Barb had met many years previously. Toruń was also an extraordinarily beautiful UNESCO architectural heritage site, the (disputed) home of the astronomer Copernicus, and the origin of gingerbread.  We decided to spend our first night there.

Jean and Sebastian ready to dine on Polish delicacies.

Sebastian picked us up at the airport after our flight from Prague, and off we drove to Konin. We had an historic address where we believed Jean’s grandmother’s nephew lived.

The apartment address was in what appeared to be a working-class village neighborhood. We got out of the car and started walking down a path adjacent to a set of five-story apartment buildings.

Sebastian asked two neighborhood women on the sidewalk if they knew anyone with the last name of Jean’s relative… and it turned out that they knew the cousin’s wife quite well. (Jean surmises that those two knew everyone in the neighborhood quite well!)

All five of us walked up to the door adjacent to the apartment where we believe she dwelled and rang the bell.  A few seconds later, a woman peered out from her window and Sebastian called out her name.  She was initially a bit cautious but then said (in Polish) “Yes, that is me.” 

After a couple minutes of communicating through the opened window, Jean identified herself and the connection to the woman’s husband. Sebastian asked whether it would be ok to get together and talk for a while.  He said we had materials to show her.

The cousin initially demurred, said her apartment was in a bit of a mess and she had been taking a nap, but then warmed up and invited us in.  The two neighbors bid their adieu.

She introduced herself as Danuta and she was indeed the widow of Jean’s grandmother’s nephew. Not only that, she had family photos to prove it! 

We talked and shared pictures and stories. She was excited by our connection as she had been attempting to do a bit of family history documentation herself and didn’t have info from Jean’s side of the family. 

Jean and Danuta going over family photo albums.

Her daughter, it turns out, lives in England with a Moroccan husband, and speaks fluent English.  Email and phone numbers were exchanged.  There will be some attempt to connect.

A lovely visit between relatives, facilitated by a kind and effective local guide.

While not part of the family connection business, Sebastian wanted us to see the spectular and recently completed Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń which was along our route. With a tower greater than 140 meters high, it is one of the largest and tallest churches in the world and appears to come out of nowhere in a rural stretch of country road.

Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń

We then visited Jean’s grandfather’s birth town, Raciazku. There, we took pictures of the church where he was likely baptized.

In the village green in front of the church was an informational sign, with pictures and words commemorating the time that Pope John Paul II had come to the village. He had visited it as a Polish prelate… prior to his ascension to the position of pope.

We then drove to Toruń. Sebastian had arranged for us a lovely hotel above a café.  The hotel had a few rooms dating back to medieval times.  Pictures on the ceiling of our bedroom dated from the 17th century…. exquisite. After checking in to our accommodation, we walked to an address where a previous Michalski relative of Jean’s lived.  But our luck had run out. Our effort to find links with Jean’s relatives was now done for this trip. 

View from our Toruń hotel room.

We parted from Sebastian for the evening as Jean and I walked to a restaurant he had recommended that was housed in a 500-year-old historic mill site.  We ate a delicious meal then walked back along Toruń’s ancient streets, with many structures dating back to medieval times.  It was our first long day in Poland, and when we got back to our room, quickly fell fast asleep.

The next morning after a breakfast provided by the inn, Sebastian walked us around the historic city center and provided insights into significant events in Toruń’s history.

A statue of Copernicus was placed near a home that he allegedly lived in for a number of years.

Move over Pisa (but not too far), Toruń has its own leaning tower.

But Jean had another higher priority intention.  She wanted to sample and purchase Toruń’s most famous product: gingerbread! 

With that mission accomplished, it was off on a four-hour drive to Poland’s second largest city, Krakow.

Poland’s largest city, Warsaw, was decimated during World War II. Up to 90% of its buildings were destroyed. Amazingly, Krakow came out of the war virtually unscathed.  A clever last minute Polish military maneuver made the difference. 

https://culture.pl/en/article/how-krakow-made-it-unscathed-through-wwii

Since Sebastian had set us up with a hotel near the city center, we spent the evening walking the historic and gorgeous streets of central Krakow. Below are some Krakow street scenes.

Indoor crafts hall in downtown Krakow.

Happy is our Jean who gets to add to her collection of pottery paraphernalia.

We ate a delicious and gorgeously displayed dinner …

which included a most fun dessert (see picture below).

A cotton-candy like exterior hid all sorts of sweet surprises in its center.

It was a long day of touring, including more than five hours on the road.  But the next day would be entirely different. It would start with the short drive to Auschwitz and proceed with our efforts to reckon with the nature of evil.

The next morning (Saturday), we had a fantastic hotel breakfast, then went on a tour of central Prague on a tourist rubber-tired trolley.  It was actually a helpful orientation to the area. We spent most of the rest of the daylight hours walking around.  But not by ourselves!

We were surrounded for the most part by massive and densely-packed crowds of tourists. Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, the National Theatre.  One can barely make oneself a way forward in the historic center of town.  One principal attraction, of course, is the extraordinary beauty and historic significance of the architecture and engineering. A beauty that also attracts famous people which in turn attracts more ogle-eyed tourists. 

But to tolerate the touristic “inauthenticity” of the place, I began to view the entire central part of town as itself a museum. The very presence of tourist hordes a part of the learning one takes in at a fine museum.  And in that, there was a phenomenal diversity of people. Clearly from all continents.

One tourist-themed draw: concert venues for classical music. These were primarily housed in grand churches. I suppose that it was one means of providing financial support for these gigantic romantic and gothic icons to the church’s historic majesty.   I counted at least five venues, each providing daily/nightly performances of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Mozart. Jean and I attended one on Saturday night.  The place was packed.  The performance was solid, but not spectacular, and the seating (pews or folding chairs), uncomfortable. But again, with the museum analogy, where else do classical music concerts take place daily for tourists?

After the concert we went for a nightcap of a small bite with drinks in the restaurant adjacent to our hotel. Our waiter advised us gracefully with wine and beer selections. Jean asked him, “How old are you? You look 16.”  Turns out he was 17. I then asked him, “Are you in school, or have you graduated?” 

He said he only went to elementary school.  He then told us that when the Ukraine-Russia war started, masses of Ukrainian students came into his school. He said he didn’t want to be seen as “racist” but that the Ukrainians were horrible. Not just ungrateful, but also derisive to the Czechs. “So,” he proclaimed, “I’ll get my certification, but I’ll never return to High School.”

At the same restaurant from the evening before – the hotel provides a great buffet breakfast – we chatted with an Ethiopian lady who was tasked with removing our dirty plates between trips back to the buffet.  She was so so sweet, with an endearing and gentle smile.

We then went for a tour of the Jewish Museum, which included multiple venues.

Our tour guide was a middle-aged Czech Jewess.  As a young woman she had toured the world. I asked her why she came back to live in Prague as there were so few Jews in the country. She said she was the only daughter of her parents and they needed care.  She had been a tour guide at the Jewish Museum for 15 plus years.

The tour itself touched on a half dozen Jewish sites in a small neighborhood.  Old synagogues. Cemeteries. Museums.  Even restaurants.  We ended up eating an absolutely delicious Ashkenazi lunch at a café which featured a front window display of famous folks who had dined there.  If it was good enough for Michelle Obama, it was good enough for us!

Now THAT’S gefilte fish!

That afternoon, after a well-deserved nap, we hopped on a tram just to see where it might take us.  Public transit is free for folks over 65 in Prague. That’s all the transit, including its subway system.  As luck would have it, our tram took us to Prague castle, a massive complex that housed Czech royalty for many centuries. 

Prague Castle and surroundings

For dinner, it was back to Old Town Square for a gigantic latke and afterward ended with a nightcap of wine and beer and the same 17-year-old waiter we saw the night before.  He was having a bad day and let us know it.

Now THAT’S a big latke!

The next and last morning in Prague, we ate a quick breakfast, and were driven to the airport by the same marginally disaffected taxi driver we had on the way in.

The last experience we had, prior to Poland, was a fabulous flight because we were in business class. Normally, I am adverse to luxury, but have given in to our senior status once in a while which makes the extras all the more appreciated.

The first, short leg of our journey together was now over. Next, comes the heart of our motivation for coming to Central and Eastern Europe. Family history for Jean in Poland. Family history for me in Lithuania. And the crucible of mid-20th Century evil, including Nazi death camps and other Axis horrors.

This is the first of several blog entries that tell some tales of the trip that Jean and I are on in a European June fortnight.

Crossing a continent and an ocean by air, with local grounded transport added in, is an exhausting 15-hour experience. A bit tougher for two 70-year-olds than in years past.

A few initial moments of Connections in transit

My Forest Gump-like interactions with seatmates continued.  From SeaTac to Paris, I sat next to Amanda Achen who turns out to be an extraordinarily popular singer. She has performed in an event before 30 thousand people and specializes in singing for a popular video game called Final Fantasy. She said it has 26 million players. Here is an example of her in concert:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fgB3M2y4wY

For a young “Hollywood” type, she said that she longed to move to Mexico City where housing was more affordable than LA and she could improve her Spanish language skills.

Next, on the flight from Paris to Prague, a young woman sat beside me.  We talked about our favorite books.  She was interested in love and referenced a book that talked about the non-sexual love between an older woman and a male child.  It got me to remembering – eventually – Harold and Maude. She will try to see it. Perhaps I will too.

Jean and I enjoyed the Ibis at the Paris airport. Our first of several wonderful breakfast buffets. The evening buffet too was excellent, and I was already failing to limit my calorie intake!

Prague

The Prague airport is modern and beautiful. We were greeted by a taxi driver holding large lettered sign with the name “Daniel Farber” prominently displayed.  He turned out to be a diffident kind of guy.  A pretty unhappy character who didn’t really want to keep driving a taxi. He was an employee of the hotel (or set of hotels) for at least part of his work. He asked where we were from and then referenced his knowledge of the Seattle Supersonics.  Seemed to know American sports a bit but also expressed cynical views.

Driving into the outskirts of Prague, Eastern Bloc communist apartment architecture dominates.  There is some effort to paint the exterior walls freshly, and we are told that the vast majority of the apartments’ interiors have been renovated. I find out later in Lithuania that they call those places Khruschevas – after the former Soviet leader who succeeded Stalin.

From its outskirts, the famously beautiful city of Prague looked anything but. The ugly, boxy apartments. A winding, poorly maintained street grid with inadequate sidewalks. Disordered land use, which didn’t appear to provide services to residents.  And a seemingly poor public transit system (we later saw that public transit was really super in the more central part of town).

But then we come, after about 20 minutes of driving, to see the town’s historic center, and it is an architectural masterpiece.  Known as the city of 100 spires, Prague’s provides a 700+ year continuum of spectacular and cohesive beauty.

Old Town Square Prague

The location of our small hotel is smack dab in the middle of the busiest tourist part of town.  Three blocks from the 650-year-old Charles Bridge – where kissing one’s sweetie is a joy and an obligation – strolling from our hotel finds one with grand, opulent edifices in every direction. And there were tourists. Also, in every direction. Tens of thousands of them. Probably hundreds of thousands within a mile’s radius.

We had come to Prague with some advice from friends as to what we should do and see.  But otherwise, we had no agenda. Reaching the hotel reception area, a couple hours before we could check in, I said to the receptionist, “assume we know nothing of Prague. In the next two hours what would you recommend we see?”

He provided us a map – way too small for my aged eyes – pointed to a few classic tourist haunts, and we took off by foot.  Also famous about Prague – the confusing warren of streets.  After some help from Jean in knowing how to return, we made it back from a quick orientation jaunt to the Jewish Quarter. After stowing our luggage in our room, we spent the remainder of the day exploring central Prague and eating our way through various encounters with meat.

In the evening, I attended Erev Shabbat services. The 300+ year old building where it was held, was located in the Jewish Quarter. There remain 6 synagogue buildings in the area, though only two are still functioning for that purpose and only this one allows non-members to drop in for shabbat.

The services were performed by the same congregation that also holds Shabbat day services in the Old New Synagogue. That older building began construction in 1270. It claims to be the oldest extant synagogue building in Europe.

Prague’s Old New Synagogue

What an extraordinary shul experience for me and what an ordinary infusion of practiced exultation for most of the rest of the participants.  INTENSE. 100 people crowded into a small square space, with anteroom added for extra women – though in the “box” were women also to one side. The walls of the sanctuary, along with other locations in the building, were plastered with Hebrew sayings and strewn with flags of the state of Israel.

The prayers were chanted and sung with great vigor, speed, and a mixture of routine and pure joy!  I sat next to an elderly Czech with a long, white beard.  We chatted briefly before services began and a bit afterward. Another beardless man said to my neighbor, “you win for the best beard in the place.”  My neighbor smiled.

Most everyone read from a purely Hebrew siddur.  While the Hebrew sped by – and over my head – I read a piece by Sir Jonathan Sacks who had provided an overview of the role of prayer in the English-Hebrew siddur I had in my hand.  About 15% of the time, however, I WAS able to follow along with the music and much of the lyrics to the prayers.  It was all, essentially, familiar. A universality – especially Ashkenazic – of Jewishness. I probably followed along the least of anyone in the room, including the women, but every man I was close to greeted me and vice versa with a genuine “Shabbat Shalom”, and at the end of the service, an energetic “Gut Shabbos. “ 

A word about safety and security in a Central European Jewish institution.

At the entry to the shul, out on the sidewalk in front of the synagogue door, an unarmed man asked everyone who wanted to enter a few questions. 

“Shabbat Shalom,” I said to him.

“I need to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind,” was his reply.

“Sure.” 

“Where are you from?” he asked me.

“I’m from America. I’m Jewish and would like to attend services.”

“Can I see your passport?” he replied. 

“Sure” I said and handed it to him. 

“How often do you go to shabbat services,” he asked. 

“Almost every week” I replied. “I’m President of my shul.” 

“What is its name” he asked. 

I replied correctly, and then he asked me, “What is a parsha?” 

“It is the weekly portion of the Torah,” I replied. 

He then shook my hand, we exchanged “shabbat shaloms,” and he let me in.  Inside the front door, there was a man in a control booth who needed to buzz me into the main foyer. Overall, it was a two-step security program similar to my shul, but of course, we aren’t asking about passports and quizzing folks about Jewish knowledge.

My Prague shul attendance happened on the same day that the FBI and Thurston County Sheriff’s office raided a home in Lacey, Washington, a few miles from my home. There they found a massive accumulation of weaponry, Nazi symbols and messages of antisemitic hate strewn about.  They arrested the men inside. But the juxtaposition of increasing antisemitic attacks back home, with our upcoming journey into the Central and Eastern European killing fields for a foreshadowing I wish we didn’t face.

After shabbat services, I returned to a sleeping Jean and fell into a fast jet-lagged sleep.  Our first day in Prague was done.