Ramblings on National Identity and the like

Now that our academic programming is over (with the exception of our research projects, due Friday), it seems like a good time to revisit a few of the concepts I’ve been mulling over in my head and revisiting in various lectures, meetings, and readings. National identity, in particular, is a notion of which I had very little understanding when I came into this experience, but now feel like I can really think about and discuss in a meaningful way. I’m reminded of a post from early February, in which I noted:

I’ve been thinking a lot about a lecture we had with Professor Kubiak a couple days ago, about nationality and ethnicity as “imagined” communities that link people who don’t really know each other. It’s always in the back of my mind as I try to process this new society and culture in which I’ve suddenly found myself. What does it mean for something to be “real” versus “imagined,” anyway? All identities are “created,” in a sense, but does that necessarily mean they are as malleable as social theory would have us believe?

So how would I answer that question now? First of all, I think I’d probably step away from trying to decide whether or not national identity is “real” or “imagined” in any sort of pejorative sense- I now understand that national histories are mythologized in order to give people a shared sense of belonging, and symbols like flags and anthems are used to evoke supposed shared national values and ideals- all of this adds up to the construction of national identity. “Real” or “imagined” isn’t really the right way to describe it, national identity, or the perception of a shared history, plays an undeniable role in the way politics and society function in any given situation, a role that cannot be ignored or easily replaced. Rogers Brubaker may bemoan the use of national identifiers such as “Poles” and “Ukrainians” in scholarship and the news media, and he may be right about the limits they place on our capacity to “think outside the nation-state,” but when you get down to the level of how regular people perceive themselves and the world around them, national identity is real, no matter how visibly constructed. Case in point: I spent the weekend with a friend from Krakow at his family’s country house outside the city, and one of the first questions his mother asked me was what kind of conceptions I had about Poles before coming to Poland (honestly, I didn’t know enough to really have any), what were my impressions of the national culture, the overall tone of society? What did I think about the role of the Catholic Church? My friend’s mother (and he himself) are far from nationalistic (or religious, for that matter), and I don’t think her questions reflected any deep-seeded belief in the essential character of Poles as such, but the fact that she expected me to have reflected on Polish society in a national context is a testament to the enduring power of the concept of national identity.

On the other hand, while I have come to the conclusion that national identity is undeniable and influential, I am really glad I’ve had the opportunity to learn about it as a constructed notion, rather than an “essential” or immutable element of our DNA or something. It’s amazing the way that you internalize the idea that being “Irish” or “German” has some sort of natural or organic impact on your personality or behavior when you’re told over and over again as a child that “you are Polish” or “you are Italian.” The gradual erosion of that type of thinking has really allowed me to see projects like the European Union in a new light. While at first I was somewhat skeptical and worried that all of the unique national cultures of Europe would be somehow endangered by the emergence of a larger, European identity, now I understand that these traditions and ways of life are not fixed and unchangeable elements of “being French” or “being British,” but constructed ways of bringing together disparate groups of individuals and forming an imagined bond for the purpose of political stability and cultural harmony. The European Union is just a method for achieving this goal on a bigger scale, and while I think that national identity and state sovereignty aren’t going away any time soon, I no longer fear the erosion of national individuality at the hands of European integration. This whole experience has had the gradual effect of significantly diminishing the importance of national borders in my way of thinking about the world. Before, I had trouble understanding why some of my professors at Kenyon chose to devote their entire careers to studying political developments in nations an ocean away, but now I see how interconnected these developments really are, and how much more so they are becoming as the world becomes more politically, economically, and socially connected. I have a much clearer understanding of the elements of humanity that supercede notions of national identity- ideas like universal human rights, political freedoms, and the individual pursuit of happiness. Maybe these ideas are just the latest constructivist tactics for creating an “imagined world community” of some kind, but to me that sounds like the best bet for a peaceful and prosperous world, so I’m willing to buy in to them.

“And what would you say are the most pressing challenges to media independence in Poland?”

Two research interviews today: Ryszard Niemiec, senior editor of the regional daily Gazeta Krakowska, and Zbiegnew Bauer, former journalist and founding member/ current professor at the Pedagogical Academy Journalism School in Krakow. It’s hard to say how helpful the interviews will end up being for my project- because I was using a translator for both interviews, I think it’s easy for the essence of my questions to get lost, either that or the long delay makes it more tempting for interviewees to simply expound upon their favorite topic rather than answer my questions. Nonetheless, the interviews did give me some interesting insights into the world of the Polish media.

Mr. Niemiec definitely saw himself as a defender of Gazeta’s political independence. He told me that when he took over as editor in 1994, the party in power at the time (Democratic Opposition, or UW) was trying their best to use the paper as a tool for disseminating their propaganda. Mr. Niemiec said he made the conscious decision to “split the paper’s connection with the party,” which was a risky move at a time when close political ties gave newspapers a much-needed sense of security. From what I understood, this decision was very much in line with his philosophy about the role of editors and journalists in democratic Poland. According to Mr. Niemiec, the independence of a certain outlet is heavily dependent upon and editors’ “sense of political responsibility” and “not being a cohort” (presumably of any particular political party). I also found Mr. Niemiec’s comments about the paper’s coverage of the Pope and the Catholic Church particularly interesting. At first he insisted that it was case simply of “answering the demands of readers,” but later noted that a front-page story about the Pope or the Church was a “mark of prestige” for newspapers.

When I mentioned this last point to a Polish friend of mine, he had a fascinating anecdote to back it up. His older brother used to work as a reporter at Gazeta Krakowska, but quit his post after what he saw as a succession of editorial changes to his pieces in order to make them more “Church-friendly.” For example, the title of a profile he wrote about a patron of the arts and Krakow was changed from “Local Supporter of Culture Receives Prize” to “Prominent Friend of the Pope Receives Prize.” Although Mr. Niemiec insisted throughout our interview that the Church has no institutional mechanism for influencing the paper’s content, it’s clear that in reality the relationship is much more complex, and some sort of indirect pressure does in fact exist.

My second interview, with Professor Zbiegnew Bauer, felt more like a lesson in the history of Polish media than an actual interview, but it was helpful nonetheless. I found his comments about the inherent troubles of financing the public media to be especially indicative of the public’s skepticism of state-owned broadcast outlets: “Funding public broadcasting from the state budget means establishing a link between the media and the state, which is very dangerous.” He was also critical of the impact that foreign conglomerates have had on the Polish news media, particularly Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.: “The quality of the Plus-TV station has decreased dramatically since it was bought by Rupert Murdoch. He doesn’t care about quality, the most important thing is that he has a station in Eastern Europe so that he can begin to control that market.” One of his final comments really gave me some perspective about how much work still needs to be done to create the kind of news media environment in Poland that encourages democratic consolidation: “In Poland, we really need a public debate on the role of the media, economists should participate in this debate, but so far it has been dominated by artists and politicians, so nothing much happens.” From what I understand based on my research so far, economists aren't the only group being excluded from this debate.

Globalization

What a unique piece of evidence of our shrinking world: tonight I was walking around the main square around 9pm or so, enjoying the beautiful spring evening, when I noticed a crowd of people standing in a semi-circle. I investigated and found a street musician singing and playing guitar- classic American rock songs (in English, of course). I sat down on the pavement and listened, clapped, and sang along with the crowd for over an hour- this guy was so talented and did a great job incorporating the audience into his show. Later, I found out he was Israeli- imagine, an Israeli musician, singing American songs in English, to an audience of mostly British tourists, on the main market square in Krakow, Poland. Anyway I had been feeling pangs of homesickness all day, but when he finished up his set with a beautiful, passionate version of the Beatles’ “Let it Be,” I felt so at peace, so present in that particular moment, and so sure that no matter what life decides to throw my way, I’m slowly learning how to handle it with appreciation and grace.

A Day at the Museum

Now that I’m back in Krakow for an extended period of time, my days have become more predictable and schedulable, which is nice in some ways, but I do sometimes miss the chaos and uncertainty of being constantly on the road. Anyway, consequently, I’ve been able to reserve spaces for studying, working on my research, etc. I had a break this afternoon between classes, so I thought I’d explore the National Museum in Krakow, which contains an extremely varied and impressive collection of Polish art in various forms, from 13th century priests’ cassocks laced with gold to a video monitor playing a postmodern animated film in which pieces of string curled and unfurled to the beat of unappealing noise music, with plenty of 20th century impressionism (my favorite) in between.

I originally made the trip to check out an exhibit by Jacek Sroka, which I’d read about on the website crakow-life.com (check it out if you’re interested in the city, and please send me any recommendations!). Overall I was really impressed. Usually modern art isn’t really my thing, but I don’t even know if that’s how I’d classify this guy. All I know is I stood in front of each of his paintings for at least 5 minutes each, and could usually come up with some sort of idea about what I thought he was trying to say- usually a humorous criticism of some oppressive element of society, be it patriarchy, the rat race (one of his paintings was literally an enormous mass of rats scurrying in waves to a focal point outside the canvas). One of the first pieces was of a hunter on a giant horse, all painted dark blue using thick strokes that tried in chunks on the canvas, against the backdrop of a perfectly symmetrical, bright yellow bathroom. I saw in it the disaffection and apathy that can come from having everything handed to you thanks to modern technology and convenience. Postmodern much?

A couple of his other pieces that really struck me where those that commented on women and their position in society, something I was thinking about at the time in the context of our visit this morning with a representative from EFKA, a Polish feminist organization. One of the pieces, entitled Machine to Sustain Breathing in Women really caught my attention- a women is standing, naked, exposed, attached to a metal contraption through nodes pinching all parts of her body, with dead trees and a highway in the background. It was refreshing to see a male painter acknowledge and so artfully capture the anxiety, guilt, and silent suffering that are so often a part of the female experience. For women in Poland, the suffering has been especially silent, since a knee-jerk negative reaction to ideologies of any kind, as well as a fierce return to traditionalism post-1989 have made it difficult for feminism to catch on, even as women are made to bear the brunt of the economic hardships of democratic transition, not to mention nonexistent representation in the political sphere and widespread domestic violence. Our speaker this morning seemed optimistic about the future of feminism in Poland (while acknowledging the challenges), and from what I’ve been able to gather from my observations of the rather traditional relations between men and women in this society, she’s going to need all of the optimism she can muster.

Internationale

Tonight I took a break from my studying to check out a pub night for meeting Erasmus students (students studying abroad from other European universities) that I’d heard about from some friends at the Jagiellonian. It was low-key and fun, they had tables set up with signs designating what language was being spoken- I sat at the English table, where I met a girl from the Czech Republic who was studying film and Polish language at the Jagiellonain, and two guys and a girl from Poland who just wanted to practice their English. One of the guys asked me if college in the U.S. was “like it was in the films.” I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant- I had a feeling he was thinking of Animal House and Van Wilder style parties. I laughed and told him my school had a beautiful campus, with quirky, fascinating people and challenging but phenomenal professors...and the parties weren’t bad either (I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes I do sometimes miss the cheesy eighties music and cheap beer). The Polish girl told me that most people in Poland have an image of the U.S. as “a kind of paradise where dreams come true” (I promise I’m not exaggerating). I told her I felt extremely lucky and privileged, but that the U.S. has it’s share of problems as well- isolation and ignorance about the rest of the world being one of the most pressing, in my opinion. Definitely a question that made me conscious of toeing the line between ungratefulness and boasting, but I like discussions like this because they really force me to analyze what I really think about being an American and my place in the world.

Radio Racyja

We spend our last morning in Bialystock visiting a Radio Racyja, a Belarusian radio station that broadcasts from the Polish side of the border. Apparently it’s nearly impossible to do independent journalism in Belarus- the Belarusian KGB (as our host referred to them) had recently broken into an apartment in Minsk that was being used as sort of an “underground” headquarters for the station and made off with all of their files and electronics, luckily no one was hurt.

The whole experience was just inspirational. Inspirational for me as a (possible) future journalist- these guys have set up shop across the border to get people the information they need, but can’t access in their own country. That’s the kind of dedication to the truth that you just want to bottle up and give to every Western journalist who starts to take his or her freedoms and protections for granted. Also inspirational from a scholarly perspective- I’m really interested in the link between journalism and the news media and all the forces that come together to make democracy work- in countries where it’s the tried and true, established way of life, but especially in those places, like Belarus, where it hasn’t quite found its footing. The journalists we spoke with at the radio station said they did not expect to see a democratic Belarus emerge in their lifetimes, but nonetheless work tirelessly to lay the groundwork for such a change, risking their careers and sometimes their lives. I hope this experience sticks with me, and I can call upon it whenever I find myself questioning my purpose as a journalist or as an academic. The work these journalists are doing is so incredibly essential- and I want to do all I can to support it and study ways to bring it up from the underground.

Checking out the equipment

Wall in the newsroom (the photo is from a big protest in Minsk a few years back).
Hard to tell, but this is me doing a short interview with one of the Radio Racyja journalists.

Belarusian Border

Wow, today’s tour of the countryside outside of Bialystock was infinitely more interesting and enjoyable than yesterday’s. It was so nice to get away from the industrial gray concrete architecture and breathe some fresh air. Our minibus driver (who was such a character- he didn’t speak any English but his mannerisms were hilarious, I loved having him around) took us right up to the Belarusian border, which was cool but kind of...anticlimactic? I mean, national borders seem like such a big deal, but in this case especially, it’s hard to tell what it’s really separating. Our tour guide kept referring to the border as “artificial”- a term I found pretty appropriate considering the people living along both sides of the border, in their wooden A-frame houses with lace curtains and tiny plots of farmland, have more in common with one another than their fellow citizens living in their respective national capitals. We even read an article before the trip about one town along the border that has existed since before the present-day line was drawn, and is now cut cleanly down the middle and forced to exist as two separate towns, never mind the fact that their economies remained inextricably intertwined, or that entire families were split up and are now barely allowed to see one another thanks to increasingly strict visa requirements.

This last point really got me thinking about some of the less positive elements of the European project- which I was quick to endorse wholeheartedly and unquestioningly in January when I arrived in Krakow (plenty of evidence in my January post entitled “Integration, it’s Everywhere”). While integration makes border-crossing easier inside the EU, it has the opposite effect of further fortifying the external borders, which don’t actually belong to the EU, but to the individual member-states. Some authors refer to this phenomenon as the creation of a “fortress Europe,” intent upon keeping outsiders out while ensuring prosperity and free movement of goods and labor inside the union. In the case of this particular Belarusian/Polish town, the recent creation of the European Union border has further widened the gap economic gap between the two halves. The consequences of this external fortification have been difficult for Poland- in the past, visa-free travel between the Ukraine and Poland has added a boost to both economies, but Poland had to give that up when it joined the EU. To further complicate matters, EU border countries like Poland are given the additional responsibility of stemming the tide of illegal migration from outside the EU, as well as dealing with the large numbers of asylum-seekers.

The whole experience gave me a few second thoughts about European integration, but I still think the EU project holds the most promise for ensuring peace and stability in a region of the world that has been so badly ravaged by war. But I think that despite the optimistic notions of some scholars of a “Pan-European” identity, constructivist creations like borders and national identity are here to stay, and must be acknowledged and dealt with if the European project is to be truly successful in achieving it’s aims, which, like the EU itself, seem to be in a constant state of flux.

New borders, new problems.

For your enjoyment! "Mating Toads on the Belarussian Border": A Video of Epic Proportions

Białystok

After a four-hour minibus ride on the bumpy, unfinished streets of the Polish countryside, we finally arrived yesterday evening in Białystok. Initial impressions: sparse, gray, and industrial. Walking around the "city center" at night (in search of a bar where we could celebrate my friend Kate's 21st birthday), it was easy to see the difference in affluence between this place and Krakow or Warsaw- this is much more of a traditional "working class" city, judging from the numerous factories and cinder block apartments. This afternoon we took a walking tour of the city, and saw a few things that I definitely found a bit disturbing. Our first stop was the old Jewish cemetery, which contains no historical marker signifying the fact that the Jewish community, which at one time made up 80% of Białystok's population, had been completely wiped out in the space of a few short years. According to our tour guide, the few Jews who did survive the Holocaust and returned to the city were forced to leave in the late 1960s and early 70s due to a wave of anti-Jewish violence. Without a community to maintain it, the cemetary has crumbled into ruins, and what's worse, it has become a dumping ground for empty beer bottles, and its walls contain swastikas and other anti-Jewish slurs. Our tour continued into the downtown area, and once again we saw a swastika graffitied on the wall of an old shed. Our tour guide, whose English skills weren't all that well-developed, really couldn't articulate the social, political and economic factors that created an environment in which such symbols are a regular sight. On the surface it doesn't make any sense- the Nazis completely destroyed Poland, forcing it to completely rebuild all of its infrastructure and its economy from the ground up, so why pay them such obvious homage? Our tour guide said it was mostly young boys "trying to express themselves," and while this may be true, I think it probably has more to do with the fact that this is one of the poorest areas of Poland, a former industrial collasus whose inhabitants are most definitely the "losers of globalization" we keep hearing about in our lectures. Korai, who spoke to us at the MBR center in Berlin about the radical right in Germany, said something that I was reminded of today in Białystok: people who are the victims of economic forces they can't see, like globalization, will often search for a group of people they can see, or at least visualize, and by attaching their current economic troubles with a group of real people as opposed to some intangible force, the situation becomes easier for them to understand. The only real way to reverse this train of thought, in my opinion, is through education, and it seems as though Poland unfortunately hasn't come to terms with its historical role in the Holocaust and the social problems related to antisemitism today.

Warsaw

I wasn't expecting to enjoy Warsaw as much as I did. I guess I should have figured it was mostly city rivalry talking when people from Krakow told me that Warsaw was just a financial center with no charm, character, or culture. The wide avenues, skyscrapers and numerous parks reminded me of Chicago (always a good feeling). I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Warsaw's few inhabitants who did survive WWII, trying to decide what exactly to do with the bombed-out shell that used to be their beloved city. Because they made the decision to rebuild, all of the buildings are less than 60 years old, and the architecture sometimes seems like it's trying too hard to give off an historical vibe. Case in point- when Kate and I visited the reconstructed royal palace during one of our afternoons off, the walls of the King's Apartments were made of stone that was painted to look like marble, the intricate designs of the moldings covered in what looked like gold paint, instead of the real thing. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but applaud the city's efforts to capture its former self while at the same time acknowledging the reality of the war that destroyed it- practically every street corner contains a monument or plaque commemorating an uprising against the Nazis by the city's Polish or Jewish residents, or tragically marking the place where hundreds of them were imprisoned or killed. Like most of Poland, Warsaw is a city working to come to terms with the darkness and tragedy of its past, while at the same time trying hard not to spend too much time looking backward and running the risk of getting left behind as the capitalist, democratic, globalized world speeds ahead.

Zakopane

Kate and I arrived today in Zakopane, a ski town in the Tatra mountains on the Polish-Slovak border, known as "Poland's winter playground" according to all of the tourist websites we poured over before our departure. Since the Easter holiday has caused basically all of Poland to come to a standstill, we have the week off from classes and Kate and I decided to treat ourselves to a little mini-vacation. Our hostel is a wooden A-frame cabin covered in freshly fallen snow that looks like it belongs in the film Heidi. The town is absolutely adorable- wooden chalets, cobblestone streets, and the most phenomenal views of the majestic Tatra mountains capped in dense fog and covered with pine trees in the background. When we arrived, the entire town was blanketed in at least a foot and a half of freshly fallen snow, and literally everything was closed for Easter Monday. We made the best of it, though. We spent the afternoon milling around town amidst exhausted skiers, stopped at a creperie and had these incredible steak, mushroom and cheese crepes with three different kinds of sauces, found an outdoor marketplace selling everything from bread baked with patterns, souvenir hatchets, and all kinds of handmade wooden tools. We bought plastic sleds for 8 złoty and joined a bunch of little kids who were sledding down one of the many snow-covered hills, which was so much fun! We spent the evening at a small cafe drinking delicious hot spiced wine, watching the snow fall and taking in our new surroundings.

Auschwitz

I returned from the tour of Auschwitz about 2 hours ago and still can’t really do anything. I tried to nap, failed. Made an omelet (also failed, no spatula). Tried to nap again. Hopefully writing about the experience will help me process it a little.

On the bus to the camp everyone was playing car-ride games, laughing and chatting, but I was feeling pretty quiet. All I could really think about was Ellie Wiesel or Primo Levi and how they might have felt traveling through these same woods by train en route to the camp.

We pulled up and I was struck by the normalcy of the exterior. There was a snack bar near the parking lot. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of place where you’d see a snack bar. We met up with our tour guide, a young Polish guy maybe in his late 20s, who recited his narrative at just the right pace with just the right pauses as if to say “I’ve done this a million times before.” Spittle collected in the left corner of his mouth the entire time. I’m not sure why I noticed.

We began at the famous iron gate to the main barracks at Auschwitz I (the camp is divided into Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau)- with the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work makes one free) hovering ominously above the camp's entrance. I’ve seen hundreds of pictures of that sign, but when I stood beneath it, it provoked me. I felt angry at the Nazis for trying to convince themselves and their prisoners that their entire project was in any way promoting freedom, angry that they had the audacity to suggest that they knew best when it came to uprooting millions of people from their daily lives for forced labor and extermination in the name of an ideology that is the absolute antithesis of freedom.

The wind blew harder and I wrapped my scarf more tightly around me as we made our way past the commander’s canteen (where an orchestra of prisoners was forced to play a march twice a day, when the prisoners left the camp for work and when they returned, so that the commanders could count them and calculate how many had died that day). The barracks located immediately past the gate were used mostly for Polish political prisoners, who comprised most of the camp’s population from 1940-42, when the first transports of Jews began to arrive.

Most of the barracks have been converted into exhibits as a part of the museum; the first one we visited was barrack #6, an exhibit called “starvation.” As soon as we walked inside I found myself face-to-face with three enormous black-and-white photographs, one of a one-year-old baby, severely underfed, and two photographs of these women who looked like skeletons, one was sitting with her back to the camera, her neck craned towards it. Her enormous dark eyes looked like black holes in her sunken face. In the other photograph, a woman sat naked on a hospital bed next to a nurse, each of her ribs visible beneath her tiny sagging breasts, her sharp knees drawn into hear chest like a helpless child. Our guide explained the prisoners’ diet- a bowl of coffee in the morning, a soup made of water and rotten vegetables in the afternoon, and a slice of black bread with margarine in the evening. I couldn’t stop staring at the photo of the last woman with the nurse. I imagined what it must feel like to feel your body melting into an unrecognizable walking corpse, I looked at her shrunken frame and felt my own skin tighten around my muscles, felt my feet and hands go cold the way hers must have without enough food to circulate her blood. My stomach churned as I thought of the slow process, her body literally eating away at itself. I started to feel nauseous and light-headed, and my vision started to get blurry. Kim had me sit down on the floor with my head down for a few minutes, and I had some water and was fine.

We descended to the basement of another the barrack to see the “starvation cells” and “suffocation cells” where prisoners who had been caught trying to escape were either held until they starved to death, or were forced to stand in a 2-foot-by-2-foot cell with three other prisoners each night after their work was over. Our guide told us the story of a Polish friar, Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to go to the starvation cell in the place of another failed escapee, a young father and husband. Father Kolbe survived in the cell for two weeks, after which Nazi commanders led him out to the “Killing Wall” outside the barracks and shot him in the head. Pope John Paul II visited Auschwitz in 2006 and laid a wreath in Kolbe’s cell. The Killing Wall was where a majority of the prisoner executions took place- visitors had placed wreaths and plaques at the base, tucked tiny stones in its cracks. These little tokens of remembrance made it an easier sight to bear.

Next we visited another barracks with glass cases full of the belongings confiscated by prisoners by the Nazis as soon as they arrived at the camp. Suitcases, toothbrushes, combs: the most collection haunting was a case that stretched from one end of a 50 meter room to the other- full of clumps of women’s hair that had been shaved off right before they were sent to the gas chambers. Another room held glass containers full of thousands of shoes. Hundreds of them were so tiny they looked like doll shoes. I saw one dusty brown cowboy boot that looked like it belonged to a six-year-old. I stared at it for probably five full minutes before leaving the room.

Our last stop was the underground gas chamber and crematorium, which our guide told us the Nazis converted to an underground bunker in 1945. At this point, the Red Army’s liberation of the camp was imminent, so the Nazis tried to get rid of as much evidence as possible of the crimes they’d committed. They blew up the two main crematoriums at Birkenau, and marched the remaining prisoners into Germany to be placed at other camps (90% didn’t survive these so-called “Death Marches”). To stand in the same room where the Nazis killed 700 people at a time by pouring Zyklon B crystals down the chimneys is something I can’t really describe with words. I saw the same walls panicked victims clawed at in a vain attempt at escape once the gas began to deplete their oxygen supply. I saw the ovens in which fellow prisoners were forced to place their friends and family members, only to be killed themselves a short time afterward. As I said before, I knew about all of these things. I’ve read the books; I’ve seen the films. But this experience was about more than just intellectual understanding, it was physical, it was visceral, it was real.

We spent the last hour of our tour at the Birkenau camp, which was built using the forced labor of the Auschwitz I prisoners. There we saw the stables meant to house 52 horses, in which upwards of 700 prisoners were forced to sleep two in a bed (a “bed” being a wooden bunk topped with a burlap sack of straw, usually infested with worms, lice, and various infectious diseases). We walked along the famous train tracks leading to the guard tower where the “selection” process took place: after a transport of Jews arrived (after 1943, all Jewish transports were taken directly to Birkenau, the main extermination portion of the camp), their belongings were confiscated, women and children were separated from men, and an S.S. doctor gave each person a three-second visual examination to determine whether they were “fit to work,” and thus at least given the chance of survival (although almost all of them died within two months), or should be sent directly to the gas chambers to be killed immediately. All that’s left of the main crematorium are the bombed-out ruins abandoned by the Nazis before they fled the camp in 1945, but you can still see the underground dressing room, where prisoners were told they would be given a bath before registration, and even assigned numbered hooks on which to hang their clothes, then led into the gas chambers (in which fake showers had been installed to maintain the illusion of a bath to keep everyone calm), where Zyklon B gas caused oxygen deprivation, internal suffocation, and after about 20 minutes, death. Their bodies were transported to the above ground ovens (whose ruins were also still visible) and burned, and their ashes dumped in a nearby hole. The whole process took about an hour. They could kill 2,000 people at a time in one crematorium. Those who were killed were never registered with the camp, so we’ll never know the exact number, but it’s estimated to be about 1.5 million.

The tour ended, and the group began the long walk along the train tracks. I lagged behind, lingering at the memorial sculpture, a chaotic collection of massive brown boulders and a symbolic crematorium chimney made out of copper. Before I turned back to catch up with the group, a thought struck me: I've always heard the phrase “never again” in response to the Holocaust, but I always wondered, "how?" In the shadow of the monument commemorating the worst atrocity of the 20th century, I began to understand: the solution is knowledge. I don’t just mean teaching kids about the Holocaust in school, although that’s important. I mean all of this knowledge I’m amassing about society, power, democracy, agency, institutions, processes, this knowledge matters, when it’s shared and understood and acted upon, it can help create a bulwark against forces like those responsible for the Holocaust. From our present vantage point, we can study the events leading up to it and see them unfold one after another like dominos, and seek to understand the forces at work that created an environment in which this was possible. As I made my way across the windswept expanse dotted with perfect rows of barracks, surrounded by barbed wire, towards the imposing façade of the main tower, I felt emotionally exhausted and almost dazed, but weirdly at peace with the notion that this experience had become an inalterable element of my consciousness.

SiCKO- Turkish Style

So I just returned from the American hospital in Istanbul where I was visiting my friend Jill who has dysentery. That's right, Oregon Trail, "Jill is too weak to hunt" dysentery. She'd been feeling extremely ill for the past few days and was admitted last night, and fortunately she's doing much better. She's a pretty tough cookie who is able to keep a sense of humor in almost any situation, and debilitating infectious disease, it appears, is no exception. She had us all cracking up during the visit- and even though the pretenses were unfortunate, I have to say I have no qualms about spending my last Friday night in Istanbul watching Turkish MTV, reading Cosmo, and drawing pictures with Jill and our other friend Abi. It also gave me a chance to compare the healthcare systems in Turkey and Germany, or more precisely, to compare the hospital in Berlin where I waited with an swollen ankle larger than my fist in a plastic chair chained to the floor for 4 hours before I was seen by a doctor, who wrapped it in an ace bandage and asked me if I had any bigger shoes, to Jill's palacial suite, and caring nurses, the seemingly seemingly gourmet meals (for herself AND her visitors), hassle-free insurance processing and payment, and of course, the nonexistent waiting room (now that says something). Certainly not the contrast I expected.

Experiential Learning

Raindrops are splashing down on the cobblestone streets outside the hostel for the first time since we arrived in Istanbul over a week and a half ago. Reflecting on my day, I remember several times marveling at the degree of my own independence. This trip has really given me the opportunity to test myself and expand my problem-solving and creative thinking skills. For example, I had an interview scheduled this afternoon with an Istanbul-based journalist, columnist, and blogger named Mustafa Akyol (more about the interview in a bit). He gave me his address, and told me to meet him at his home office at noon. I took the metro to his neighborhood, hailed a cab, showed the driver the address on a scrap of paper, which elicited a prompt "NO," an arm movement in the direction of a busy street, and my exit from the cab. I looked around the unfamiliar intersection, found the metro ticket booth, and showed the scrap of paper to the attendant, who gestured towards the same busy street. I headed up the street, and after walking for about 30 minutes through a mostly residential neighborhood, stopping to show my scrap of paper to several passers-by, I found the apartment building with 15 minutes to spare. Congratulating myself, I stopped inside a convenience store for a yogurt, which I ate without a spoon on the store's front stoop. To my surprise, I was greeted after a few moments by the attendant of the neighboring hardware shop, who smiled and handed me an old armchair cushion. What a random act of kindness. I don't think I'll ever forget that gesture. I smiled as I made my way down the street to Mustafa's apartment.

Mustafa's apartment looked like a page from an IKEA catalog. All black and white furniture, sleek lines, and minimalist art. He delivered his well-crafted answers to my questions about Turkey's political climate and the Turkish news media with the same polished ease. Mustafa exemplifies the attitudes of many of Turkey's young, educated, up-and-coming elites. They're tired of the old argument that the state always knows best, that secularism and nationalism comes before liberty and free choice, and that the Turkish people aren't quite "ready" for democracy yet. They believe that moderate and Islam and democracy can and will exist in Turkey, and that Turkish membership in the European Union will mean more economic opportunities, and more importantly, more rights for those groups traditionally oppressed by the Turkish state: the Kurds and Armenians, as well as public intellectuals who dare to question or criticize the military, Muslim women who want both to wear a headscarf and attend university. The interview was a fascinating eye-opener for the political and social changes that are making waves in Turkey today.

I thought about all of the opportunities I've had like this on this trip- for "real world" education, so to speak, during a lecture this afternoon when the professor mentioned the concept of experiential learning in EU-led programs to educate students in Turkish schools about the basic elements of human rights. The cycle goes something like this: experience, reflection, generalization, re-interpretation, back to experience. I was struck by something else she said- in the context of human rights, learning all of the theory in the world doesn't mean anything unless you take those principles and act on them, incorporate them into your daily life and work for a cause you yourself believe in. I think the same can be said about all areas of study- which is why this project is making me so excited about actually going out and someday producing the type of journalism that I'm finding out is so important.

One last thought, not sure how coherent it is. This evening I was enjoying a dinner of Kofte, Turkish lamb meatballs, at a restaurant underneath the Galata bridge facing out at the Marmara Sea with Kate and her friend Leah, who is visiting from Cairo, where she's spending the semester abroad. We were having a great conversation- about the various social and cultural differences in the societies where we found ourselves, about the politics of sex and gender in the U.S. election- and suddenly it occurred to me that in 20 years or so, a lot of the people who I know are going to be doing really, really extraordinary things. It was one of those moments of both supreme contentment and excitement.

Istanbul not Constantinople

Sorry for the long dry spell, I promise I haven't forgotten about the blog! I've been keeping lots of notes and trying to jot my thoughts down before passing out from exhaustion each night. A quick recap: since my last entry, I spent two weeks staying with Ozge in Berlin, attending lectures and meetings with political parties, NGOs, labor unions, business associations for the EiT program, as well as interviewing a few journalists for my independent research project. Of course, I also spent plenty of time exploring the city: museums (lots), nightlife, shops, sampling the varied cuisine, and just walking around Berlin's wide streets- people watching and observing. As things slow down when we return to Poland in a few days, I'll try to include some retroactive posts detailing some of my experiences. Anyway, I've been in Istanbul with the group for a week and a half now, and things have been even more crazy and intense than Berlin. A typical day includes early breakfast is a hardboiled eggs, olives, and fresh-baked bread at the hostel, where I share a tiny room with three of the the other girls on the program. Then we head up Istanbul's main shopping street, Istiklal, Istanbul's equivalent of the Magnificent Mile or the Champs Elysee, crowded with shoppers and vendors selling everything from fake purses to roasted chestnuts and kepabs. Then we take the subway to the Sisli stop, where we walk another mile or so to the Kustepe campus of Bigli University, located in a pretty low-income residential area of the city, which presents an interesting contrast- wealthy students with BMWs and designer clothes attending classes in a gated city block, isolated from the allies of crumbling houses and what seems like hundreds of children running around during the day. We usually have a morning and an afternoon lecture at Bilgi- punctuated by a long lunch break which we usually spend at a local cafe, munching on pilaf or manti, sipping tea, and enjoying the sunny weather. We usually return to the hostel around 4 or so, enough time for a short excursion to one of the city's many eclectic neighborhoods for a look around the shops and sights, maybe a short museum or sightseeing trip, a little bit of reading for class before bed (or, more often, a trip to one of Istiklal's many bars or cafes for a beer, some Raki (Turkish aniseed brandy), or Nargile (water-pipe/hookah), then some much-needed rest for the following day. Like I said, I'll try to do some retroactive posting with musings on my Istanbul experiences (and hopefully some photos and videos), once we return to Krakow and things slow down a bit. For now, I just wanted to give everyone a little update and promise some longer posts later.

Island Fever

Note: I wrote this in my journal earlier today on my trip to the Prince's islands off the coast of Istanbul- no laptops (or cars) allowed.

I'm so at peace right now. I took a ferry from the Galata Bridge near our hostel to the Prince's Islands- about 45 minutes off the coast of Istanbul in the Marmara Sea. Seagulls flocked around the boat as we sliced through the glimmering blue-green sea. A warm breeze and the sun on my face- perfect. I got off at Heybeliada Island, found a bike rental shop on the boardwalk and took off on an ill-fitting red mountain bike with squeaky breaks. I'm making my way around the island on a road that runs through a large state park of some kind. I just stopped to climb what looks like an old stone watchtower on the edge of a steep rock face overlooking the sea and the neighboring Islands. [Check out the view!]

The stairs to the tower were nothing but rusting steel frames (no actual steps), so it probably wasn't the safest decision to climb them, but I did it anyway. When I reached the top, I asked a Turkish man who was there with another man and two small children if he'd take my photo, and afterwards the kids chirped "Hello!" The little girl told me her name was Dora, and offered me a gummy bear. I asked the two men where they were from (Istanbul), and told them my origins and whereabouts when they asked. I love having conversations with local people here, they're so friendly.

This place is exactly what I needed. Quiet, beautiful, partially wooded, with sweeping views of the sea, nearby islands, and in the disance, the outline of the city skyline along the coast. Birds chirping, sailboats floating by, couples picnicing in the grass- after a week in the colorful but chaotic city, this feels like paradise.




Later I hopped back on the ferry to check out a second island, Büyükada. It reminded me of a cross between Key West and Mackinac Island, before both became tourist meccas. Beautiful colorful villas, palm trees, winding streets full of fruit vendors and fish restaurants. I had the two best culinary experiences of the trip yet- no joke. First, a waffle (homemade before my very eyes) smothered in dark chocolate sauce with sliced bananas, sprinkled with crushed pistachios, followed by a piece of fire-baked pita bread with melted mozzarella cheese and miniature salty mushrooms. I ate them both sitting on the deck of the ferry, watching the sun set over the water. Could not have been a more perfect day.

First Impressions

It's past 3am and we've just arrived at our hostel in Istanbul. On the bus ride from the airport, I was too curious to sleep. As we sped down the highway, we passed lots of hillside apartment buildings that looked like layer cakes stacked on top of one another and car factories with exotic foreign names like Ford and Mercedes. We crossed the Bosphorus on an enormous suspension bridge lit by neon lights with a magnificent view of the illuminated Asian and European sides of the city. On either bank, blue, yellow, and white lights twinkled- one of the international students said that's the sign of a poor city- when the night lights aren't all the same color. I'd never heard that one before.

I saw the first Mosque of my lifetime- I think they're the most beautiful houses of worship of any religion, at least on the outside. The towering minarets look like rockets about to blast off into space. I also noticed countless Turkish flags, all of them rippling in the warm night breeze and majestically illuminated by spotlights. The bus let us off in a square at the top of a hill, where we descended via a winding, narrow cobblestone street full of cafes and music shops closed for the night. I can't wait to start exploring.

Imminent Departure, Part Deux

Just some final random thoughts on Berlin before tomorrow's departure to the Near East.

This city has been both challenging and incredibly rewarding. It's almost like in order to really discover it, you have to prove you're up to the challenge. First of all, it's geographically enormous. Four times the size of Paris, territory-wise. In terms of population, it's not even the largest city in Germany (I think it ranks third behind Frankfurt and Munich). Consequently, it feels more like a collection of neighborhoods than one city- though there's no mistaking a distinct Berlin vibe that echoes throughout all of its far-flung regions. The style is thrift-store chic; vintage leather boots and a bright-colored scarf. It tastes like a melt-in-your mouth pastry, feels like a strong warm wind through your hair as the subway rushes past you on the platform, smells like the deepest-fried french fries and the juiciest currywurst. Sounds like the "psshhh-POP" of the bartender de-capping an ice-cold beer. It's the sun glittering off the surface of the magnificent dome of the Reichstag, the young dads with one kid in the bike seat and one on the handlebars, riding to school each morning. It's a college-aged kid with a guitar playing a Bob Dylan song on the subway for coins, the buckets of every color olive imaginable under a white tent at the outdoor market, the slowly spinning top of juicy lamb waiting to be carved at the kebab stand, the faded peace signs spray-painted on the graying fragments of the great dividing wall, now a gallery, a landmark, But it's like you can only see those things if you resign yourself to the fact that you can't go hunting for them. You have to get off at a random U-Bahn stop, walk around the neighborhood, and let them come to you.

The Fat Chicken

On Tuesday we had a tour of the Reichstag, the building which houses the German parliament, or Bundestag. Definitely a cool experience for me, since studying the German political system last year was my first experience with understanding consensus/parliamentary-style democracy, which I found really fascinating to compare to our majoritarian/presidential-style system in the U.S. One thing I did notice arcitecturaly was the obvious attempt to avoid anything that could possibly construed as nationalistic. In the Capitol building in Washington D.C., for example, it seems like every square inch of space is occupied by a painting commemorating some famous battle or treaty signing, or a bust of some famous dead white guy. In the Reichstag, the decor is all modern: stainless steel, bland blue uphostrey, not a bust or painting in sight. Check out the winged creature in the background of the photo below: it's supposed to be an eagle, the German national symbol, but in an effort to avoid a re-creation of the war-like symbol of the Third Reich, the government commissioned an artist to redesign a kinder, gentler feathered friend. The result is a cartoon-like avifauna the Germans affectionately refer to as the "fat chicken." Another interesting sign that Germany is still very much in the process of discovering it's modern identity.

Role Reversal

Today I had my first interview with a German journalist for my research paper: Sigrid Kniest at the Berlin paper Der Tagesspiegel. I could tell she was definitely not used to being the one answering the questions, she seemed a bit nervous and unsure of her speech, but then again it's always difficult to communicate in a language that isn't your mother tongue. Still, I was able to get a bunch of good information. One of the most interesting things she touched on was the tension between journalists and politicians on the issue of Hartz IV, the German unemployment assistance/ welfare system which we've been hearing a lot about in our various meetings with political parties and NGOs here. She told me that the current Minister of Finance has been reluctant to give her more information after she embarrassed him by publishing a "Hartz IV menu" he had written up to show how someone receiving Hartz IV aide could still eat a sufficient amount of healthy food each day. The problem was his calculations severely underestimated the caloric needs for an average-sized adult male. Whoops. She also mentioned the economic woes faced by both newspapers and individual journalists thanks to declining readership, and something else I found really interesting. Apparently in Berlin, each of the major newspapers has a very established relationship with one of the five main political parties. Sounds to me like a potential threat to objectivity. Definitely worth a closer look for my project.

Deutsches Historisches

Today during our afternoon off, Kate, Alex and I decided to check out the Deutsches Historisches Museum, or German Historical Museum. We only had a couple hours, so I cherry-picked from the different eras I found most interesting, as the museum is organized in sections of about 20-year time spans. The most fascinating was definitely the section on the interwar Weimar Republic. I spent some time studying it last year in one of my comparative poli sci courses on modern democracies. We read this really intriguing book called The Nazi Seizure of Power, which followed the NSDAP's rise in a single German town called Northeim. The interwar section of the museum was full of election posters from the famous 1932 election in which the NSDAP began their takeover, photos from political rallies and tons of other memorbilia. Those objects really served as reminder that although it was a seriously flawed, the political system under which Hitler was able to build up his power was at least nominally democratic. It's one thing to read about that process in a book, it's another to see the tangible evidence that it actually occurred.

SiCKO- German Style

Sometime during the wee hours of last night, I sustained an unidentified party injury on the streets of Berlin. Well, to tell you the truth it's not exactly unidentified, I know exactly what happened, it's just mad embarrassing. I tripped over a curb and sprained my ankle when excitedly exiting the park near Alexanderplatz after having imbibed heavily in preparation for our foray into the pulsating neon nightlife of Berlin's famed "Week-end Club." Being the party animal that I am, I rejected my comrades' pleas that I return home and ice my already swelling ankle in favor of continuing our mission. Once we arrived at the club, we forked over 10 Euro to enter the lobby of an old GDR office building, another 5 for an emaciated wannabe model to hang our coats up, then headed up to the 13th floor to be greeted by a epileptic's nightmare of strobe lights, neon flashes, and "music" resembling the noise my car makes when the battery is about to die. After four hours of jerking my limbs back and forth amidst a pit of sweaty strangers to what little rythem I could discern from the futuristic electro-gumbo eminating from the 3-foot tall speakers, I noticed shots of white-hot pain in my foot with each movement, so I called it quits and caught the night tram home with Kate.

The next day my ankle had swollen to roughly the size of my fist.


After an afternoon of R.I.C.E. (Rest Ice Compression Elevation!) and no improvement, my rightfully concerned parents suggested I call the program director and ask her to take me to the an urgent care facility of some kind. BIG MISTAKE. Sorry parents, usually you do know best, the trip was a profound waste of time. At first I had high hopes, a cheerful male attendant placed me in a wheelchair as soon as we checked in at the front desk, and whisked me up the elevator to the main waiting room. We filled out some paperwork, then waited. And waited. And waited. FIVE HOURS. Not even kidding. The chairs were made of the hardest, most uncomfortable plastic imaginable, and were chained to the floor and each other so I couldn't even re-arrange them to continue with the elevation portion of my R.I.C.E. regimen. And forget about the ice part. They gave me three ice cubes wrapped in a paper towel and didn't look back. The waiting room was full of other patients, some looking like they were teetering on the edge of death by the plague, others looking perfectly healthy, catching up on their gossip with one of Berlin's infamous bikini-filled tabloids, and one women, for whom I felt honestly terrible, shuddering and wailing into her boyfriend's shoulder. FIVE HOURS LATER when the nurse finally called out "Frau Scheltens?" I hobbled into the examination room, where I was met by a nurse who told me I'd definitely need ex-rays, then by a doctor who said they'd be entirely unnecessary, wrapped my ankle in a disposable ace bandage, and handed me a container of pain relieving cream. Since I could barely walk at the time, I found this minimalist solution highly problematic. When I inquired about crutches, the nurse brought in something resembling what I imagined Tiny Tim used in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol I've included a photo below, which I found simply by Google image searching for "European style crutches." Go figure. I'm not really sure how well my experience can speak to the German healthcare system as a whole, but I have to say I was unimpressed. The wait was terrible, the environment downright prison-like, the care lackluster, and the paperwork tedious and time-consuming. To be fair, one of the nurses put it well in her response to one impatient patient's inquiry as to the nature of his extended wait. As in the U.S., understaffed emergency rooms are increasingly forced to deal with illnesses and injuries that people wait to address until they have reached their absolute worst point, oftentimes in cases where preventative care or early intervention would have solved the problem entirely. What I'm still unclear on is why a phenomenon like this would continue to exist in a country in which the state provides free healthcare for all citizens. Maybe next time I'll think twice before extolling the virtues of European-style healthcare.

Another Brick in the Wall

Today was so fantastic- I spent the whole day by myself, which I think really helps me connect with a new environment. I went to Schoneberg to the Winterfeld outdoor market. The weather was a litle chilly, but brilliantly sunny, perfect for wandering among the white-topped tents full of vendors selling everything from cuts of giant blocks of cheese, colorful bags and scarves, sizzling bratwurst and potent bags of herbal tea. It made me wish I had a camera that could capture scent. A different delicious aroma with each step. I ordered a lammbratwurst, a short, skinny sausage served with strong mustard and rye bread. I enjoyed it while basking in the sun on a park bench, listening to the shrieks of children on the playground. I walked around some more, took a few photos, and had a bowl of hearty lamb curry lisensuppe on my way back to the train station.

Later in the afternoon we had a lecture with one of the directors from the community center for Poles in Belrin. He was a little hard to understand and follow, but his story was interesting. He inspired me to expand my vocabulary by learning 5 new words a day, which is how he says he learned German. I need to do the same for English, instead of using hackneyed words like "amazing" "incredible" and "interesting" to describe all of my experiences here.

After the lecture I took the U-Bahn to the East Side Gallery, a 1.5 km stretch of the Berlin wall that has been left intact as an outdoor art project, full of spray painted murals that unfortunately have been marked up by graffitists. At first I was irked, but then I realized that their "work" does give the wall a certain gritty edge. Besides, if they had a guard outside the wall making sure no one defaced it, wouldn't that be kind of ironic? The gallery is supposed to be a reminder that wall is a part of Germany and Berlin's past, but it still plays a role in its present. The graffiti sort of says "This happens when the state lets go of its iron grip on the people, and we shouldn't try to hide it." If people believe they have no way to make themselves heard except by vandalism, that says something about the society, and that's something to be addressed, not covered up. The voices of the vandals mingle with those of the artists- that's democracy I suppose.

Back in the G.D.R.

The name of the game in Berlin is chaos. I can't even begin to list the eclectic mix of experiences I've had so far. Walking tour of the city (in the freezing cold, I might add), with a Canadian expat, talking politics with friends over wine at a hole-in-the-wall bar on Mehringdam, meadering around Mitte with Kate and Jill on a sunny afternoon (that neighborhood is fascinating- in the GDR time it was a concrete wasteland, right after unification it was a squatter's paradise, now it's trendy as can be, with expensive shops, funky cafes, outrageous dance clubs and smoky pubs). Today, and every Thursday, most of the museums in Berlin are free from 6-10pm, so we hit up the GDR Museum and the Altes Museum. The GDR museum was like stepping on to the set of "Goodbye, Lenin." They had a complete replica of a GDR-era apartment (complete with books on sexuality and a corresponding explanation of the GDR's progressive sexual policy- abortion legal and paid for at any point in a pregnancy, free birth control for all women over 15. Although they did include a line about the fact that although the GDR proclaimed women and men were equal, the social division of labor was still pretty traditional- men pursued their careers while women were expected both to work and maintain the household. Have things really changed that much today?). The museum also had a closet full of GDR-era clothes, displays of magazines and television shows, and photos from the family vacations to nudist colonies out in the country. I know they wanted to up the kitsch factor the bring in the tourists, but I couldn't help but detect a wiff of nostalgia in the whole affair. The only negative element of the regime they really highlighted was the lack of choice when it came to newspapers- which I thought was interesting given my research topic. But other than that, I kind of walked away thinking, "well that wouldn't have been so bad." I suppose everything in the museum was pretty surface, though. And they did make note of the fact that farmers and engineers in the GDR earned an almost identical salary. But overall, the picture was a bit one-sided.

"Eich Bin Ein..."

Berlin...wow. I can’t believe this place. Enormous, modern, crowded, graffitti’d up and down, unique, eclectic...and I’ve only been here 4 hours. We’re all staying with friends of Ipek, the site coordinator for Berlin (who totally embodies the city’s spirit- second generation Turk, fabulous/feminist/lesbian, and renowned DJ), in Kreutzberg, an immigrant-turned-yuppie neighborhood on the very easternmost edge of West Berlin. Ozga, my host, says for a long time most West Berliners were scared to come here, too dangerous, too many immigrants, too close to the wall. But all that’s changing.

Ozga is fantastic, she’s originally from Istanbul, studied fashion in Vienna, had a Ph.d in drama, and now works in arts education. She’s incredibly sweet and easygoing, I can tell we’re going to get along really well. We had few beers together at the Turkish restaurant where we all met our hosts for dinner, talked about life, transience, the funny way that our post-modern human condition shows up in our tendency to pick up and move anywhere, in our hesitancy to commit to relationships, really fascinating stuff. This place couldn’t be more of a contrast to my homestay in Krakow- I have an enormous room with floor-to-ceiling windows, hardwood floors, wireless internet and a queen-sized bed with a temperputic mattress. The difference in average income in the two cities is obvious, and I’m sure other differences, positive, negative, and neutral, will reveal themselves as I better get to know Berlin. I couldn’t be more excited.

Buchenwald

Yesterday, some of my friends and I went to Buchenwald, which was one of the main Nazi concentration camps, about 10 minutes outside Weimar. What an eerie and somber experience. It was the coldest day we've had on the entire trip, maybe 2 degrees above zero Fahrenheit. As I walked across the giant gravel square where all of the prisoners had to stand every morning for roll call, the cold sliced through my skin like needles and I thought "this doesn't even compare to how cold these people where." It made me lightheaded to think about.

After walking through the main gate and the first building, a prison, I entered the crematorium, by myself, which was a big mistake. The first room was where they performed medical experiments on the prisoners, they had a doctor's table and a bunch of really terrifying-looking instruments. I seriously felt like I was going to faint or throw up. Then I went inside the room where they actually shot the prisoners, and saw the hooks on the walls where they hung the
bodies to let the blood drip out. A small room off to the side held thousands of urns where their ashes were kept. I thought about skipping the room with the actually ovens, but I figured I'd already come this far, and I knew there would be other people in there so it wouldn't be so terrifying. It was chilling, but not as bad as the other rooms. They had a bunch of pictures, cards, poems, and other memorials to make the place less haunting. When I came out of there,
the freezing air hit my face and I realized I had tears stuck in the corners of my eyes. It's an experience I'm glad I have had, but it was really emotionally taxing. Afterwards, back at the hostel, Kate and I ate our kebabs in silence, then I took a nap and was okay after I woke up. It was our last night, so some friends and I went out to a bar later that night which was really fun and sorely needed.

I know we're taking a trip to Auschwitz when we return to Krakow at the end of the program, and after today I'm really wondering if I can handle another such experience. But I know I'll go, it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime things I suppose. I guess after today I have some sort of idea of the mental preparation I should do beforehand. I'll try to go in feeling calm and ready to reflect, always remembering that it's sort of my job as a world citizen in the 21st century to have this experience and keep telling the story.

Last Train to Weimar

Today was a travel day- a 2 hour train ride from from Tubingen to Frankfurt, most of which I slept through, followed by a 3-hour ride from Frankfurt to Weimar, which was breathtaking. Foothills covered with dense forests set against bright blue skies and white marble clouds, villages full of red-roofed wood-frame cottages surrounding Protestant churches with metal sculptures of roosters atop their steeples. Patchworks of farmland, crystal clear rivers, winding country roads and the crumbling ruins of medieval castles atop steep cliffs. I didn’t want to close my eyes for fear of missing something. The sunlight was the most perfectly clear pre-dusk hue, and made everything appear to glow. Juanma, Darut, Abi, Majd and I had dinner at the most authentic of German restaurants, the furniature was all dark upholstered oak and the place was full of kitchy knick-knacks. Greasy food, good beer, and a great conversation about politics. I’ve definitely noticed a difference in architecture now that we’ve crossed over into the former GDR, or maybe just because this town had to be completely rebuilt after the war. It looks more like Krakow, planning-wise, with its straight, wide streets and boxy buildings, but it’s much cleaner and quieter. It’s strange to think of this small sleepy town as the cultural center of Nazism so many years ago.

Dreaming in German

I love this city. As we hiked up the hill to the old castle on a winding cobblestone path, with the sun warming our faces for what felt like the first time in weeks, I fantasized about learning German and coming back to Tubingen for graduate study or a Fullbright scholarship. Does it have to be just a fantasy? I have a long life ahead of me with many years to be spent many different places, as well billions of unused brain cells read to soak up a new language. Like Juanma, my friend on the trip who is originally from Bolivia, mentioned over beers at the brewery tonight, “It’s nice to have another language to express yourself in.” Sometimes there’s a word or a concept I can feel but I just can’t express because of my linguistic limitations.

Tubingen

Tubingen is like a postcard come to life. A small university town in southwest Germany, its winding cobblestone streets and five story wood frame houses with their colorful facades couldn’t contrast more with Krakow’s gritty uniformity, although there are elements of both cities I find appealing. There is something about the attitude of the people here that is different from Krakow as well. Kate mentioned it over lunch- it’s almost as though you can feel the sense of hope, confidence and direction, as opposed to the kind of defeated feeling that hangs in the air in Krakow. It’s nothing scientific, just an observation, but it makes me think about health, wealth and happiness, how much are they truly connected? Germany has something of a sordid past as well, how is it that it has been able to collectively pull itself from the rubble and start anew, but always guided by history? Maybe the attitudes, values, and general demeanor of Tubingen just match up more with my conceptions of happiness and satisfaction- perhaps Krakow does the same for other people. Every city and society is too complex to be reduced down to such a simple description, but it’s something I think about as I travel.

This afternoon we visited the job center in Tubingen, which is charged with helping people who have been unemployed for more than a year find work, and supporting them financially in the meantime. The presentation got me thinking about the differences between Germany and U.S. in terms of social welfare. Centers like this might exist at the non-profit level in the U.S., but they’re nowhere near as well-funded and regulated as in Germany, each town has their own branch, which is funded by the national government (an element of the program the German court actually ruled to be unconstitutional). It sounds like the best of both worlds to me- the financial power of the national government combined with the know-how of local administration. As the world economy becomes more integrated and advanced, and finding gainful employment becomes more of a complex task requiring ever-changing types of skills, will the U.S. end up having to play “catch-up” to all of these other advanced Western democracies that are working to build a system that truly advances equality of opportunity? As the German economies soars ever higher, while the U.S.’s shows signs of sputtering, are we already beginning to see this phenomenon at work?

Imminent Departure

It’s my last night in Krakow, and I’m certainly ready for what’s next. I’ll be glad to say goodbye to my homestay family, I’m incredibly grateful for their kindness, and also for the opportunity to see a very different part of Polish life than I would have under normal study abroad circumstances, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it was tiresome at times. The class issue always made me nervous/conscious about using my laptop, or my ipod, or talking about my experiences traveling, etc. Oftentimes I felt isolated because Ania and Agata spoke exclusively Polish to one another, so it was nearly impossible for me to join the conversation unless they asked me a direct question, or I did the same to them, which made conversations seem shallow and forced at times. I think sometimes when people don’t understand each other it’s more of a communication barrier than strictly a language barrier- it has to do with shared values, experiences, norms and expectations. One of the reasons I’m glad, in the end, that I had this homestay experience is because I’d like to become better at communicating with people who don’t necessarily “speak my language,” even if they’re native English-speakers. I mean, recognizing when someone is coming from a different place in life than I am and still being able to carry on a conversation with them, to try to learn from them.

Today Kate’s host Zina invited me and Agata to join the two of them and her son Michael and his wife Katia on a day trip to the Pieskowa Skala, a 14th century castle about 45 minutes outside of Krakow. Both Micheal and Katia are in their late 20s, he works as a computer programmer and she teaches English to Polish adults, so they both speak perfect English. After a week of sign language awkward silence, I have to say it was definitely a relief. The castle looked just like something out of Shakespeare. In fact, Agata mentioned that she’s performed Othello there years ago, and showed me the spot on the terrace where she stood as Ophelia when the curtain rose. I was surprised and impressed, Agata is so soft-spoken and inconspicuous, and it’s difficult for me to picture her onstage. It reminded me to be careful and think twice when I think I’ve pegged someone’s personality or character. There’s always so much I don’t know.

After looking around the castle’s exterior (the inside was closed for the winter), we drove about 10 minutes up the road to the village of Ocjow, to see the ruins of an even older castle. Unfortunately, it was closed for the winter as well, so Michael, Katia, Kate and I went for a hike while Zina and Agata had some tea in town. It was so relaxing to just walk in the woods- al this time in Krakow has made me forget how refreshing it feels to be out in nature. The forest was beautiful, all tall skinny trees, second-growth I suppose. I spotted three different types of fungi growing on fallen tree trunks. The air was damp and fresh, like cool water trickling down my throat. We got a little lost, but found our way to another tiny village that was connected to Ocjow via a main road. I could have sworn we were in Switzerland by the architecture of the houses, they all looked like cottages on an alpine lake. I noticed a number of small, makeshift alters outside some of the houses: stone pillars with a painting of the Virgin Mary and some flowers and candles. One was next to the keypad for an expensive security system. Kind of like Poland itself, marching excitedly towards the future but always with one eye looking back to its religious roots.

Times They Are A-Changin'

Today we took a tour of Nowa Huta; an old socialist factory town built in the 1950s to counter the cultural and capitalist hedonism of nearby Krakow. To me it looked incredibly similar to any low-income neighborhood in Krakow, like the one where I’m staying now. Uniform concrete high-rise apartments, a few small shops and churches, but mostly empty buildings sprayed with graffiti, and lots of elderly people out and about during the day. When I mentioned this last point to Marchin, Ania’s boyfriend, he said that it was because the small number of young people who live in Nowa Huta commute to Krakow to work, and most of the residents these days are retired factory workers who moved to the community from the Polish countryside in the 1950s.

I thought our tour guide’s explanations of the churches was particularly interesting, a perfect example of the “imaginary” identity I was thinking about yesterday. He mentioned over and over “The Polish people are very strong Roman Catholic, some say that is what made the communist system fail here.” It reminded me of the tendency Roger Davies mentions, of nations to rewrite their own history, or at least just emphasize the good parts. Our migration professor mentioned that her research on Polish immigrants in Chicago confirmed this tendency- most of them (incorrectly) assumed that their forefathers had fled political oppression, but in reality their reasons for migration were mostly economic.

My conversation with Marchin also made me think about some of my earlier musings about the onset of secularism as Poland becomes further integrated into the EU. I told him about my idea and asked him what he thought. “I think you are exactly right,” he said. “Things are changing. The church used to run the government, now no more.” I couldn’t help but notice the large cross around his neck, and thought about Ania’s statement that they “sometimes” go to church, and how she spends the night at his flat at least once a week. Marchin asked me about politics and religion the United States, and the upcoming Presidential election. I told him the U.S. was different from Western Europe in this respect. In France, for example, politicians don’t mention God or religion, nor do they make campaign speeches in churches or court religious organizations. In the U.S., they’re all doing that right now. A lot of people in the U.S. take comfort in the idea that the President is somehow close to God. After September 11, I said, the President Bush played on that feeling, combined with a newfound sense of fear, in order to gain support for some policies his administration had wanted to pursue for a long time, like the war in Iraq. “So, you don’t like the war?” Marchin asked. “I had a pretty bad feeling about it in the beginning,” I said. “I think it was a careless, brash mistake that will end up costing the U.S. and the Iraqi people a lot of lives and money. But, I think it’s also important that the U.S. think long and hard about the best way to end our role there, we don’t want to cause more problems by leaving than we have already. It’s a tough situation.” Marchin nodded. “But, U.S. went to Iraq to get Osama Bin Ladin,” he said. I nearly chocked on my tea. Poland may be changing, but there’s still a long way to go. To be fair, I can think of plenty of Americans who would have said the exact same thing.

Identity Politics

February 6, 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about a lecture we had with Professor Kubiak a couple days ago, about nationality and ethnicity as “imagined” communities that link people who don’t really know each other. It’s always in the back of my mind as I try to process this new society and culture in which I’ve suddenly found myself. What does it mean for something to be “real” versus “imagined,” anyway? It reminds me of an episode of South Park, of all things, titled “Imaginationland,” where the characters find themselves in an alternate universe inhabited by every fairy tale creature, cartoon, or legendary figure that has ever had a place in human consciousness. In this episode, the government wants to destroy Imaginationland with nuclear weapons (don’t ask), but Kyle eloquently makes a case for their preservation, “These characters might not be ‘real,’ but what is ‘real’ anyway? They’ve had a bigger impact on more people than any of us ever will, and I think that makes them as ‘real’ as you or me.”

All identities are “created,” in a sense, but does that necessarily mean they are as malleable as social theory would have us believe? Take the situation of Kurds in Turkey, now that they’re not really fighting for their own territory, will they still be able to preserve their “ethnic” identity, when the fight has been a central part of that identity for so long? Without that fight, what makes them more ethnically conscious than me, an Irish-Dutch-Polish American? Without some form of an “imagined” identity, there probably would have been no American Revolution! From what I could gather, and I may be misinterpreting, Professor Kubiak’s dream is of a world full of people whose identities are not derived from “imaginary” distinctions like nationality, ethnicity, or even race. He believes this is our best defense against repeating the 20th century’s bloody mistakes.

I’ve had a little bit of downtime at my homestay, so I’ve been doing some reading about Turkey in preparation for our travels. With its hunger for democracy, EU candidacy, and ethnic and religious diversity, Turkey is a country with the potential to shatter all kinds of conventional academic wisdom. If Turkey can begin to follow Professor Kubiak’s vision of a society founded on universal values like human rights and democracy, rather than nationalism and militant secularism, it would fly in the face of the pessimistic prognosis of scholars who believe Eastern and Central Europe are too focused on ethnic and national identity to catch up to their Western counterparts. It reminds me of another article we read, about post-communist society in Poland and how it never really went through the period where bourgeois capitalists where in power, it “skipped steps” to an economic system where social and cultural capital are the most important commodities. If Poland can “skip steps” economically, maybe Turkey can do the same on its path to democracy- perhaps it can do without the nastier periods of democratic development that the U.S. and Western Europe experienced: nationalism, xenophobia, and civil war. I certainly hope so. Whatever the case may be, the more I learn, the more excited I am to check out this place for myself.

Krakow

Sorry it's been so long since my last update, internet access has been spotty lately. Here are a few retroactive posts I wrote while in Krakow, updates soon on my adventures in Germany!

Today I found out a friend of mine from high school lost his dad to a heart attack. It seems like such a life-stage marker, that age where your friends start losing their parents. Like I’m a real grown-up now or something. The time we have on earth is both limited and limitless; when something like this happens it always makes me sit back and re-evaluate how I’m spending my time and whether I’m really doing things that bring me both pleasure and purpose.

The day went by so quickly, a semester of days like this will pass in the blink of an eye. It’s all I can do to keep mine open and try to take in as much as possible.

Today we had a lecture on migration at the Jagiellonian, which was mostly rehash from an immigration course I took at Kenyon last semester. The lectures here are interesting sometimes, but very different from Kenyon. One big difference I’ve noticed is the reliance on theory at the Jagiellonian (and presumably other European universities). I’ve never had a professor make so many references to certain authors- we read them outside of class, but the professors’ lectures at Kenyon tend to come more from their own thoughts and experiences, with the theoretical base kind of mixed in, but not the focal point of the lecture. I like it, because having a context to which theory can be applied always makes it more interesting. When the Jagiellonian professors lecture, I wonder, where are their ideas and perspectives? At Kenyon, creativity and academic rigor are bread and butter. Here, they seem more like oil and water.

After class, Kate and I walked to the Krakow transport office so that I could get a refund for the citation I received last week for riding the tram without my I.D. card (oops!). The place had no lights on, and just two employees working at the time- certainly not the picture of a fat, bureaucratic European welfare state. But Poland’s something of a special case- a socialist past and a subsequent aversion to the state that you don’t really find in Western Europe. Plus, it’s nowhere near as wealthy. All that makes it an interesting outlier.

Later in the evening, Ania, Agata and I headed over to Agata’s friend Zina’s apartment, where my friend Kate is doing her homestay. Ania was funny- you could tell it was the last thing she wanted to be doing. She reminds me of my sister when she was about 16, whining about schoolwork, spending hours on the phone with her boyfriend, bickering with her mom. The three of them mostly spoke in Polish to one another, but Zina (a former actress, like Agata), is engaging and dynamic no matter what language she’s speaking. Although the language barrier does create some awkward moments. For instance, Zina was trying to apologize for her poor English skills, and compared her speech to that of a “Neegra,” by which she meant African-American. Kate and I looked at each other nervously, unsure whether we should point out that a) such a comparison isn’t really P.C. in the first place, or b) her incorrect/possibly offensive terminology. Kate handled the situation well, “That’s not a term people really use anymore, it’s considered rude.” “Most people say ‘black’ or ‘African-American.’” I said. “Right,” said Kate, “Although in Poland they wouldn’t really be African American.” I felt my face redden as I stuffed another tea wafer in my mouth. I really wanted the conversation to end. We went home after about two hours and Agata left the flat suddenly almost as soon as we arrived. “My friend is hungry, I bring food, back tomorrow.” Hmm...friend? I wonder why she didn’t think she could tell me she was spending the night at her boyfriends’ house? (Which I assume she is doing). Ania and I had a good time at home, just studying and taking little breaks to talk about little things; school, friends, how expensive textbooks are whether you live in Ohio or Poland. Our topics of conversation are expanding.