The old and new.

We walked to Schlinder’s Factory today. They have turned the factory into a multi-media museum about the Polish experience during WW2..with an emphasis on the Jewish tragedy, but keeping it in context. It was amazing — they did not allow photography…which didn’t let me step away from my emotions. So I think that was good.

Acually touching the teeny-tiny tanks the Polish Army had to fight the German tanks,and seeing film footage of the Polish Calvary mounting charges against (again) German tanks brought to life things I had only read about. There were photos German soldiers had taken as souvenirs –shades of Abu Ghraib. And the time line of slowly taking away the rights of Jews until eventually most of them were killed. There was a concentration camp close to the factory and the pictures of the camp were in a room that was covered in gravel. Feeling the crunch of the gravel and seeing the bleakness of the pictures was so moving.

This is a memorial at the bus station where many were sent to their death.

We walked through an area of town that has not been gentrified. You could see the beauty behind the age. I think all this will be redone in the next 20 years. There is a real vibrancy to the people here.