Gardening For The Soul

As many of you know, I have been travelling in Europe for the past 10 days.  The company for which I work is opening an office in Krakow, Poland and I was asked to be part of the trip to interview potential employees.  On the way there I spent some time with Mum, which I am also doing on the way back, sitting in her kitchen as I write this.

What an amazing experience – Krakow is the most fascinating city.  The first written record of the city’s name dates back to 966 but its history in the last century is the most vivid for me.  I kept thinking that so many people I passed in the street had seen and experienced more than I ever will (or want to) in one lifetime – fascism, communism and now capitalism.  As I stood in the Main Square, I’d think about what had gone on there and how I’d love to be able to transport back and witness life as it was then, compared to how it is now.  I spent a great deal of time interviewing and meeting candidates, really enjoying my conversations with them, but the highlight for me was the walking tour I took on Saturday afternoon of the Jewish quarter.  We spent a couple of hours with a guide visiting synagogues, scenes from the movie Schindler’s List and the ghetto.  Although not as big as the Warsaw ghetto, at the beginning of WWII there were about 60,000 Jewish people living in Krakow with only 2,000 surviving the war.   Now the Jewish population is very small, only about 1,000.   Whilst waiting at Warsaw airport, I also checked out the history of the Warsaw ghetto during WWII and read this incredibly moving piece which I have included below:

In August 1942 the deportations carried on in the same relentless fashion, 130,660 people were deported, amongst those on Friday 7 August 1942, were 200 children from Dr Janusz Korczak’s orphanage. Korczak was the pen-name of Dr Henryk Goldszmid, doctor, writer and renowned educator, who ran the orphanage with his long-term assistant Stefania Wilczynska, and they were both murdered in Treblinka, along with their charges. 

Korczak was given the opportunity not to be deported, but he chose to remain with the children under his care, as did other heads of orphanages, who stayed with their children, and were murdered at Treblinka. Korczak was at the head of the procession, and Perla Y wrote about the deportation:

 “ The very paving stones wept at the sight of this procession. But the Nazi murderers hit out with their whips and fired shots every few moments. Janusz Korczak holding a child by the hand led the way. With him were the women childminders in white aprons and behind them 200 children, clean and tidy, their hair combed going to their slaughter”.

 The tour and this passage were a somber experience and really brought home to me how incredibly fortunate we are to live the lives we lead.  We bitch and moan about this, that and the other, worried that somehow we’re not keeping up.  We’re rude to each other, suffer from road rage and generally bemoan our lot.  But look at what we do have, look at the lives we get to live, the freedoms that we enjoy.  As I was walking around, I just felt so grateful to have the opportunity to be there, to be able to walk in other’s shoes in some very small way, to visit with the ghosts of the past and be witness to their story. 

And to continue with the somber theme, Mum is in a pretty crappy place.  She has waterworks issues and dementia along with everything else that MS has caused.  She is very muddled and frequently doesn’t make it to the loo in time so I have been doing a lot of laundry.  Although I am now really looking forward to getting home, seeing the girls and Steve, this time, I feel really quite worried about leaving her.

P.S.  Ironically, 5 minutes after posting this, I read that 67 years ago today, Hitler committed suicide.