The Grief of Politics

Sunday was the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, in Krakow. The ceremonies, all 20 or so hours of them, were full of fitting pomp and circumstance.

On one hand, the bordering-on-festive air about the funeral seemed to celebrate, as well as mourn. Celebrate that Poland can overcome any adversity. And rightfully so. The country is to be commended for the stride in which it has dealt with this tragedy. As Roger Cohen pointed out in his op-ed piece for the New York Times, "Poland's democracy has barely skipped a beat." And considering how young this democracy is, that's a true accomplishment. After losing not only the President, but many officials and cultural contributors, the nation moves on with grace and strength, proving that it's fully capable of handling such a blow while maintaining its calm. It has refused to be a victim.

On the other hand, the institutions responsible for these 20 or so hours of decorated ceremony for the President seemed to take mourning to the next level: heroic worship and martyrdom. As another op-ed expressed several days later (Wiktor Osiatynski), "Mr. Kaczynski became a hero, because in Poland, any death in or near Katyn sounds heroic — a reaction that does disservice both to Mr. Kaczynski himself and the memory of those murdered by the Soviets." Beginning with the announcement that the first couple would be buried in Wawel Castle- a place where the greatest of Polish kings, romantic poets and great military heroes are buried, but no politicians- and continuing through several full days of mass and ceremony, the air was also filled with a sense of self-righteous victimization.

The President was not a popular leader. His approval ratings were below 30 percent and his disapproval ratings were double that. His conservative party was thought by many to have actually hurt Poland's progress in recent years, and this is in what could arguably be the most religious country in Europe. He was not a hero. He was not assassinated for his ideals (though some are calling the incident "Poland's JFK"). His death, like the 95 others with him on the plane, was undeniably tragic. But it was careless, and in the end, political. A poor decision to attempt to land the plane in bad weather conditions, despite clear instructions from air traffic controllers not to, was made under the pressure of a political event. The President was not invited to the commemoration ceremony that had taken place days earlier with Polish and Russian Prime Ministers, so he arranged another one on his own. He invited families of Katyn victims and other political officials, and with thousands waiting for his arrival, the desire to make an appearance outweighed the risk.

It could be for this reason that there were no tears in Krakow. In the most Catholic part of the country (where his slim approval ratings were highest), at a funeral attended by about 150,000 people, I spotted not one tear. Pride perhaps, collective grief, but no intense emotion. I can't say why, nor can I say how the Polish people will fare as they ride out the larger impacts of this loss. I think it will be seeking that never-ending fine balance between remembrance and moving on...

Poland refuses to be a victim.

Poland continues to be a victim.

The two seem like opposing realities, but in my experience, they are both very much true.

Katyn 2

It's strange to see the country we've become close to thrust suddenly into the headlines of world news. If only it were for something good. But Poland is quiet, solemn, and still shocked from the tragedy that has been nicknamed "Katyn 2."

On Saturday morning, our dear roommate Pawel told me with teary eyes that the President's plane had crashed. I thought for a few short seconds that I was misunderstanding (as happens sometimes with his broken English). When I learned it was in the forests of Katyn, the excruciating irony literally made my heart ache, like some sick joke. It's haunting. Not only has Poland lost a leader, but a large number of its military and political officials, and intellectual elite. And not only were their lives snuffed out in an instant, but in the place of the worst atrocity for the Polish people in recent history. The plane had been carrying dignitaries to the commemoration ceremony for the 70th anniversary of Katyn, the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviet secret police during World War II. An incident which put a deep scar on Polish-Russian relations, one that the countries and still working to heal.

Coincidentally, Danny and I had just watched the 2007 Andrzej Wajda film "Katyn" not even a week ago (Oscar-nominated and well worth watching). The movie had been in my head for days before the crash, having left disturbing images in my mind. It opens with a brilliantly telling scene set at the beginning of the war. Polish families are fleeing, belongings in hand. They reach a bridge, and see more people coming toward them, running from the other direction. One side yells "the Germans," while the other yells "the Russians!" The protagonist much pick her poison. And that is the sum of history for this nation.

It's practically unthinkable that Poland could lose so many beloved, socially important people on two occasions in practically the same exact spot. The plane carried several family members and children of victims of the Katyn massacre. A bizarre, eerie and profoundly sad fate.

I am not a news photographer, and have very little desire to be. But I thought it important to document the grief. I tried to do it in a way that was different, and hopefully more subtly emotive than the generic crowd-and-candle pictures that have flooded the news wires.

Here and There

A simple series of diptics I put together when going through some edits. I started seeing relationships and it just became an interesting way to look at things. The connection is different from one image to the next. Some are literal, some just intangibly, emotionally parallel to me.

Shades of Grey

It isn't the greatest month to battle depressing visual stereotypes in Oswiecim. March is grey. It's cold, with precipitation that constitutes neither rain or snow. Misty at times. But more than anything, grey. When the sky is grey, pavement is grey, and many buildings are grey, it starts seeping into everything within your sight. And soon, grass and even bubblegum-colored buildings look grey. The color can be stunning, breathtaking. Personally, I love grey. Cameras love grey. Life can be seen in shades of grey (quite literally in photography). But it can also be abused, exploited. It can be used specifically for its drudgery and emotional strain, it's drama or lack-thereof (depending on how you look at it). The notion of using color for drama in photography is common, but black and white and greys have a special place.

Oswiecim could be considered synonymous with grey right now, in many more ways than one. Visually, I have to make a conscious effort not to use the colors of March as a crutch, not to overdramatize the symbolism and irony of it. In modern culture -or maybe it's always been- grey has come to mean grief, depression, despair. Words that for a number of years truly did define this city, in every way. But today, Oswiecim is much more complicated. The complex struggle for identity is far from black-and-white, and very...well, grey.

For those who might not know, Oswiecim is the Polish name for a city which, before World War II, had a population of around 14,000, more than half of which were Jews. It was a city of relative peace for Poles and Jews for several centuries until the 1939 Nazi invasion, when history was scarred with the notoriety of the city's German name: Auschwitz. Not long after, the infamous death camp was built just a few miles from the center, forever leaving this place with a legacy it never asked for. More than one million people were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a number that's incomprehensible in most senses of the human brain. In a country that served as ground zero for the Nazi's Final Solution, Auschwitz more than any other name holds the full weight of that horror. Most infamous of all the concentration camps, it stirs an instant connotation of darkness, genocide, and the worst atrocities history has witnessed from humans.

A mere handful of Oswiecim's Jews survived the war. Of the many ethnic Poles from the city who were sent as political prisoners to the camp, few also survived. Many locals who weren't sent to the camp were forced to leave (or fled) as the Nazis made Oswiecim their home, and a shining example of "a perfect German town." Though relatively few people were left after the war, the city today is home to about 40,000 people, many of whom came in search of work during Poland's impoverished, post-war, 40-year communist rule. The city's chemical factory, built by slave labor during the war as an industrial money-maker for the Third Reich, was significantly expanded during the Soviet sphere of influence. It grew to employ about 10,000 people, creating one of the few and by far largest work opportunities in the region during communist times. Even a few of the 200 or so Jews who made their way back to Oswiecim after the war, having no place else to go but "home" (as was the case with many), settled for employment in the factory.

The city today has a messy identity conflict. The question of whether Oswiecim can, or even should, exist without association to Auschwitz is a debatable one, and is sensitive to more than just the residents. Living in the shadow of the camp inevitably invites criticism from the outside world over what people's relationship with it should be, and discussion about what ethical barriers there are around a place of such grave historical importance. Initially, a natural reaction from people outside Poland seems to be bewilderment that anyone would choose to live next to the world's largest graveyard. But I think this is overestimating the use of the word "choose." What is a reasonable level of sensitivity here? And do the residents respect it enough? What is "enough?" It seems to me that in many ways the residents of Oswiecim face a similar question as the Jewish population around the world: how do you find the balance between remembering the atrocities of the past, while not allowing your existence to be defined solely by them? How do you move forward with good grace and strength to show that you refuse to be a victim, while respecting and educating about the ways you have been victimized? Will it ever be possible for Oswiecim to exist without the identity of "the place where Auschwitz was built?" For better or worse, I don't know if it's possible. So the struggle is how to coexist. And perhaps more pressing, why is it important to?

Questions like these never have black-and-white answers. They are only the surface of discussion. Which means that even as the dreariness of March passes, and the first green buds of spring push toward the light from the depths of the soil, Oswiecim remains, possibly forever, in a state of grey.

some context...

After more than a week in Poland, and numerous sighs as I sat in vain attempting to articulate the things going through my head, I've finally started up again. My blog (a word which really sort of makes me cringe) has been resurrected and will hopefully continue to be a dialogue (albeit a limited one, because how much can the audience respond to a blog?) as I journey along here on this new eastern european trail.

My experience as a working photographer in foreign lands is still very limited. It's different from my earliest travel experiences, which were wonderfully without pressure and more about self-fulfillment. As a photographer, I find that I process information differently. My brain seems to naturally file things away in a more organized fashion. I wonder sometimes if this way of processing is forever a part of me now. The subconscious, never-ending visual and informational analysis of things is difficult for me to turn off.

That said, Poland has been a pretty easy transition. New and fascinating, with a steep learning curve, but fairly smooth to take it. It could be because I often think back in comparison to my last cultural emersion, when India left me speechless, bewildered, spinning, and drunk on new smells and sounds. I've met people who have traveled far more extensively than myself, around numerous continents, and contend that nothing matches the shock of India. Poland is Europe. It's modern, it's Christian, it rotates in a very "western" direction, and it holds powerful ties to a large immigrant population in the U.S. that has distinctly added to the American mash-up throughout the past century. So given that I'm minimally familiar with the culture, I'm trying to find ways (and it's not very hard) to go deeper. What has resulted is the discovery of a place that is, in fact, very distinct in history and place. And the fact that I never realized this before makes it all that much more interesting.

Someone described to us a well-known political cartoon yesterday. It features a caricature of God, looking down from a lofty cloud at Poland, while laughing with a sidekick as he says, "just for fun, let's see what happens if we put Poland between Germany and Russia." In short, it's largely what sums up the Poland that I'm experiencing here today. A country that is uniquely situated between East and West, between two nations that have absolutely dominated much of the global turbulence of the last century. And there, in the middle, is Poland. Pulled one way, then the other. Facing two polarizing, equally over-simplified labels of both victim and perpetrator.

Poland means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It brings up images of old ladies in babushkas, potatoes and (amazing) pierogies, Catholic pride in the previous Pope, waves of 20th century American immigrants, and ground zero in the Holocaust and World War II. It's a canvas of emotions from all different angles. And if I've learned one thing in my 10 days and counting here, it's that Poland is far from any of these simple, individual associations….

ladies in red

I can't seem to stay away from the women here. I love them.

Two different women, same tram. One of my first connotations was Poland=fuzziness and old lady hairdye. I think it could become a bizarre photo series on the side...

New Journey: Poland