A Visit to Poland and Berlin: A Saga of Despair and Hope

 Jayita Mukherjee

 

In July 2016, I got an opportunity to visit Poland as my paper was accepted for presentation at the Conference of International Political Science Association, being held at the Polish city of Poznan.

This was my first visit abroad and I was excited and tensed at the same time, since I was going alone from Kolkata. The populace in the flight presented a mini-Bharat, Gujrati businessmen settled in US, Sikhs going to Canada, Bengalis going for Europe tour and so on, all scheduled to take different flights from the Frankfurt Airport. The journey was eventless, no turbulence and no missile attack about which I was a bit apprehensive as the flight was crossing the airspace of Afghanistan.

The Frankfurt airport is like a mini city. The courteous airport support staff kindly guided me to take the  tram that will take me to the terminal for flight to Poland as airport signages were all in German language. Weird, I thought, since it is an international airport and there is no use of English. I wondered,  legacy of the second world war, when Germany and Britain were bitter enemies? 

Flight from Frankfurt to the Polish city of Poznan took just 40 minutes. At that time, my mobile did not have Google translation app or google map, so with some difficulty I got information from airport staff about the location of my hotel. Luckily, I came across a Japanese girl going to attend the conference and staying in my hotel, so we could take a shared cab.

The mellowed sun of morning and clean air and fresh wind greeted us as we stepped out of the airport. The first thought came to my mind is how pollution free the city is compared to my hometown.

The driver, in broken English took our permission to play polish music. It was a Sunday and the roads were clean,  broad, with no potholes, guarded on both sides by beautifully manicured garden, and most importantly, almost empty, once again reminding me of the crowd outside airport on any day in Kolkata.

 

 As we reached our swanky hotel with glass façade, just opposite the hotel, a 17 th Century mansion caught our attention, and on our request, the cab driver took a snap of me and Kishita, the Japanese girl.

 

At the dining hall, I met a few delegates from India, a Bengali lady Trina, who teaches in a  college in Delhi and another one, Nivedita, who is an Assistant Professor in a college in Orissa. We bonded instantly as we were more or less of the same age group. Soon, a team was formed of both Indian ,  US and European participants to make a trip tp Warsaw, a distance of 297 km from Poznan, and the bullet train will take us to the historic capital city of Poland within an hour. The conference was to start the next day and we could be back by 10pm, so many of us jumped to the opportunity.

 

We reached Warsaw, capital of Poland  around 3pm. Once again, the city presented a beautiful landscape, with a judicious and tasteful admixture of modern buildings and Middle aged European houses, maintained with much finesse.

As we stepped foot on the streets of Warsaw, I could not  help wondering that this calm, bustling city, cheerful was once witness to unimaginable horror unprecedented in the history of human civilization. Many decades back, on 1^st September, 1939, as Hitler’s notorious Nazi forces invaded Poland, prompting the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany, soon followed by other Western  countries and thus a huge conflagration, the Second World War, engulfed the world. And Warsaw soon became a besieged city, as large Jewish ghettos were set up, from where hordes of Jewish men, women, and even children, were taken by trains to different concentration camps strewn across German occupied portions of Europe. This was the place where the Holocaust began, one of the most sordid episodes in the history of human civilization, in which more than 6 million Jews were exterminated brutally. On that cool Sunday afternoon in Warsaw, the beautiful city, with majestic buildings and cobbled roads, carried no sign of those gloomy days.

 

 

But soon, something did remind us of the horrors of the past.  Our guide pointed at an ancient hand pump and said that under the strict vigil of Hitler’s SS Guard, in cold nights, Jews were allowed to draw drinking water from it, one of the very few facilities available.

 

 This hand pump, in city central was the only source of drinking water for those living in the ghetto.

 A dilapidated Jewish settlement has been kept in its original form, as a reminder of those dark days.

Staring at it, I tried to imagine the trauma of people living in this house, waiting for their inevitable end, the order to catch the train and proceed for the concentration camps and my heart sank.

At the city centre, people were enjoying snacks in cafes, and young musicians were playing various instruments to amuse bystanders. It was heartening to note that the new generation has moved ahead and living lives to the fullest.

 

We came across the house of Madam Curie, known simply as Marie Curie, a famous daughter of Poland ,  a physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Pari. I felt good that this illustrious daughter of Poland did not live to see the horrors of Holocaust.

 

I asked the guide about the house of Rosa Luxemburg, another legendary daughter of Poland, who opened up a new vista in socialist thinking, debated mighty Communist leader Lenin regarding the role of Centralised Communist Party in Proletarian revolution and advocated spontaneous mass movements of workers. Her spirited independent thought incurred the wrath of fanatics and she was assassinated. Unfortunately, our guide had no idea about Rosa’s whereabouts.

Time did not permit, neither did I had any inclination to visit a nearby concentration camp. Dark tourism does not suit me.

Despite tremendous odds, young men and women of the ghetto organized Resistance Movements and sometimes could carry out attack on SS guards, saving some Jewish lives by helping them to escape the country. A beautiful statue dedicated to these fighters is the last thing we saw and I am glad that we could return with this uplifting feeling that despite facing extreme brutalities, Polish people fought back, never loosing their  hope for better days.

 

The next day, early in the morning we , around 8pm, all gathered in the Convention Bureau of  Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań for our paper presentations. The proceedings started sharp at 9 and it was an wonderful opportunity to listen to the views of scholars across the world about the trials and tribulations of indigenous people, theme of the conference. I spoke about the Adivasi uprising and their involvement in the Maoist Movement in India,  their struggle to save the natural resources, from the onslaught of capitalist organizations and to save jal, jangal and jamin, (water, forest, land and in addition, various minerals). My paper received positive response and many of the participants took my email id as they wanted to know more about this struggle of India’s marginalised populace.  Young University scholars also liked the issue and took a photograph with me.

These girls advised us to visit a local church, since there was not much time before dinner to explore anything more.

 

The beauty and serenity of the Church soothed our soul. I was thinking that despite having a communist regime, this church implies the inclusivity of Polish culture.

The next day also was spent at Conference Hall, getting enriched by various academic papers.

The next morning, after a valedictory session, I was now free to execute my previously planned trip to Berlin, just 272 km away. Trina and Nivedita joined. Luckily, it was just a one day tour and our flights were scheduled next day.

A very friendly young man whom we met at the train, explained to us once we reached Berlin, the exit to take so that we can directly go in front of the famous Brandenberg gate.

 

Very soon, we found ourselves gazing in awe at the majestic Bandenburg gate, a symbol of both the division of Germany, and its subsequent unification.

 

I was thinking, standing in front of Brandenburg gate, how unpredictable life can be, taking twists and turns so suddenly, as a Roman philosopher Seneca said, ‘Change is the only constant.’

 

We took the help of a guide for a quick look at the city’s prominent places. The first place he took us was this stark building, the SS Headquarters, where Hitler and  his minions drew up their evil plan about how to execute the Holocaust. One could not help but shudder at the mere sight of this building.

The bifurcation of Germany into West and East Germany, former pro West and later, Communist and Pro Soviet Union, and the construction of the Berlin wall, a concrete structure guarded by police on both sides, dividing families, was another dark episode of this city which otherwise is a heart of art and culture, science , music and literature, gifting to humanity , luminaries like Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, Gunter Grass and numerous others. The fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, an outcome of spontaneous movement of people from both sides changed the course of history by initiating the end of Cold War. It was a victory of positive human spirit.

Part of Wall has been maintained as a reminder of men’s folly for posterity.

We had the good fortune of catching a glimpse of the world famous Humbolt University whose Alumnae included Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist known for developing the theory of relativity and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Max Karl Planck,   a theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918, Maximilian Carl Emil Weber, a sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally. His ideas continue to influence social theory and research even today. The list of its famous alumni is exhaustive.

The day was coming to an end and we hurried back to the railway station for coming back to Poznan.

Sitting in the train and looking at the lights of Berlin quickly moving away, I once again ruminated about Holocaust. Why did the German people, known for their erudition, their sensitive, creative mind, silently observed the persecution of their Jewish neighbours. A famous quote of Dr Martin Luther King Jr came to my mind, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

I hope and pray that something like the Holocaust  will happen ‘Never Again’ and people will always fight for the right cause.

*Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Women's Christian College