By Stu Whitley
Bio
This is the third in a four-part series.
The
new museum dedicated to the Battle of Warsaw is a compelling place to
visit. It opened the weekend we arrived, and the queue stretched around
the block. But after being informed of Dad’s participation in the
battle, we were afforded special treatment, moving quickly to the head
of the line. Serious deference is paid to elders. People give up their
seats on trains and trams; seniors are acknowledged in the streets,
especially those who, like my father, wore the pin bearing the insignia
of the resistance, a stylized ‘P’ with curving feet. He did not wear
the Cross of Valour, awarded to him in absentia, for sustained courage
in the face of the enemy. This an honour I only learned about recently.[
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Written by eldering at Learning
Tagged with:
battle_of_warsaw
courage
history
poland
By Stu Whitley
Bio
This is the second in a four-part series.
There is no country more
tragically concerned with war, oppression and the visitation of death
than Poland. This is saying something for a continent riven by ethnic
and political conflict for millennia. It is my impression that war—and
in particular, the Second World War—casts a long shadow there, for the
occupation by the Soviet Union that followed for nearly half a century
afterward had its bitter roots in that conflict. The scars are yet
there, literally. In the large block in Lublin where my father lived as
a boy, a line of machine gun bullets fired 67 years ago is neatly
stitched across the stone façade.[
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Written by eldering at Learning
Tagged with:
memory
poland
war
By Stu Whitley
Bio
there's a fading, sepia photograph of me, shipboard, clutching my mother's hand
immigrants to a new life, worlds separated by an ocean from all that was then known
taking seven days to cross. now holding the photograph close, it's not easy
to discern what I was thinking, for my expression - fast frozen these many years
tells nothing of the wonder, edged with fear that I surely then must have felt,
for all that was familiar, precious and true to me was about to be surrendered
in exchange for promises of fresh beginnings at journey's end. I arrived, dislocated
in a new life of fearsome opportunity, where anything was possible
some time ago, not long, it seems, though no photograph records it
I stood firmly clutching the hand of what I believed to be certain
yet all that seems sure rarely is, for we cannot know with perfect clarity
all that lies mysteriously beyond the oceans we choose to cross
it's only now I realize the full extent to which it can happen,
that I can be an immigrant once more in a dislocating new world;
a world that has journeyed to me, and anything becomes possible again
[
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Written by eldering at Learning
Tagged with:
aging
generations
grave
hegel
poland
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