The Polish Connection
A few months ago, when the student protest encampments against the genocide in Gaza were attacked by the police at Columbia University, someone yelled “go back to Poland!” at the pro-Israel counter-protesters. I admit I cringed. These sort of statements are certainly not helpful although the frustrations are understandable considering the terrible political situation. Buried within that crass sentiment however was a nugget of truth: Poland is in fact the open wound that continues to ooze, specifically as it concerns the history of German colonialism and imperialism in Poland that culminated with the destruction wrought during WWII. Instead of healing this wound within Europe where the offense took place, the hurt and pain and rage and anger were conveniently exported to Palestine.
Over the past several years I’ve immersed myself in an anti-fascist, socially engaged art project that, as it turns out, concerns Poland on a variety of levels. Hopefully this post will help illuminate the value of alternative perspectives and engaging authentically with other cultures. I also hope this will show the value of social practice art, especially as it concerns uplifting alternative perspectives, marginalized voices and organic, real world lived experiences.
Personal History
In the year 2000 I graduated from Fels high school, named after a local Jewish philanthropist who was the son of German Jewish immigrants. Located in the lower northeast neighborhood of Philadelphia that’s known for its cultural diversity, the experience was very United Nations with a real melting pot mixture of people from all over the world. One of my coworkers at that time was Polish girl named Isabella. We were part of a team of high school kids who were driven out to the suburbs and other areas near Philly to go door to door soliciting newspaper subscriptions. I can’t help but smile remembering how Isabella would be teased a bit because of how soft spoken she was while we practiced our sales pitches; one of her main teasers eventually became her boyfriend, a very amiable and friendly Puerto Rican guy named Moses. One day a few of us went with Moses to Isabella’s house (she lived close to the school) to hang out while waiting for our supervisor to pick us up. The next day Isabella had a black eye, and we learned that her father was angry that 1) she was dating a Puerto Rican and 2) that she had Black guys in their home. I believe she continued seeing Moses on the down low, and the incident was soon forgotten, but I’ll never forget her sad eyes that day and how she attempted to use her hair to hide her bruised face.
Fast forward to 2005 when I arrived in Frankfurt am Main with five dollars in my pocket. My housemates in the place where I lived, in the “house of ill repute” as we’ll call it for now, were two Polish guys in their late twenties or early thirties. Actually, I believe one of them was likely genderqueer. Pawel, or Paula as they called themselves, was blond, blue eyed, while his best friend Darius was dark and slim. They were a bit of an “odd couple,” fighting bitterly and screaming at each other in Polish like maniacs then acting like nothing happened a few hours later. Darius lived in the room to my left, Paula in the room to my right. Coincidentally, it’s worth mentioning that my grandmothers name was Paula. Darius and Paula were tasked with cleaning and maintaining the business portion of the house and helping to run the day to day minutia of the business based on the first floor. I soon learned that they were deeply in debt to the owners of the establishment and were essentially like indentured servants. There were a number of young Polish guys who came through there at the time as well, and one of them, upset over the exploitation he was witnessing, ended up calling the police to the place — a story for another time.
Polish Origins
Victor Klemperer, the WWII diarist who inspired my anti-fascist project, was born in the German empire in colonized Poland, in a town called Landsberg an der Warthe — now known as Gorzów Wielkopolski.
Eva Klemperer, Victor’s wife and the reason we even have his valuable writings, was born in Königsberg, a city that once was a part of Poland but is now part of Russia.
Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven was a very interesting Dada artist I recently discovered and someone who has given me some interesting insights into the nature of pre-WWII European society. If you are familiar with Marcel Duchamp and his famous urinal you have “The Baroness” as she was known to thank. The Baroness’ interest in the artistic value of found/mundane objects was instilled in her by her Polish mother, Ida-Marie Plötz, and she made random quixotic objects a part of her artistic practice, inspiring her protégé Duchamp. According to Duchamp, the Baroness was “the future” and she certainly embodied some very ahead of her time concepts in some very intriguing ways. The place where this interesting historical figure was born was at the time a part of the German empire; Swinemünde has since been returned to Poland and now goes by the name Świnoujście.
The Cat Connection
During the tumultuous summer of 2020 I decided to adopt a black cat and named him Victor, inspired by some touching anecdotes in Klemperer’s diaries concerning their love for their cats. While in Germany last year I found myself in an unexpectedly dodgy relationship situation needing to get from Dortmund to Berlin. At the time I was determined to hold on to my cat somehow and began browsing cat sitter websites. The person I settled on had a good rating and seemed nice, and when I contacted her she responded almost immediately. I later learned that this young woman was Polish, and that there’s actually a network of Polish cat lovers in Berlin (and maybe across Germany as well) who mostly organize on facebook.
When it became clear that Germany wasn’t going to work out I decided to leave Victor the cat in Germany for some esoteric reasons I will elaborate on later. But as the day of my flight grew closer I had yet to find a home for him. During a trip to Dresden to visit the Mayan codex I was contacted by a friend of my cat sitter, a young woman who was interested in adopting Victor. This young woman and her partner are Polish and Victor is living there happily to this day.
It’s worth mentioning something that led me to understand why cats are often connected with the occult and mysteries. Both Eva Klemperer and The Baroness were born on July 12th — the same day Spanish priests burned most of the Mayan books and ceremonial objects — July 12, 1562. These tidbits of information are quite important to me and without the cat guiding my decision making during that time I doubt I would have discovered certain things that have made my project more compelling.
Sorrowful Songs
Beth Gibbons is absolutely one of my favorite singers and lyricists. When I discovered that she learned to sing in Polish to record and perform with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra I was very intrigued. Henryk Górecki’s Symphony №3 (Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs) with Beth Gibbons as the vocalist is absolutely moving, haunting and sublime and is the perfect “soundtrack” for the more somber and introspective aspects of this project concerned with grieving for what has been lost and what could have been.
Beth Gibbon’s collaboration with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra inspired me to take a new approach to the Stella Goldschlag case, something I’ve been studying for a while. This young woman was a particularly effective and ruthless henchman for the nazis and her story has been turned into books, plays and even a recently released film in Germany. Yet we don’t often hear about her family’s Polish origins or the fact that nearly everyone from her immediate family was murdered in occupied Poland.
Polish Jews versus German Jews
One fascinating aspect of Jewish culture pre-WWII concerns the schism between assimilated German Jews and the “Ostjuden” (eastern Jews) who were often much more religious and connected with the underground economy than their Western European counterparts. German Jews often showed disdain for the Ostjuden, most of whom came from either Poland or Russia. They were more likely to behave and dress in ways that made assimilated, social convention obsessed people uncomfortable. Victor Klemperer describes in his diary reluctantly calling the police on a Polish Jew who he claimed cheated him; it’s not clear whether the situation was cut and dry or whether his own prejudices impacted the situation.
This schism between Ostjuden and German Jewish communities reminds me a bit of the tension between suburban, affluent Black people and those Black people considered “ghetto.” As we know, many Black folks in the United States today live in ghettos and are systemically blocked from accessing the education, healthcare and networking opportunities that could uplift them from their oppressed situation. Many Black people who live in the ghettos are religious, more likely to embody perceived negative cultural stereotypes, and are more likely to be involved in the underground economy — just like Ostjuden. What the affluent Black folks who look down their nose at them should be aware of is something many German Jews tragically discovered after WWII began — that the ghetto awaits them as a place of containment and imprisonment if open, naked fascism takes hold here.
The Dybbuk
I would like to end this by mentioning something that is directly connected with the “open wound” I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. The Dybbuk is an occult figure from Ashkenazi Jewish culture, mostly found in eastern Europe. From Brittanica:
…in Jewish folklore, a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person. Belief in such spirits was especially prevalent in 16th–17th-century eastern Europe. Often individuals suffering from nervous or mental disorders were taken to a miracle-working rabbi (baʿal shem), who alone, it was believed, could expel the harmful dybbuk through a religious rite of exorcism.
Poland was the epicenter of Ashkenazi Jewish life before WWII. When the war was over, three million Polish Jews had been murdered and Yiddish as a language and unique culture essentially disappeared. In my opinion, the Dybbuk in its modern context after the Holocaust represents the need to finally reckon with this tragic history and restore Jewish life in Europe.
