Thursday 22 April 2010
The day after the night(mare) before...
Lodz. In the window of Salon le Grand on Piotrkowska last night.
Monday 19 April 2010
Saturday 17 April 2010
The flight into death...
About Smolensk, Katyn and Lech Kaczynski's deathly flight.
In short the facts as I got them by "hear saying".
Katyn 1940. The Stalin regime captured and killed 17.000 (!) people of the Polisch elite (politicians, scientists and so on). Not with machine guns, everybody got a personal treatment. A bullet in the head.
Seventy years after this crime it was for the first time in history that the Russians not denied that it had taken place. This was the reason for this delegation of high officials to visit.
The presidential Toepolev should have been replaced already a long time ago. But they did only talking about it, so far.
There is also a rule that says that never so many important people will be on board on a flight in one plan. But Lech Kaczinsky didn't stop inviting people. This is the reason why the journalists finally had to go with a separate flight and - thanks to this - are alive.
They where in a hurry and to be there - in time! - was extremely important for Lech Kaczynski.
'Katyn' was an issue high on his agenda.
And of course halfway this week the speculations started how it could be happen... Main question: Why tried this Toepolev to land against all reasonable thinking to do not so in this for a landing impossible circumstances? Could it be that the president ordered the pilot to land?
Lech Kaczynski is - or better to say now: was - known as somebody who could be rude in manners. Sometimes acting more as 'somebody from the countryside' then as a president. Wellknown is his use of the word 'dziadu' which means something like 'stinky old man'. Mainly used for people who didn't share his conceptions.
It's not totally unthinkable that the president have said to the pilot when he announced that landing was impossible: Just land 'dziadu'!
Delicate detail. Three years earlier a pilot on a civil (but probably also presidential?) flight who refused against orders to land in Georgia because it was in war was fired for this reason...
If so: One thing he has reached. His great dream that the crimes against Poland committed in 'Katyn' should be on the map in the world.
And his picture on Piotrkowska...
with a memorial...
And books about 'Katyn' everywhere in the bookshops.
See also: Piotrkowska 16th April
And about this speculations
In short the facts as I got them by "hear saying".
Katyn 1940. The Stalin regime captured and killed 17.000 (!) people of the Polisch elite (politicians, scientists and so on). Not with machine guns, everybody got a personal treatment. A bullet in the head.
Seventy years after this crime it was for the first time in history that the Russians not denied that it had taken place. This was the reason for this delegation of high officials to visit.
The presidential Toepolev should have been replaced already a long time ago. But they did only talking about it, so far.
There is also a rule that says that never so many important people will be on board on a flight in one plan. But Lech Kaczinsky didn't stop inviting people. This is the reason why the journalists finally had to go with a separate flight and - thanks to this - are alive.
They where in a hurry and to be there - in time! - was extremely important for Lech Kaczynski.
'Katyn' was an issue high on his agenda.
And of course halfway this week the speculations started how it could be happen... Main question: Why tried this Toepolev to land against all reasonable thinking to do not so in this for a landing impossible circumstances? Could it be that the president ordered the pilot to land?
Lech Kaczynski is - or better to say now: was - known as somebody who could be rude in manners. Sometimes acting more as 'somebody from the countryside' then as a president. Wellknown is his use of the word 'dziadu' which means something like 'stinky old man'. Mainly used for people who didn't share his conceptions.
It's not totally unthinkable that the president have said to the pilot when he announced that landing was impossible: Just land 'dziadu'!
Delicate detail. Three years earlier a pilot on a civil (but probably also presidential?) flight who refused against orders to land in Georgia because it was in war was fired for this reason...
If so: One thing he has reached. His great dream that the crimes against Poland committed in 'Katyn' should be on the map in the world.
And his picture on Piotrkowska...
with a memorial...
And books about 'Katyn' everywhere in the bookshops.
See also: Piotrkowska 16th April
And about this speculations
Sunday 11 April 2010
Thursday 25 March 2010
Monday 22 March 2010
Sunday 21 March 2010
Stereotypes of Poland?
Are these the stereotypes?
in a shop window in Lodz...
And when I went to Warsaw... today...
on a big info screen at the metro in Warsaw but meant satirical...
and this video taken at around 8.30 AM at Narutowicz on my way to the station in the morning in Lodz...
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Happy Birthday Chopin!
200 years ago Chopin was born... Some say it was on 22 February, or the 26th, others means that it was on 1 March...
Some people are about that very sure...
But let's leave that.... Congratulations!
If you don't like it? Try this... Difficult hey!
All over the world they celebrate the event:
Sympathies Enlarged: A John Cage Forum: Happy Birthday Chopin!
Find more yourself here!
Or enjoy his music directly from YouTube.
Interesting is this one...
And by the way... some people think it's all old crap. But! he is still alive. Just before his birthday I saw him in a modern outfit at a bus stop in Lodz.
Some people are about that very sure...
But let's leave that.... Congratulations!
If you don't like it? Try this... Difficult hey!
All over the world they celebrate the event:
Sympathies Enlarged: A John Cage Forum: Happy Birthday Chopin!
Find more yourself here!
Or enjoy his music directly from YouTube.
Interesting is this one...
And by the way... some people think it's all old crap. But! he is still alive. Just before his birthday I saw him in a modern outfit at a bus stop in Lodz.
Thursday 25 February 2010
Poles and Jews: Nostalgia...
Yes, sensitive topic. I found this on the web as a reaction on a You-Tube video from VICTORHRZ in search after his family roots in Lodz.
"Really nice footage, even if i did not understand a word ;) Have to say as a modern citizien of Lodz that i am really sorry that curently our city misses so much of it's past. In 1939 one of four Lodz citizens was Jewish, there also was a lots of Russians and Germans. Poles as me were only in about 30%. During the war Germans destroyed almost all sinagogues.Some of them were really unique architecture.I hope Jews will come back sometime to Lodz, and someday we will be able to live together again"
That's strange enough what I feel in Lodz which is obviously so much a Jewish city... still... but without really having a Jewish community who matter...
Something is missing...
They say the Poles where indifferent about the fate of the Jews in WW II, and even hostile... If so, tragic choice at the wrong moment. But if not, what will had been able to do them against the absolute brutality and virulent aggression of the Nazis?
The Polish left wing activist and politician Sierakowski has formulated this feelings in a compelling monologue in an empty stadion in Warsaw. There he is an actor in a performance, so in an art piece, called 'Mary Koszmary' (Nightmares) by Yeal Bartana. (I mentioned this already earlier, see Mir i Wieza (Wall and Tower) for a description and more details)
The nice thing is that Stawomir Sierakowski, although being an actor at that very moment, exactly says what he actually means and stands for...
Yeal Bartana expresses the mutual bond from Polish society and the Jews also in another symbol...
but.... BUT!.... Love is...
"Really nice footage, even if i did not understand a word ;) Have to say as a modern citizien of Lodz that i am really sorry that curently our city misses so much of it's past. In 1939 one of four Lodz citizens was Jewish, there also was a lots of Russians and Germans. Poles as me were only in about 30%. During the war Germans destroyed almost all sinagogues.Some of them were really unique architecture.I hope Jews will come back sometime to Lodz, and someday we will be able to live together again"
That's strange enough what I feel in Lodz which is obviously so much a Jewish city... still... but without really having a Jewish community who matter...
Something is missing...
They say the Poles where indifferent about the fate of the Jews in WW II, and even hostile... If so, tragic choice at the wrong moment. But if not, what will had been able to do them against the absolute brutality and virulent aggression of the Nazis?
The Polish left wing activist and politician Sierakowski has formulated this feelings in a compelling monologue in an empty stadion in Warsaw. There he is an actor in a performance, so in an art piece, called 'Mary Koszmary' (Nightmares) by Yeal Bartana. (I mentioned this already earlier, see Mir i Wieza (Wall and Tower) for a description and more details)
The nice thing is that Stawomir Sierakowski, although being an actor at that very moment, exactly says what he actually means and stands for...
Yeal Bartana expresses the mutual bond from Polish society and the Jews also in another symbol...
a combination of the Polish eagle with the star of David....
but.... BUT!.... Love is...
Monday 8 February 2010
The Kutno-experience
On my way to Rotterdam... Two and a half hour waiting in... Kutno.
So hiding in the station restoration.
Couldn't not read the menu and choose by chance Vlaki which turns out to be soup from paunch. (cow flatulence) It smells like what it is and the taste brings me the remembrance back of boiling old and dirty socks. (yes, in the old days)
But it was nevertheless nutritive. So, don't understand me wrong: nothing incorrect!
These pictures are the result of "me being bored".
"Fresh fruit", my table
the restoration
my 'Vlaki' soup
somebody had eaten there already...
Poles, having a meal, have been concentrated and silent
my other neighbour
"Greenery", the table of my neighbour (when he has left)
everybody has left
And then I didn't tell you about the young man, open, friendly face, who began to talk to me just at the moment I started to read my book...
Don't know, seemed to me more or less drunk... asked me about six times what was my name... had been in the Netherlands, 35 years old, two daughters at home... broken window in the house, couldn't effort to repair it... finally asking some money...
I am dead, he ended his monologue. Yes, I am dead...
Intermezzo
Sunday the 7th I went back to Holland, Rotterdam for preparing the project further; arranging all necessary things and supplies and so on.
March 8 I will travel back to Lodz again and then we will start effectively the Baluty - Baluty project. On the move!
In between I will continue this blog. Quite something to tell about the progress we made and the people we met, which is not on the blog yet.
For now just a few impressions from my journey yesterday.
Lodz Kaliska
L'heure bleue ... Ah, the old Érich Rohmer...
Can you understand that I start to love Poland?
And then I didn't tell you from the tiny stiff hare, who obviously didn't very well these winter and who was hiding in the thicket along the rail and started running in the open field because of the train and then the fox I saw waiting for this events to happen running after him with his long thick beautiful tail waving behind him...
Saturday 6 February 2010
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Thursday 28 January 2010
Snow
Tonight and in the early morning it was snowing. It is a very dry and thin snow. But it gives quite a lot of snow... After a while looking out of my window I saw this fresh snow already covered by a dark-grey layer of everything what's in the air, coming out the chimneys, obviously.
Not much movement in between these houses except dirty snow, a cat coming out a basement (see the traces!) and playing in the snow (couldn't catch him/her with the camera) and people coming out with their dogs for some exercise and other necessary operations.
Not much movement in between these houses except dirty snow, a cat coming out a basement (see the traces!) and playing in the snow (couldn't catch him/her with the camera) and people coming out with their dogs for some exercise and other necessary operations.
Saturday 23 January 2010
It's freezing!
Some Poles have a nice sense for understatement; they say it's chilly... Minus 17 degree Celsius today! Chilly?
The one who made this sign seems more realistic to me.
Agnieczka said: Normally it's never that cold here. This winter is like they have in Russia. But now we have it also here!
And there is more to come.... On the radio they speak about minus 26 and even minus 30... for the weekend.
Yes, it's freezing!
The one who made this sign seems more realistic to me.
And there is more to come.... On the radio they speak about minus 26 and even minus 30... for the weekend.
Yes, it's freezing!
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Searching for colour
Both pictures are taken in the entrance from the place where I stay in Lodz, on Gdanska .
Tuesday 19 January 2010
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