Day 3: An Interview and Returning to Ponar

Last night, when we returned, I bagged some items taken at Ponar - some soil, some tealight, a flower. We had to go to a supermarket to find Ziploc bags but there was none, so we make do with freezer bags and masking tape. I am wondering how the flower will survive. I pressed it in my note book as a means of preserving and keeping it. Back at the apartment, I looked about and decided to tear a strip of carton box, and fold it over to use as a makeshift hard envelope. Shiv says it is a 'fighting flower.' She found it at the escape pit. It is scrawny and fragile looking. I hope it makes it to an exhibition. One of the ideas is to collect everyday items - things that speak to the Jewish experience - and host them as exhibits at an exhibition we hope to put together eventually at some point. I don't know if Fighting Flower will make it...


Soil from Ponar, pit # 1

We return to Choral Synagogue to speak to the caretaker, Isroel. It becomes an hour-long interview. He speaks articulately. About how he comes from Minsk, Belarus. How they dived flat on the ground when the Nazi bombs fell. How his dad enlisted in the Soviet army. How he went to the hospital to visit him. How they sang a song about soldiers in a convoy meeting a cat on the road. About his children, his wife, a friend who passed away 3 years ago. About the Jewish cemetery that keeps him in Vilnius. About how he would like to die in Israel. About learning to read Hebrew. About how he was ashamed to be a Jew when he was younger. How the swastikas on Jewish buildings makes him sad. When the interview concludes, he prays. I like his sing song voice; it is very melodious.


Isroel

We have lunch at a place call Belmonto. It is a resort of sorts; looks like a theme park with restaurants, cafes and bars and a watermill and waterfall and stream. I have the boiled cabbage stuffed with mince, in a light broth and a dollop of sour cream on the side. It is very good. My choices are paying off.


Cabbage and mince

It has occurred to me that some may find it incongruous or disrespectful that I am writing about food even as I speak of the holocaust. But I do not think these experiences are misplaced or out of sync. Living and dying are two sides of the same coin, are they not?

We return to Ponar to speak to people who live near there; to record their thoughts. Some young people tell us that they have heard of the word 'genocide' but they don't really know what it means. An elderly Polish gentlemen is lonely; he knows nothing about Ponar but would like to tell us about how lonely he feels, about how he lives everyday and how those he knows are "dropping like flies." He is 81.

Jess and Dan decide to take more footage in Ponar. The weather isn't cooperating. It starts to drizzle. We wait. Later, the sun comes out but it's only a brief respite. We speak to a postgrad student who is also a guide; she is visiting Ponar to brush up her knowledge about the place. We speak to a man who manages the museum; he asks for a lift to the station.


Jess and Dan in action.