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.

Day 2: A Visit to Ponar/Panieri

This morning, we meet our guide Chaim. We decide to plan our day over breakfast in the old Jewish quarter. Chaim tells me his name is pronounced "Ha-im" with a strong inflection on the "h" like a cross between "k" and "h". It makes me think of the "(k)hreme cheese" joke that Shiv told me once, about the Jewish pronunciation of "c" which sounds more like "(k)h". He points to the Hebrew lettering on his cap and sweatshirt. He tells me it means 'guide.' (Later, I am told by Jess that it also means 'the learned one.')


Chaim

We decide to visit Ponar, also known as Panieri. It is the site of the memorial to the largest killing field in Lithuania. At The Green House yesterday, we saw a video clip of a survivor describing one of the pits there. The narrator was choking back tears when she described how she tried to scramble 'under' the Nazi guards, hoping to escape. She said, 'On left grandmother, on right aunt, when we were there, we were no longer father, grandmother,' something to that effect. I took it to mean that it was everyone to themselves at that point, at the precipice, on the brink of death. Shiv thinks she meant that they were all just bodies, nameless, without identities; pieces of meat...

We exit the restaurant. Out on the street, Chaim walks us up and down and points out places of interest. A passerby overhears us and she and Chaim exchange a few words. Chaim translates. She takes offense at his use of the word "Vilna" instead of "Vilnius." Later Chaim explains to us that to Jews, he uses the name Vilna; to others, he uses the Lithuanian name, Vilnius.


Chaim narrating on Stickliu Street


We arrive at Ponar, also known as Palnieri. I am a bit confused. The stone carving marking the entrance to the site is Panieru Memorialas. I can't tell what is Lithuanian, what's in Russian, or Polish. There are also Hebrew letterings.


Entrance to Panieri Memorial

The landscape is dotted with stone monuments. One to Russian Jews. One to Polish Jews. One to Lithuanian Jews. There is a small museum but it wasn't open. I stick my camera lens through the grid of the gate to take a picture of the map on the wall. I can't see clearly what it is, but it looks like a map of Lithuania with icons to mark the killing fields.

We see a lady trundling by with a shopping bag on wheels. She looks like she's off to the market, as if she lives in the forests of Ponar and is off to the local Maxima supermarket. She looks incongruous with the landscape.

There is a lone grave. It is the only grave in this vast forest of pits and monuments and trees. One solitary grave to mark one person - Helinus Fegius (1888-1944). We are told that his family erected this tombstone in this doctor's honour. The rest, all 99,999 remain nameless and unmarked. They have to make do with stone monuments and wreaths to the collective.


Solitary gravesite

Dan and Jesse have the camera out and the boom pole and they are trailing beside, behind and around Shiv and Chaim. I am still waiting for Vy to confirm when he can come today evening to set up the modem, and also to see if Andreas, a volunteer at The Green House, can still meet us for an interview later. I have kept my mobile on and I don't want the signal to interfere with the audio taping so I stay a fair bit away from where the action is; going close every now and then to catch Chaim's narration.


Shiv looking pensive

I busy myself recording photos behind them. It will be a way for me to archive what we have seen and video-ed with the transcripts that will follow. I need visual cues. Besides, I know that Shiv eventually wants a record of places, things and people.

We follow along the paths and come to a circle of stones. It is the first pit. People were lined up around the rim and shot; their bodies falling into the pits and piled high on top of each other.

We walk along some more. The second and largest pit. I guess it is about 100 feet or so in diameter and about 15 feet deep. I imagine how many bodies can fit in here. I also wonder what it would be like to be alive and under 15 feet of bodies... I can't help but think these thoughts. And yet... when I look around me, it is strangely quiet and scenic. We walk further on, a third pit. Opposite, what resembles a pit, but we are told it is the escape pit, where prisoners created a tunnel using spoons...


The largest pit at Ponar

I can hear the sound of a train passing by. Apart from that, all is quiet. I don't see or hear any birds. I only feel the cool breeze brush past me and over me; the sound of gentle rustling of trees. The forest is deep. I imagine what it must have been like to walk here, before there were paths, when it was all woods. I wonder how many trees are in this area. I fancy that each tree is a life that was taken, rebirthed. I wonder if there are 100,000 trees in this forest.


How many trees are there?





The day passes quickly. We speed off to interview Andreas at The Green House. It is almost 4.30pm. We are tired. We return to the apartment. Dan downloads the day's footage and photos. I download the photos I have taken and start recording them. Still no internet. Vy sends me a text. He says he can only come at 10pm unless it is too late. I ask him to come. We all desperately want to check our emails. Besides, during the course of the day, it comes to me that it will be useful to journal my thoughts down. It will help me keep track of daily events. I have seen and heard so much in such a short space of time. If I don't record them, I will surely forget something. While waiting for Vy to arrive, I start archiving and scanning documents. I have taken 153 photos. I have to sort them to see what to keep, what to discard and how to keep track in a way that makes sense and will be easily retrievable. At 10pm, Vy shows up. By 10.30pm, we are able to get online. Thank goodness.