Laurie in Poland

work, work, work

Wow, am I beat! Today was our second day of work. Here's the typical day (so far):

We (the four American volunteers and whichever POlish volunteers are helping that day) walk to the "office," an easy 15 minutes from our hostel. This is where the tools are kept, and is on one edge of the camp. For those of you who have seen a map of Plaszow, it's on the opposite side of the quarry from where the barracks were; that's the best orientation I can offer. we pick up the tools, inadequate enough that we're thinking of going to the local Home Depot (Ok, it isn't, but it's got the familiar orange motif) to buy some garden shears and possibly a shovel that doesn't look like it was run over by a tank. From the office, it's another 15-20 minutes to the work site. On this walk, we pass the quarry, where remnants of the filming of Schindler's List remain: some fencing and a road resembling the one built by the Nazis built from gravestones. A continual theme/question of the time we'll spend here is why hasn't Spielberg been asked to contribute to this cause. Of course, we don't know that he hasn't; we don't know at all.

Arriving at the work site, thankfully there is a large shade tree to rest under. This will be our center of activity for some time. The tree is in the midst of the Jewish cemetery on which the camp was built. Our work is to identify and clear graves of the detritus of years of overgrowth. That's it. Yesterday all I was able to do was to pull some weeds around a few graves, but today, working with another volunteer, we uncovered parts of 4 graves. No writing remains on any of the graves so there's no way to identify what we've found. The work is tough, sweaty and dirty, and we only work for 20 or so minutes at a time and then take a break. Today we stayed from about 9:30-2:15pm or so. No one us balked when the Polish volunteers said they'd had enough for the day!

Yesterday, day one, we walked around the site and our guide told us about some things that are around. Amon Goth's (the sadistic commandant, Ralph Fiennes in the movie) house is nearby, but in some disrepair. Someone is rumored to live there. A grave that is clearly marked belongs to the grandfather of the little girl in red in the movie, but we don't know if this is a rumor or factual.

Looking around the site, you would have no idea it has ever been anything else but rolling hills and tall grass. I wouldn't say it's particularly beautiful land, but it's quiet and peaceful, and above the noise of the city. On the other hand, there is a view to some power company cooling towers and McDonald's is a short walk downhill.

I will post pictures as soon as I can find someone here who can help me download them off my camera.

posted by Laurie Sabol @ 6/15/2005 06:00:00 PM