Ian

In Commemoration of the Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz: 27 January 1945

There is no need for the beasts of fantasy or the demons from hell when the horrors of mankind are already beyond comprehension.

I resided in Kraków, Poland for nearly seven years before I made an trip to the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau only 60 km away. Connections between the Polish city and the Museum are frequent and tour companies have specialised in this excursion for years. This was not the situation holding me back. I knew the basics of the history of World War II, I had seen the multiple films of the subject, and it was a visit that I did wish to make in my life after hearing from a myriad of peers who had been there of the profound effect it had upon them. I believe I was just afraid to see it all first hand … to personally view this area of unimaginable wrongdoing. It took a visit from a family member to finally persuade me drive out to the city of Oświęcim for the day.

Having heard of the vastness of the Birkenau camp, we had decided to begin there, as I knew it would take up the majority of time. I was only expecting this time to be measured in the distances covered on foot. What I soon found out upon arrival through that infamous gate, its heart pierced through by the railway line so often portrayed in films, was that the hours you spend there are not consumed by the expanse of land, so unfathomably vast, that you traverse, but by every minute that is drawn out at length with the thoughts and emotions seeping in from everywhere. The barbed-wired fences, the threatening watchtowers, the countless remains of barracks that housed thousands upon thousands of people considered by the Nazis as impure and deplorable. And as you make your way further in, the unimaginable crematoriums and adjoining facilities with all the terrors they entailed. These images, these sites and these feelings, they all make you think; but the question that returns again and again is not why. People throughout time have despised others and wanted them destroyed for whatever their self-justified reasons. The question that remains in this place, and others like it, is how. How could any supposedly civilised person do what they did here to another living soul? Not only to prisoners of war, but to the elderly, to women and mothers … and to children.

Everything was so much to take in, and you ache inside. But it is a room filled with photos that brought all that grief and sorrow cascading down at last. These pictures of individuals, families, newly born children, couples just wed were far more potent than the piles of shoes and stacks of utensils … more intense than the furnaces and empty canisters of gas. Here were the faces of the countless victims, no longer just the unseen ghosts of the previous owners of suitcases and clothing stripped away in humiliation. These were now the mothers, fathers, lovers and neighbours that someone knew. This was their former selves, their lives, their faces staring back at you from behind frames of glass. These were the people whose ash is now a part of the soil of this camp and whose blood was shed for a lunatic and his perverse ideals. Here were people.

When you make your way to the camp of Auschwitz proper, you immediately realise: Birkenau is as it remains so that the entire concept of what went on here solidifies itself in your mind and comes into clarity. Auschwitz, with its sign resonating their words around the globe, is the educational segment. This does not make it any less powerful, but with its bookshop, cafeteria, film hall and exhibitions, this is the Museum proper. I do not say this to belittle the suffering that occurred here, for it was insurmountable, but the smaller area here had the air of administration and the elements of a prison. Birkenau was only death and sorrow … and you could feel it to your bones.

As a tour leader for a company years later, I brought a group for their visit to the Memorial Site. I gave them the basic history on our journey to the Museum, but upon reaching the entrance to both camps, I found that I could not enter. I gave care of my lot to one of the phenomenal guides who knows so much more about this place and who has the strength to lead visitors through this area repeatedly for many months at a time. I had seen this dark spot on the Earth once, and my mind will forever have that experience etched upon it. I took away in my thoughts what the purpose of preserving this camp is for … to always hold in memory those who perished here, those that liberated the camp and those that survived, so that their story is never forgotten and so that no one will ever repeat these atrocities ever again.

You can read more and support the work of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum here.

Six years ago today, my daughter was born in Kraków, Poland to a tired American father and an even more worn out Polish mother. By standards, it was not a lengthy labour, but, that being said, this little spark of life needed a bit of a prod to make her let loose the safety of her mother’s womb and breathe the warm air of a room full of strangers talking emphatically about their recent holidays whilst the more familiar voices of her parents where caught up in muffled screams or, speaking more personally, the idiotic “wow, cool” of her father as he glanced on in amazement with camera in one hand and his wife’s hand in the other. Within the space of what seemed like a second, I severed the cord that had connected her for so long to her mother, listened on as the cries escaped her lips as this new experience of lungs no longer filled with liquid opened up and watched on as this gore-coated being was placed on her mothers chest next to her rapidly beating heart. Understandable, but still strange in my mind, was the fact that this moment of shock and amazement was over in a flash as the doctors lead my daughter and I away to clean the child of blood and mucous and run through all the usual tests a newborn must face whilst my wife lay back after all her exertion and had the remains of childbirth drawn from her and was given a moment to let her body heal after all the strain and pain. I, on the other hand, was graced with a moment that stays with me every day of my life … after my child was weighed, measured and given the thumbs up from the health department, I was allowed a moment alone with this little girl who was only now shedding her chameleon purple shade of birth to the soft pink that would be needed to fit into this new world. She was wrapped up tightly to imitate the confines and warmth that she was so used to, and she cried with the new sounds now escaping with each breath. Shortly after the nurses left the room to give me this time of bonding, the screams lessened until they ceased altogether as I held her as close as I dared for fear of breaking her. I spoke, I hummed, I gleamed … and my eyes filled with tears. It seemed to me that after all the turmoil and crowds that ushered her into the world, this moment of peace, with a familiar voice she must have recognised through the muffled wall of her mother’s belly, was a welcome respite. I was never quite sure of having a child, but I knew how much it meant for my wife, and I knew there was no one else in the world I would have wanted to discover this territory with, so I put my fears aside and even came to look forward to the day the daughter I had hoped for and received would come into my life … look forward to the days when I would be called “daddy” and the days I would be there for her first steps to her first day at school to her wedding and to her children that may come one day. And as I held her there, I made a promise that I would always be there, that I would always protect her and that I would always, without question, love her with a part of me that I never knew I had in me.

Six years have now passed since then, and in that time, I have stumbled, fallen and risen to my feet on multiple times. I have struggled with this new responsibility at times, and I have lost sight of many things I should have never taken my eye off. I can see that now after being smacked back into reality, but things have changed … some for good, and some for bad. I can be stupid and a complete idiot at times as well as selfless and brilliant for brief moments; I was too careless to hold my marriage together, but after too long of bottling anger and blaming others, I have let go, learned that I have to take a lot of the blame for what went wrong and consider myself lucky that the mother of my child and I can finally speak civilly to each other and continue to raise our daughter, though maybe not together, at least in agreement and with two homes full of love and care; me and money are never constant companions, but I am still inventive and fearless and always find a way to survive and care for those I am responsible for; some days I find myself on top of the world, whilst other days I sink into self-destruction and drink or smoke myself into oblivion; I am proud of many things I have done, but I also hate myself for not being more … not being what I know I could be.

But throughout these conflicts of emotions in this roller-coaster of a life, I try to be there for my daughter as much as a father separated from his family can be, I do all I can to protect her and teach her the best I can so that she sees the world in a humorous, though cautious, light … and I will always love her no matter what she has done or no matter how upset or frustrated I become with something she, as a child learning the ropes, does, whether intentional or not. She is my girl; she is the greatest of gifts the world and, more importantly, her mother has ever bestowed upon me. She grounds me and keeps me responsible, but at the same time she keeps me silly and imagining the impossible. She is my daughter … I am her father … and that is something that I will give my life (and keep my life) to preserve. She is a light I could never imagine myself being without.

Today may be her birthday, but I seem to be the one happiest with this present that I receive and which grows and becomes something more year after year.

Growing up in the South can be taxing on the human body when it comes to the heat and humidity. Southern Georgia was bad, but nowhere near as sweltering as the hot, sticky hell of Mississippi in summer, where I had the punishment of spending my high school and short-lived university years. Breaking into a sweat as soon as you step out of a nice, cool shower is disconcerting, along with the feel of your clothing as it turns into cling-film, the atrocious wet stains under your dripping armpits and the sensation of your nether regions, packed oh-so snug into your pants and trousers, now taking on the role of a steam room. Though I do constantly whinge about this discomfort, I consider myself familiar with the feeling of having sweat glazed flesh (and not the sultry type one associates with the glistening bodies of models posing seductively on a beach or in porn magazines … not that I would know about that), but nothing could have prepared me for the sauna-like jungle climate of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Maybe this was because I had distanced myself from the warmer climes for a few years prior to this excursion, and the three years I had lived in Scotland must have definitely lowered my tolerance.

As I stepped out of the airport in Bangkok (a place which fools the unsuspecting visitor with an air-conditioned terminal), I was hit with a blast of hot air so intense that I almost broke down in tears with the realisation of what I had got myself into, though I’m quite sure the tears would have evaporated immediately if I had cried. This was hot … stuffy … uncomfortable … and just plain annoying. I quickly shed as many clothes as possible (and legally permissible) and nearly threw away my rucksack as I could not stand it in such close proximity to my back, covering any place on my being where fresh air could get at and cool me off. And then I got on the bus going into the city. At that point, surrounded by individuals radiating body heat and sucking up the available air that didn’t seem to move around but just hung there, I sunk into a melting lump of flesh on a seat and panted like the dogs on porches I had seen so often in the South; dogs that looked up at passing cars and kids on bicycles and seemed to say, “Screw that. I ain’t gonna give chase. It’s too damn hot, boy!”

Now, as much as I hate the heat, I despise air-conditioning to a similar degree. It’s just so unnatural. Feels fake, if you know what I mean. Fans, ceiling or otherwise, are the way to go in my book. And Bangkok was filled with them! Every shop, hostel, bar, restaurant had them … but they just didn’t seem to work unless you found that magical sweet-spot just in front or right below the fan … and those points of paradise were always already taken by a punter who got there and perched before you could. It made you hate your fellow traveller, really.

The locals were immune, and plenty of times, I saw Thai girls all dressed up in denim jackets hopping on their scooters to head off for an afternoon or night out. Jackets, I tell you! They had two or three layers of clothing on, and I was contemplating how uncouth it would seem of me to strip naked and start shoving copious amounts of ice into or onto every part of my body. In the end, I just sat there amazed, wiping my dripping brow, telling myself to just get used to it and drinking cold beverages that seemed to just come right back out of me through the pores of my skin. I longed for their tolerance; I envied their dry skin; and I gawked at the police wearing their skin-tight long sleeves and trousers.

Now, it is said that many men come travelling to Bangkok for the beautiful Asian women and the legendary ‘ping-pong’ shows (a truly amazing, and humorous, sight!). Some of these men come without any evil intentions and just a head full of curiosity, some come for conquest and the chance to add another notch to the proverbial bedpost … and some come because they are just sick bastards. But whatever thoughts there were in my mind of a sexual nature were always quashed by the thought of: “Even if I wasn’t so uncomfortably hot that the idea of another person’s skin against my own didn’t repulsed me, what Thai beauty in her right mind would look at a panting and perspiring pasty white Caucasian boy looking like the recurring bedraggled stranded-on-a-desert-island character at the beginning of Monty Python’s Flying Circus that steps out of the ocean in shredded garments to say ‘It’s …’ just before the theme song starts up?” The malaria pills that you are advised to take also killed any remaining desires (even the desire to live) that I had, too, but more about that vile medication later.

Anyway, I had arrived, and despite my discomfort, I was thrilled to be out of either North America or Europe for the first time in my life. I so wanted to see this culture and experience the tastes, sights and smells. Ever since my youth, I had been a fan of spicy foods, and here I was … in the land of the flaming tongue and burning gut! I was already sweating beyond measure, so why not just dive in, right? The history, religion, colours and terrain were all so tempting, but, to be completely honest, this was not the sole reason I was here. I was here for a much more idiotic reason … I was here because my ex-girlfriend invited me. The plan was to be in Southeast Asia for a month, and this decision based partly on emotion (with a strong dose of crotch thrown in for good measure) would grant me one extraordinary week of highs followed by a week of feeling as though I had spiralled into depths of hell.

She fascinates me, this Slavic beauty. What draws me into her landlocked embrace? The cities, towns and villages that she adorns like jewellery? The peaks and crevasses of her body, so much more free of the multitude of random, misplaced scars and tattoos that seem to endlessly encompass her northern sister? The combination of the two, more likely than not. Czech was my introduction to Central Europe; my first real lover after Scotland and I had broken up in a gnashing of teeth and spitting of obscenities. We two were not a perfect match at first, but what young man on the rebound treats the replacement well or appreciates the kindness he is shown? I was greedy and wanted “to sit upon two chairs”, as someone once told me. I did not appreciate everything she had to offer, and I abused the compassion she tried her hardest to show me. I was young … stupid … fickle … so I left her for another, always wanting and expecting and taking more. And I did receive more … in a completely different way than I planned for … and in a way that was so much more fulfilling than I could have ever contemplated. Whist I was entwined within the clutches of my magnificent white eagle, a lingering thought would still occasionally steal me away across the border like an unfaithful husband to bed my Czech mistress once, maybe twice a year. I did not shroud or attempt to hide my infidelity, and I would even be willingly permitted to meet our neighbour. With mutual trust in the strength of our commitment, I would always happily return home to the bed I had made … but her scent would be upon my flesh and her taste would linger upon my tongue. Now, that once blazing Polish fire dwindles and has removed her warmth from my bones, and as we attempt to amicably sift through the ashes and come to terms with the seeds we had sown together, I am coming to discover that the kind, gentle ember I left in the hearth ages past is still glowing and is more warm and beautiful than I remembered … and my feelings for her run much deeper than I once thought. I only pray she still feels as deeply for me and finds me as attractive and irresistible as I do her.

December of last year brought about a lot of turmoil in my life, and the
waves and ripples are still lapping against the shores … but I am not
one to dwell on the negative for too long, and I do have to give thanks
to the fates when moments of bliss drop into my lap. Along with all the
crap I have had to wade through this year, beautiful moments arose that
glistened like cat’s eyes in the dark, murky sludge and have kept me on
my feet, clambering towards more solid ground. When surrounded with lies
as thick as locusts on holiday in biblical fields of revelation, a
small yet cosy drinking establishment allowed me to stretch my wings
beneath the earth and hold my head in the clouds for a time as I
displayed my love of facial forms. That same brick-encased evening,
there was even a duo of angels from white lands permitting me to strum
my four-stringed harp and growl before the congregation about the lack
of sunshine or the impending arrival of a Ford-driving Christ. And even
as ice cold eyes stared blankly at me for days on end with their
lifelessness, another unknown ethereal form stood trustingly before me
one bright day … shining in the morning, smiling into the light of the
afternoon and teasing me in the evening … an entire day all within the
span of two hours resonating with the sounds of laughter. These days I
have traded a hostile environment for a hostel one, and I walk along
avenues covered in the spectacular colours of autumn or stroll the
cobbled streets and lanes of a painting come to life; I watch numbered
forms swiftly glide over ice as crowds of onlookers chant and scream;
where I lay my head is now my home, even though I never seem to keep it
upon the same pillow for more than 3 or 4 nights in a row; the company I
keep are transient figures that I occasionally create lasting bonds
with or, more likely than not, let slip away into the impenetrable fog
of the morning … and all of this is near perfect … and far superior to
the cold shadow of the ghosts that had for so long haunted my waking
hours and sleepless nights. But even this new lens through which I
glance through needs the addition of a finely aged 5-year old spirit to
make it all swim into glorious focus. There is nothing that completes a
day more than the time I am allotted every so often to savour that
magnificent drink of life, and every sip I take keeps my head spinning
in such a way that nothing can drag me down from the high I feel at
those moments. I readily admit that it is a powerfully strong addiction,
but one that I am more than willing to nurture or even give my life to
keep. And I dare say that the majority of you will permit me to keep a
firm hold of this one vice.

Taking a break right now … not really because I want to, but because my head is a bit fuzzy right now. It has been a hell of a year, and loads of changes are in progress. I think all for the better. Back when I can have more clarity.

People are people, lives are lives, and your choices are your own. Live and let live, right? This past weekend in Kraków saw the yearly tolerance march progress through the streets of the city and around the main square of said fair city. Living in Bochnia, I have become oblivious to the goings on of this former Polish capital as there is always something going on, and I just can’t keep up all the time. Anyway, it was under this pretext that my family and I happened upon these events whilst out for completely unrelated reasons. After a bit of shopping, meandering and some lunch (we went for Chinese … a much needed variety since Bochnia cuisine consists of only three choices: pizza, kebab or Polish dishes), my daughter and I opted for a massive bowl of ice cream on the main square whilst my wife was taking in a photo exhibition nearby. Just as the frozen, sugary goodness began its work on my kid’s bloodstream, a dark, angry chanting coming from round the corner disturbed our chilling of the intestines and made the necks of all those surrounding us crane to see what the hullabaloo was about. To the chorus of such intelligent words as “chłopak, dziewczyna … normalna rodzina” (man, woman … normal family), a clan of 50 or so mostly black-clad and mostly skin-headed individuals made their way past out outdoor café holding aloft picket signs depicting male stick figures (complete with stick penises) sodomising one another within the ubiquitous crossed out red circle. My daughter, thankfully not asking me about the crude signs, did at this moment decide to question me as to why these individuals were shouting. “Well,” I began, “there are people in the world that are called homosexuals. This means that instead of a man and woman loving each other, a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman. And these people with the signs yelling do not like those kind of people and think that being homosexual or gay is very bad.” Yes, I know that is a VERY simplistic and incomplete way of describing homosexuality, but I was speaking to a 4.5 year old, so cut me some slack. To this, my lovely little girl replied, with almost a tear in her eye, “But I love mommy, and we are both girls!” Trying to hold back my laughter, and trying to think of a better explanation, I continued, “No, not like that. I mean, think of it like this: Mommy and daddy are married to each other, but sometimes a man wants to marry another man, or a woman wants to marry another woman. This is what these people don’t like.” At this point, I tried to insert my own broader views of the world to make my daughter a more understanding individual. “But people are people. If a man wants to love a man or a woman a woman, what’s wrong with that? Love is good, right? If you want to grow up and marry a man … fine. Who knows? Maybe you will want to grow up and marry a woman. That’s fine, too.” My little girl then went on to explain how one girl in her preschool class wanted to grow up and marry another girl in her class. “Well, if that’s what she wants, then what’s wrong with that?” Satisfied with my fumbled explanation, she turned back to her ice cream just as my wife came to join us. A few minutes later, the anti-homosexual protesters returned (sadly with a few more people in tow after drumming up support whist perusing the square) chanting yet more words of wisdom (“This is Poland, not Holland” – to which my wife commented that she was happy someone told us what country we happened to be in at that moment, otherwise we may have forgotten where we were). They moved on, and so did we. I was still not in the know as to why these protesters were on the move, but then all became clear after turning off from the market square and running smack into a plethora of riot police. Further down from the shielded blokes in helmets and padding, another police escort was leading (and guarding) the reverie that was the tolerance march. At a complete contrast to the black-clad ruffians, this brightly garmented and cheerfully dressed crowd were full of smiles, lacking perverse signs and banging on drums, tooting whistles and singing! I took leave of my family for a moment to grab some snaps, but when I returned, I saw my daughter’s smiling face as she bounced along with the music and stared at the rainbow flags. I just had to ask … “So, kiddo … what do you think? Who do you like better … the people in black shouting on the square or the folks here singing and dancing?” “I like the happy people better!”, she said with a grin. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I have to say that even though I was getting a bit worried about crowd turnout for a 9 pm start to the exhibition on Friday, carbon-based lifeforms did eventually fill in the empty spaces of Mała Czarna and the results were more than acceptable. I am truly thankful for Anna and Piotr (owners of the pub) for all the hard work and kindness they have provided, Mimikra gets a huge thumbs up for their concert and the way they made the two tunes I belted out sound much better than I ever expected (considering we rehearsed them for a total of 10 minutes a few hours before the exhibition kicked off), a massive “aw, shucks” to the Bochnia crowd for their faces, amazing support and attempts at understanding my horrendous pronunciation of Polish, and lastly, a major “cool beans” to Damon from Canada, my brother-in-law Marek and Gosia and Marcin for leaving the confines of their homes to make it out to Bochnia for the night. The next question is: what will I do to top this? Eh … I am sure I can think of something.

Welcome the first of the month of April. A new joke begins, hoping the tired and worn jester of the past year has retired his bobbled hat and infuriating sceptre that has been too long spearing me in the side with a blow as fatal as that dealt out to the Christ on that hill of laughing skulls. I have not been amused, but I could do nothing but put on a Cheshire cat grin and bear my own cross through the streets of Jerusalem, Damascus, Petra, Cairo and everywhere else the metal bird had dropped me. As I wipe away the custard from my eyes and spit the soda from my lungs, I also stuff Jack back down onto his coil and latch tight the lid to his gaily painted cube. Let’s wind him up for a change! Pop up again, little comic, and I will tear your bloody head off … because this trick has worn thin, and I am more than ready to reverse the roles and play Punch to your Judy. And I will laugh again … harder and with more joy than ever before. I may have been the fool, but I shall be an idiot no more!