04 April 2013
Quote of the Day: The Hairpin
The Hairpin is a pop-culture-y website, and one of their regular features is "A [length of time] alone in [a country]" where they interview people who have traveled interesting places by themselves. (For instance, here's someone who spent ten days in Shanghai.)
This quote is from A Week Alone in Lithuania and Poland:
What was the hardest you laughed?
On my second day in Krakow, I decided to go see the Polish National Gallery, wondering how Poland represented itself, officially. There was a huge and boring exhibit on the evolution of Polish military uniforms over the last 500 years (spoiler alert: gold braid! lots of felt!), and a more interesting one on 20th Century Polish art, and in a little hallway between the two were three little glass display cases and a little bit of wall text: about the Jews in Poland! (Spoiler alert: there used to be some.) The cases were full of beautiful silver ritual objects — menorahs etc. — all labelled "Purchased from synagogue X between 1937 and 1939." Which — I mean it was just this obvious obscuring of history, this cognitive dissonance as what I knew and what I saw totally didn't line up. I knew there was no way I could really convey that, but I noticed that one of the books (in Hebrew, so right to left) was upside down, and tried to convey it to a museum employee. "No English, no English!" he shouted, flapping his hands in the air and walking briskly away. When he was gone, I just completely broke down laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, at my inability to communicate or reconcile. Like, how is this true! There is nothing I can do here! I give up! It felt very much like being in a Kafka story.
This quote is from A Week Alone in Lithuania and Poland:
What was the hardest you laughed?
On my second day in Krakow, I decided to go see the Polish National Gallery, wondering how Poland represented itself, officially. There was a huge and boring exhibit on the evolution of Polish military uniforms over the last 500 years (spoiler alert: gold braid! lots of felt!), and a more interesting one on 20th Century Polish art, and in a little hallway between the two were three little glass display cases and a little bit of wall text: about the Jews in Poland! (Spoiler alert: there used to be some.) The cases were full of beautiful silver ritual objects — menorahs etc. — all labelled "Purchased from synagogue X between 1937 and 1939." Which — I mean it was just this obvious obscuring of history, this cognitive dissonance as what I knew and what I saw totally didn't line up. I knew there was no way I could really convey that, but I noticed that one of the books (in Hebrew, so right to left) was upside down, and tried to convey it to a museum employee. "No English, no English!" he shouted, flapping his hands in the air and walking briskly away. When he was gone, I just completely broke down laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, at my inability to communicate or reconcile. Like, how is this true! There is nothing I can do here! I give up! It felt very much like being in a Kafka story.
Labels: travel
# posted by mamurd @ 10:31 PM 
