skull_bearer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skull_bearer) wrote2007-10-24 05:37 pm
skull_bearer) wrote2007-10-24 05:37 pm
Entry tags:
Thursday 6 September
Carrying on my retelling of my holiday. This post is very image-heavy, be warned.
Thursday 6 September
I'm your lover, I'm your zero
-Smashing Pumpkins, Zero
This is not good.
I couldn't stop thinking about that place all night. Fuck.
I'm really getting scared.
Phone's out of credit. Can't top it up. Need to email mum and ask if she can do it.
Weather's improved. Still cloudy but no longer raining or as cold. That might be blue sky to the east, and since the wind is blowing that was I hope so.
Still scared.
Erik's hiding, Don't blame him. Would be having second thoughts myself if I didn't know I would never forgive myself if I didn't go. I dreamed I have been called home last night and didn't know whether to skip Majdanek or not. I knew I would never forgive myself if I did. Probably the reason Erik+ Charles are hiding, they know they can't change my mind. That, and the hope that if I find it horrific enough I won't go toAuschwitz . So much for wondering if it'll affect me. I'm a mile away and I'm already terrified.
Train forKrakow at 5.45 am. Early start then, assuming I can even get to sleep.
It's raining. Not even remotely surprised.
I think, like Charles, that I don't want to see the place because if I do it'll mean that all the places I've written of in P.T. are real, and so is what happened there. Believing and knowing are very different.
I can just see the fences.
I'm glad I haven't eaten.
The photo is shite, but believe me, the fences were there. My heart nearly stopped.
No words.
All the strength's gone out of my legs. It's... it's just so big it's unbelievable. I'm under this stupid tree and the rain's coming down and my legs don't want to work and it's so fucking big and dead and empty. I want to cry or scream or be sick and someone's just walked past and is trying to open their umbrella. I try to smile but my lips don't work. They don't seem to care, they've probably seen this a thousand times.
I cannot tell you how utterly desolate this place is.Poland
Okay, I don't know if I'm actually going to be able to go in there. I just want to sit down until I feel better. I thought, when I imagined coming here, that I'd want to draw some of it. I don't. It's not worth drawing. It's ugly and when I look at it too long I want to scream or start banging my head against something on the behalf of mankind.
(If you think I was overreacting, how many of you have actually been to a death camp? They're hideous)
The memorial scares me almost as much as the camp (to give an idea of size, I could stand under it, between the two supports and by unable to touch the top if I tried. It was massive)
This is what happens when you have all the facts and none of the experience. Really not good.
Finally sat down. Legs grateful (I was shaking). I'm at themuseum of Majdanek
Watched a film about Majdanek. The woman at the counter spoke better French than English. She guessed I was French, Gods only know how, maybe my accent shows when I'm scared.
Still scared. Hands shaking. (my writing was even more illegible than usual). Avoiding windows. I'm scared of what I'd see.
I want to hide going up to the camp is open ground, I'd feel better if I was under cover.
Feeling marginally better, no longer sick. It's starting to sink in a bit. I'm shivering, it's freezing cold. Cold inside.
I'm sitting in front of the Majdanek memorial. It's huge. You can't tell that from the photos, but it is. 235,000 people. Dead. That, and the size of the dome that holds the ashes of those people. I'd seen photos of it, but it's so much bigger.
I should be saying something snarky, but frankly I'm still too shaken. To me, this place never existed except in books and my own imagination. And I'm here and it's all around me and I could go up and touch it if my legs would stop shaking.
(In the distance you can just about make out the memorial where the ashes of the victims are kept. It too is huge)
Taken while standing under the memorial, gives you an idea of how huge the place is.
It's weird. I've scorned people for taking pictures of the camps, but I can't stop myself. Gods, this place is cold.
(I took the pictures because I wanted to remember everything)
One of the watchtowers.
A long way from reading Holocaust accounts of Parliament hill on a hot summer's day.
I was wrong, this wasn't stupidity. It's insanity.
The gates are open, I'm right up to them. There's nothing there, just some rubble and hollows and a lot of crows (They were actually jackdaws). Some idiot's thrown a can in there.
(One thing that always stuck in my mind was the barbed wire. Not sure why but it was always my focus.)
Barbed wire's all rust. I could crush it with my hands. It rattles when I touch it and I almost jump out of my skin. I haven't been this scared since Tunisia.
I'm inside, just about, I can just about see the far side of the camp.
I don't want to imagine what happened here, because I can, only now it's really sinking in and I don't want to know because it actually happened.
Met in Majdanek
I walked here
You drove here
We're both here.
I look at you
You look at me.
You don't smile
I've forgotten how.
I drop my eyes
You drop yours
Words die.
There's nothing to say.
You walk in
I walk out
There's nothing to say.
I went in the camp again. In a place where the barracks were still there. As I turned to leave a car pulled up and a beautiful blonde girl got out. A balding man followed here. She went inside as I made my way out. Our eyes met, then we looked away as though ashamed of being here. I wanted to smile but it was all wrong so I looked away and left, while she and the man when inside. She had a white coat on.
(I wrote the poem there and then, in the gates of the camp.)
All these crows- or ravens?- I could never tell the difference(actually jackdaws, as I said). I'd say it was something out of 'The Birds' but that would be too much horror.
Majdanek Mausoleum.
Fuck it. Let's just call god and have us all put down.
(Honestly, it's beyond even my powers to describe, and makes me sick to think about. Inside is where they placed the ashes of those killed in Majdanek and dear gods, it's huge. The mausoleum is that large for a reason *shudders*)
Almost 20,000 people were killed here in one day. Shot into a ditch. The ditches are still there.
I wrote this death for Erik's family in Past Tense. Hundreds of families died here in real life. But it's my story you can read, not theirs.
It's raining hard. I'm in the crematorium. I'd rather be outside.
And I though having a psychic day ay IWM was bad.
It's quiet, and freezing cold, and I'm totally alone here. It's raining outside.
You have no idea how good it feels to leave.
(Lovely pastoral setting on one side, and a death camp on the other)
I don't know if the gas chambers where in the crematorium, but if they were there, I know which room it was in. It has a low cieling and a grate in the floor.
This part of the site doesn't look much like a death camp, for all that I'm standing on the show of a guard tower. green and beautiful, with flowers. It could be a country lane unless you hapened to look up and see the crematorium.
I can't write here, even in my head. I'll stand in the middle of the rool-call ground and try and imagine it how it was... and fail. The images slip away like water through my fingers, for all that I've summoned them so many times, in Past Tense and my own strange dreams. Maybe it's because it's here, somewhere I've never really read about.. Few book are written abotu Majdanek. Perhaps Auschwitz will be different. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it's just the place that grinds down your dreams. I'll see.
I'm nearing the end of my tour, with only the exibits left to see. And the Black road, down which the prisoners were marched when this was more than just a memorial.
Prisoner's barracks-
I take it back. To easy. Far too easy.
(I have a picture of this, but the flash didn't work and it's all blurred, so I didn't put it in)
They have an exibition of all the shoes of all the people that walked in here. Count the shoes, diving that number by two and you'll know the number that never walked out again. I'm wearing doc martins. They walked here, they'll walk out. These shoes didn't.
Topgraphy of the camp
(set in one of the remaining barracks)
The boards are loose, they creak under my feet.
(Prisoner uniforms
The one and only time my camera flash worked. Red triangle for communist, pink for homosexual)
Experimental gas chamber. There are blue stains on the ceiling and the air tastes odd.
I was wrong, the gas chambers are here, but I was right about the low ceiling.
(One of the gas chambers in Madjanek. The blue stains on the ceiling are not due to back photography, they really are there. Stains from zyklon B. You could also see mark on the walls where... well, you can guess)
The door's about an inch thick and caked with rust. there's a hole to peer through (for the terminally warped) It had glass there once but it's since broken and only a few shards are left.
My head's about to split. The ceiling's cracked and broken. I could reach it with my hand.
It's all concrete.
I feel sick.
Another one. Too much it's blue again and this time the walls are cracked and scoured.
Nothing to say.
Outside, there's a bunch of Isreali soldiers. It shouldn't amuse me but it does. I can't laugh. If I did I'd be hysterical. I look up, there's a solid wall of soldiers coming towards me. I dart out of the way. I'm finally smiling. Feels weird.
(I was nearly run down halfway through writing this. They almost gave me a heart attack but did cheer me up a bit. At this point I started to make my way out.)
(Last photo, the people you can see over there were waving Iseali flags. I thought 'Himmler is probably rolling in his grave' and walked off feeling surprisingly positive)
Buses in Poland are (even I can't read what I wrote here). And rickety. And free if you're sneaky.
As a reward for going Madjanek, I have 1hr on a computer. Yay!
Two reviews! I squee. (To explain this sudden shift, it was actually about two hours after I left Madjanek and I was feeling a bit manic by then)
I really like Polish food (this was my first meal of the day). Finally, food designed to fill and taste good. I tend to eat only once or twice a day and I like good, big meals.
These fruity beers will be my downfall. Freeq they call it. I've had lemon, and now apple.
Polish Bison grass vodka, now there's a blast.
(I then proceeded to drink myself blind, which I think is an excellent ritual to take up after visiting a death camp for the first time. The vodka in question is one of the best drinks I've ever tasted and I was fortunate to find it in the UK too. It tastes like molten gold.)
(In rather wobbly writing) It wasn't hell. Hell isn't real. Majdanek is.
I'm your lover, I'm your zero
-Smashing Pumpkins, Zero
This is not good.
I couldn't stop thinking about that place all night. Fuck.
I'm really getting scared.
Phone's out of credit. Can't top it up. Need to email mum and ask if she can do it.
Weather's improved. Still cloudy but no longer raining or as cold. That might be blue sky to the east, and since the wind is blowing that was I hope so.
Still scared.
Erik's hiding, Don't blame him. Would be having second thoughts myself if I didn't know I would never forgive myself if I didn't go. I dreamed I have been called home last night and didn't know whether to skip Majdanek or not. I knew I would never forgive myself if I did. Probably the reason Erik+ Charles are hiding, they know they can't change my mind. That, and the hope that if I find it horrific enough I won't go to
Train for
It's raining. Not even remotely surprised.
I think, like Charles, that I don't want to see the place because if I do it'll mean that all the places I've written of in P.T. are real, and so is what happened there. Believing and knowing are very different.
I can just see the fences.
I'm glad I haven't eaten.
The photo is shite, but believe me, the fences were there. My heart nearly stopped.
No words.
All the strength's gone out of my legs. It's... it's just so big it's unbelievable. I'm under this stupid tree and the rain's coming down and my legs don't want to work and it's so fucking big and dead and empty. I want to cry or scream or be sick and someone's just walked past and is trying to open their umbrella. I try to smile but my lips don't work. They don't seem to care, they've probably seen this a thousand times.
I cannot tell you how utterly desolate this place is.
Okay, I don't know if I'm actually going to be able to go in there. I just want to sit down until I feel better. I thought, when I imagined coming here, that I'd want to draw some of it. I don't. It's not worth drawing. It's ugly and when I look at it too long I want to scream or start banging my head against something on the behalf of mankind.
(If you think I was overreacting, how many of you have actually been to a death camp? They're hideous)
The memorial scares me almost as much as the camp (to give an idea of size, I could stand under it, between the two supports and by unable to touch the top if I tried. It was massive)
This is what happens when you have all the facts and none of the experience. Really not good.
Finally sat down. Legs grateful (I was shaking). I'm at the
Watched a film about Majdanek. The woman at the counter spoke better French than English. She guessed I was French, Gods only know how, maybe my accent shows when I'm scared.
Still scared. Hands shaking. (my writing was even more illegible than usual). Avoiding windows. I'm scared of what I'd see.
I want to hide going up to the camp is open ground, I'd feel better if I was under cover.
Feeling marginally better, no longer sick. It's starting to sink in a bit. I'm shivering, it's freezing cold. Cold inside.
I'm sitting in front of the Majdanek memorial. It's huge. You can't tell that from the photos, but it is. 235,000 people. Dead. That, and the size of the dome that holds the ashes of those people. I'd seen photos of it, but it's so much bigger.
I should be saying something snarky, but frankly I'm still too shaken. To me, this place never existed except in books and my own imagination. And I'm here and it's all around me and I could go up and touch it if my legs would stop shaking.
(In the distance you can just about make out the memorial where the ashes of the victims are kept. It too is huge)
Taken while standing under the memorial, gives you an idea of how huge the place is.
It's weird. I've scorned people for taking pictures of the camps, but I can't stop myself. Gods, this place is cold.
(I took the pictures because I wanted to remember everything)
One of the watchtowers.
A long way from reading Holocaust accounts of Parliament hill on a hot summer's day.
I was wrong, this wasn't stupidity. It's insanity.
The gates are open, I'm right up to them. There's nothing there, just some rubble and hollows and a lot of crows (They were actually jackdaws). Some idiot's thrown a can in there.
(One thing that always stuck in my mind was the barbed wire. Not sure why but it was always my focus.)
Barbed wire's all rust. I could crush it with my hands. It rattles when I touch it and I almost jump out of my skin. I haven't been this scared since Tunisia.
I'm inside, just about, I can just about see the far side of the camp.
I don't want to imagine what happened here, because I can, only now it's really sinking in and I don't want to know because it actually happened.
Met in Majdanek
I walked here
You drove here
We're both here.
I look at you
You look at me.
You don't smile
I've forgotten how.
I drop my eyes
You drop yours
Words die.
There's nothing to say.
You walk in
I walk out
There's nothing to say.
I went in the camp again. In a place where the barracks were still there. As I turned to leave a car pulled up and a beautiful blonde girl got out. A balding man followed here. She went inside as I made my way out. Our eyes met, then we looked away as though ashamed of being here. I wanted to smile but it was all wrong so I looked away and left, while she and the man when inside. She had a white coat on.
(I wrote the poem there and then, in the gates of the camp.)
All these crows- or ravens?- I could never tell the difference(actually jackdaws, as I said). I'd say it was something out of 'The Birds' but that would be too much horror.
Majdanek Mausoleum.
Fuck it. Let's just call god and have us all put down.
(Honestly, it's beyond even my powers to describe, and makes me sick to think about. Inside is where they placed the ashes of those killed in Majdanek and dear gods, it's huge. The mausoleum is that large for a reason *shudders*)
Almost 20,000 people were killed here in one day. Shot into a ditch. The ditches are still there.
I wrote this death for Erik's family in Past Tense. Hundreds of families died here in real life. But it's my story you can read, not theirs.
It's raining hard. I'm in the crematorium. I'd rather be outside.
And I though having a psychic day ay IWM was bad.
It's quiet, and freezing cold, and I'm totally alone here. It's raining outside.
You have no idea how good it feels to leave.
(Lovely pastoral setting on one side, and a death camp on the other)I don't know if the gas chambers where in the crematorium, but if they were there, I know which room it was in. It has a low cieling and a grate in the floor.
This part of the site doesn't look much like a death camp, for all that I'm standing on the show of a guard tower. green and beautiful, with flowers. It could be a country lane unless you hapened to look up and see the crematorium.
I can't write here, even in my head. I'll stand in the middle of the rool-call ground and try and imagine it how it was... and fail. The images slip away like water through my fingers, for all that I've summoned them so many times, in Past Tense and my own strange dreams. Maybe it's because it's here, somewhere I've never really read about.. Few book are written abotu Majdanek. Perhaps Auschwitz will be different. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it's just the place that grinds down your dreams. I'll see.
I'm nearing the end of my tour, with only the exibits left to see. And the Black road, down which the prisoners were marched when this was more than just a memorial.
Prisoner's barracks-
I take it back. To easy. Far too easy.
(I have a picture of this, but the flash didn't work and it's all blurred, so I didn't put it in)
They have an exibition of all the shoes of all the people that walked in here. Count the shoes, diving that number by two and you'll know the number that never walked out again. I'm wearing doc martins. They walked here, they'll walk out. These shoes didn't.
Topgraphy of the camp
(set in one of the remaining barracks)
The boards are loose, they creak under my feet.
(Prisoner uniforms
The one and only time my camera flash worked. Red triangle for communist, pink for homosexual)
Experimental gas chamber. There are blue stains on the ceiling and the air tastes odd.
I was wrong, the gas chambers are here, but I was right about the low ceiling.
(One of the gas chambers in Madjanek. The blue stains on the ceiling are not due to back photography, they really are there. Stains from zyklon B. You could also see mark on the walls where... well, you can guess)
The door's about an inch thick and caked with rust. there's a hole to peer through (for the terminally warped) It had glass there once but it's since broken and only a few shards are left.
My head's about to split. The ceiling's cracked and broken. I could reach it with my hand.
It's all concrete.
I feel sick.
Another one. Too much it's blue again and this time the walls are cracked and scoured.
Nothing to say.
Outside, there's a bunch of Isreali soldiers. It shouldn't amuse me but it does. I can't laugh. If I did I'd be hysterical. I look up, there's a solid wall of soldiers coming towards me. I dart out of the way. I'm finally smiling. Feels weird.
(I was nearly run down halfway through writing this. They almost gave me a heart attack but did cheer me up a bit. At this point I started to make my way out.)
(Last photo, the people you can see over there were waving Iseali flags. I thought 'Himmler is probably rolling in his grave' and walked off feeling surprisingly positive)
Buses in Poland are (even I can't read what I wrote here). And rickety. And free if you're sneaky.
As a reward for going Madjanek, I have 1hr on a computer. Yay!
Two reviews! I squee. (To explain this sudden shift, it was actually about two hours after I left Madjanek and I was feeling a bit manic by then)
I really like Polish food (this was my first meal of the day). Finally, food designed to fill and taste good. I tend to eat only once or twice a day and I like good, big meals.
These fruity beers will be my downfall. Freeq they call it. I've had lemon, and now apple.
Polish Bison grass vodka, now there's a blast.
(I then proceeded to drink myself blind, which I think is an excellent ritual to take up after visiting a death camp for the first time. The vodka in question is one of the best drinks I've ever tasted and I was fortunate to find it in the UK too. It tastes like molten gold.)
(In rather wobbly writing) It wasn't hell. Hell isn't real. Majdanek is.