It is appalling to be in a place and not to see it.
I’ve been reflecting on my visit to Schindler’s Enamelware Factory in Krakow.
On the way back to the Qubus Hotel I had stepped over old railway lines overgrown with weeds vaguely wondering where they once went.
I’d then crossed the main road laced with tram tracks and found myself in a square. It was an empty place and I wondered at its large size and whether or not it was still used for markets. It was surrounded by run down buildings and a few businesses which did not appear to be thriving.
I knew where I was, and yet at the same time I did not know where I was.
I noticed an odd statue of a chair, and others beyond it; But I dismissed it as an oddity, some modern temporary art installation perhaps. And by the time I’d reached the hotel I’d forgotten this chair entirely.
Last night I watched again Schindler’s List.And saw again the Enamelware Factory, the railway lines and this square.
Equally chilling was the view at night of the ghetto in the film, with flashes of light as it was cleared with machine guns. Was this the same view I’d had from my window in the Qubus Hotel? The view I had thought of as ugly, and had thought little of at the time. How I now wish I had really looked.
Sometimes we can see things without seeing.
When I saw the bronze chair in the square I did not realise its significance. Now I understand that it was meant to represent the furniture of the Kraków Jews that they carried there following their forced removal from Kraków. This square was in the ghetto.
I’ve since learnt that the square is now called Plac Bohaterow Getta, once known as Plac Zgody Square.
Unknowing I had walked hurriedly across a place where so many murders were committed and transport selections made.
Sometimes we walk and can not feel the ground beneath our feet, or hear the sounds left in the air.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plac_Bohaterow_Getta_Krak%C3%B3w.jpg
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