Thursday, May 5, 2016

Cock Bread in Kazimierz Dolny


Lublin is another of these Polish towns famous for having once had a large Jewish population. It's hard to read about what happened here, all around here. Like, it hardly seems real. It's like reading about the departure of the Elves to Valinor, the Undying Lands, across the sea to the west.

Except they were systematically murdered. Lublin's claim to fame is that it wasn't bombed by one side, smashed by the other, or ruined for revenge afterward. So, all the buildings and the Old City are the originals. It also has a concentration camp a very short bus ride away, the one they didn't bother to hide.

There was no pretending in Majdenek, none of this "work will set you free" nonsense. It was, get on the train, take your shoes off (we need them) and this way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen.

In any case, this was long ago (though not that long ago) and the city is a charming little mini-metropolis with every amenity and a castle courtyard that looks like a de Chirico painting.

The big deal this weekend is that The Cranberries are in town. I will be sorry to miss them. A shame I cannot... Linger.


My hosts here were marvelous. It's a cliche to say you're treated like a part of the family, but Jaroslaw welcomed me like his son. Frequent feedings, and he let me dig through a crate of his old Polish New Wave albums. I was quite taken with a group called Lady Pank. 

I had seen posters for them in Greenpoint many years ago. I think they're like the Polish Rolling Stones or something, still touring fifty years later. 

Every time I passed by the kitchen I was given radishes and pepper, cucumber and pepper, cheese and meat, cake, coffee. 

For breakfast on the first morning, I was seated with the French couple he had told me about the night before, the Windtalkers.  They were in their 70s and spoke almost no English. Conversation was like trying to cross the Maginot Line.

My French consists of words I know from musicals and curses from cartoons.

"They want only marmalade," says my host, "but for you I make real breakfast." He brought sliced turkey, smoked cheese, tomatoes, orange juice, yogurt, and fresh rolls,

"Start here," he says, "and I will come back with coffee."


Our conversation became, ultimately, them pointing at cities on a map of Poland and my saying "C'est bon!" or "non!" The only words I know besides "soup of the day" and "sacred blue heaven!"

Bon and non. I laughed thinking about having bon-non-as for breakfast.

When I know English is someone's second language, I talk with my hands and make exaggerated faces. I realized after the third "C'est bon," I had been making parentheses in the air. They might have looked like boobs. "Torun?" Ah, oui, nice as breasts. "Gdansk?" Oui, Oui, beautiful breasts. "Poznan?" Alas, no boobs at all.

We finished up and I never saw them again. Bon chance, mon ami.

Took the small camera bag to the bus stop and rode to the Stare Miasto. You always go to the Stare Miasto wherever you are. Keep the Rynek on your right.

Sweet, quiet little walk around. The by-now-very-familiar layout of stone streets and colorful buildings with fascinating facades. Lucky statues and reminders of a long-ago siege.

I climbed a tall guard tower to get "sweeping views" of the Old Town. It reminded me of the minaret I climbed in Mostar (oh, Mostar!) and the tower in Split. Of course, in Split I had the tote bag of clothes Ruggles had pissed on.

I remembered that lesson. If you're going to climb a tower, drop your laundry off first.


I was the only one around. There were artifacts strewn throughout at different ledges and stopping point. There was a very funny statue of a bulging-eyed Steve Buscemi Christ. Breezy and beautiful at the top. Modern buildings and high rises rose in the near distance. It was interesting to see the boundaries where the old became the new.

I thought of that amazing Fitzgerald quote about the Empire State Building. How, when the Great Men of the City first climbed it, they knew despair, because they could see beyond New York. It meant that Manhattan wasn't the entire world.

Turns out the Stare Miasto in Lublin isn't the entire world.

Back in the streets, I saw a marvelous art project where they papered over the windows of buildings under construction with large scenes from a Breugel painting, The Dutch Proverbs. There would be a highlight followed by the saying it represented. I couldn't read a word of it. (But I knew the painting).


Churches with tasteful exteriors and crazy cat lady interiors. Kiosks selling magnets of the pope's face. Cafes with umbrellas and lounge chairs. I made my way to the castle. It was early morning, but teenagers drank beer and kissed on the stone steps outside. This is why we liberated this place.

I wanted to see the paintings in the castle chapel, but they only let a few people in at a time and only in bursts. I wasn't there for a burst window. I could have stickstuck around, but I wanted to take a bus to Kazimierz Dolny, a nearby resort town.

Next time, chapelpaintings. Found the little station, found the right minibus and waited. Wrote and read. The Bluest Eye.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving to get on for some reason. I reckon minivans are for the unruly. Otherwise, you would drive yourself. The countryside was pages from a Little Golden Book.

Drifting flower petals, huge crooked trees, green hills, and fields of rape. I'm sure someone from Switzerland would yawn at it, but for me it was magical.

An hour of beauty overload and we were in Kazimierz Dolny.


It's like a cute pocket version of the others but right on the river and stonier and castleier, It's the sort of place that has wells instead of fountains, you know what I mean? The big deal there is the rooster, and the bakeries have fought over the right to bake "cock bread," giant chicken-shaped rolls.

Big trademark battles over this stuff, and you could tell by the slight variations in the "tail" part. I'm sure I bought the knockoff version.

Climbed a hill with three crosses on it. My legs were like, "We climbed a tower earlier, brother. Art thou certain, thou wishest to climb yet more?" I silenced them with more climbing. It was nice up there, like Golgotha or some shit. Teenagers drank beer and picnicked at the base of the crosses.

This is why He gave himself.


Perfect cool breeze and glorious sparkling light from the river.I took a little tram to a gorge and to the Old Jewish Cemetery.  I found it very moving. The Nazis needed the tombstones to build things with, so they just tore up the cemetery and used it to shore up a bunker or build up a tower or slide under a wobbly table leg at a hunting lodge. 

The people were tools and their graves were material. 

At this memorial, they've built an enormous wall out of the recovered pieces of tombstone. It's haunting with a strange, sublime lightning crack in the center. 


Sober ride back to Lublin, a cheerful rooster magnet in my pocket. Jaroslaw's dog Lucy ate my rice cakes and licked my face and slept in my lap. He gave me coffee and told me about his troubles. Runs a cleaning service and wants to retire, but Poland has a law saying if you dissolve your business, you have to give all the employees three months of severance. He has 26 employees... "So, I stay open,"

Great sleep in the "rock and roll suite" of his home. Original pressings of Smiths records and Grace Jones for a lullaby. The hiss of vinyl, the pop of history.

Now to Bialystok

No comments:

Post a Comment