The ballot didn’t fit, because my hands shook uncontrollably. The year I was eligible to vote for the first time, I announced to my parents that I would tell the communist officials at the voting place that I know it is all a sham. This is what eighteen-year-olds do, they announce their bravery, while the elders look at them with…
Continue reading →History takes place in language before it manifests itself in events. In first grade, at seven years of age, I started catechism classes like everyone else in my school. A part of me was excited about it, and a part of me was scared. Today I know that the part of me that was scared was precisely responsible for my…
Continue reading →The first was red socks. I grew up in communist Poland, and I knew few people who didn’t dream of leaving. I was one of them, and I emigrated as soon as the ban on traveling to the West was lifted. The place we all wanted to live was the United States of America, the greatest country in the world….
Continue reading →My parents unanimously condemned the idea. They didn’t want me to take the risk. We argued. The liar’s punishment is,not in the least that he is not believed,but that he cannot believe anyone else.George Bernard Shaw In March, when Donald J. Trump tweeted that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had illegally wiretapped Trump Tower before the election, I quickly concluded that…
Continue reading →The power of the image lies in its silence, because the silence turns the witness into an active participant. That we could, as we do, live in the realm of eternal mirrors,working our way at the same time through unmowed grasses. Czesław Miłosz When on December 13th, 1991—the tenth anniversary of martial law being declared in communist Poland to crush the…
Continue reading →The absurdity of the judge’s order threw us back into our Kafkaesque reality. That we could, as we do, live in the realm of eternal mirrors,working our way at the same time through unmowed grasses. Czesław Miłosz When on December 13th, 1991—the tenth anniversary of martial law being declared in communist Poland to crush the political opposition—I stepped on the tarmac…
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