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InConversation by Birch Bark
Continue reading →Writings
When We Were Twins
“History has many cunning passages and contrived corridors, wrote T.S. Eliot and Danuta Hinc takes us down several such dark alleys as she explores the human realities behind the so-called “war on Terror.” Along the way she reveals just how intricate and surprising the weave of history has become, or perhaps has always been. The threads here twine from Egypt to…
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Terrace Houses
More about Terrace Houses in Ephesus, Turkey Life, however long, will always be short. Wisława Szymborska, Our Ancestors’ Short Lives Our guide calls the Roman Period (129 BCE-395 CE) Terrace Houses in Ephesus, the Beverly Hills of Ephesus. So far, archeologists excavated seven houses, or more accurately, a complex of seven houses. They vary in sizes from about 1000 to…
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Seven
He was caught somewhere between his mother’s last kiss and the first kiss he would give his child, between the war that was and would be. Jonathan Safran Foer During the Cold War, my mother would travel from Gdańsk, Poland, to East Berlin twice a year to shop for items that were unavailable back at home; school supplies, clothes, and…
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Water Under the Bed
A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die. Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory The woman who used to…
Continue reading →The Spirit Of History
What else, if not individual acts of complicity, like that of that neighbor—or acts of defiance, like that of my grandfather—form the historical waves, the irresistible current of events that shapes the foundation of every human society. Where wind carries the smell of the crematorium And a bell in the village tolls the Angelus The Spirit of History is out…
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Beneath the black rocks
My mother’s face betrayed nothing but the utmost delight. She touched my father’s arms and chest, all the places where the flowers were blooming. They cut into the ocean in a perfectly perpendicular line. Their color changes depending on how much of the rock is submerged in water in low or high tides and how much sunlight reflects on their…
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Nazis and the layers of shame
The Polish Nazis—with swastikas tattooed in their armpits—were quiet. No one knew they existed until it was too late. We must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happen—because so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts; because so many others stood silent. But let us also tell our children about the Righteous among the Nations. Among…
Continue reading →Election Day: Communist Poland
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 →When Fake News Was Good
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…
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