For LP Over a week has passed since Holocaust Day. 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz there is a great danger that people are forgetting – indeed some of us cannot remember, because we did not live through those times then – but that is splitting hairs. You do not have to witness everything […]Read Post ›
I don’t really know how I managed to forget to write about this place when I was writing about our four day trip to Kraków. We had gone to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Kraków, not to do anything as exciting as sightseeing but to change my battery in my phone, which had been […]Read Post ›
Friday 3rd January. Having recovered from the excitement of the night before, I waited in forthe dishwasher man to arrive to mend my machine. A burly young Romanian, he could hardly fit into our kitchen – but he managed. He spent over an hour fixing the machine, keeping up a good line of chat and […]Read Post ›
Sunday in Kraków was cold. The hotel (Hotel 32) breakfast room was strangely laid out and we felt we had to keep on running backwards and forwards to get everything we needed, but the food itself wasn’t bad. we had lunch to go to anyway as we were going to meet a friend from my […]Read Post ›
This last week has been quite a momentous one. Saturday 28th December we were still in Warsaw after one of the most amazing Christmasses ever. I’ve written about it before. But Saturday found us on the train to Kraków. This was my husband’s first visit to Warsaw Central station since it was rebuilt quite a […]Read Post ›
A story of great joy This photograph is of a true heroine – she celebrated her 95th birthday a couple of weeks ago – I am sure this is something she certainly didn’t expect to do 75 years ago when the second world war ended. About ten years ago she gave me a typescript to […]Read Post ›
This is one of my most treasured possessions. Made of olive wood I believe, it has been part of my consciousness all my life. When I was small my mother would not let me touch it – I was quite clumsy as a child – so it gained a mystery that never quite went away. […]Read Post ›
I have been thinking a lot about Syria recently, especially in the light of Poland refusing to accept Syrian refugees – or any others for that matter. How is that possible? where the Polish diaspora is all over the world, her refugees and displaced persons – as they were known at the time- having been […]Read Post ›
For TSS A few weeks ago I was invited to a surprise party for my good friend’s significant birthday. She was the one who was supposed to be surprised, and I’m sure she was. Not as much as me, however, when I found this magazine cover on my table. It brought back so many memories: […]Read Post ›
For MMoving home for many people is high on the list of traumatic experiences. I haven’t moved for over thirty years so cannot really remember the trauma, only the expectation of living in a better place, the excitement of something new. Having said that I realise it isn’t actually altogether true. I was on my […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 