Unto the graves

The All Saints' (Wszystkich Świętych) holidays coincided with the time change, giving us an extra hour's daylight in the morning. This and perfect weather gave us the opportunity to set off early to Kozienice, to visit my wife's family grave. This small town, 50 miles south of Jeziorki, is where her paternal grandparents are both buried. Below: Moni, my wife and Eddie by the grave.

A plaque on the grave commemorates the four sons of Franciszek and Wiktoria Lesisz. Only one survived the war. A story that headstones across Poland recall, literally, millions of times.

Edward and Feliks, murdered at Katyń. Edmund murdered by the Gestapo. Tadeusz survived the war to live and die in exile.

Elsewhere in this one cemetary in Kozienice, I saw similar stories.
'Murdered at Katyń', 'fought with the RAF', 'died in exile'.

Poland still needs another generation to get over the demo- graphic and cultural loss that the WWII wrought on the nation.

Above: The house in Kozienice formerly owned by the Lesisz family. It was here that Franciszek and Wiktoria raised their nine children. (Wiktoria's sister, I am informed by her Canadian granddaughter, lived in Warsaw on ul. Emilii Plater 23, next door to where we're having our blogmeet on 20 November!)

Above: The weather was as perfect as could be hoped for. Daytime high today was +15.7C. Golden leaves contrast with cloudless blue sky. On the way back (before noon), the traffic pouring out of Warsaw was heavy. We encountered a huge traffic jam in Góra Kalwaria, which at 8 am was almost empty. Good to go early and come back early. The entire nation seems to be out visiting graves today.

As night falls (sunset now is at ten past four!), I take camera and tripod and walk to the cemetery in Pyry, the nearest one to Jeziorki. The graves are carpeted in light. Against a clear sky, the visual effect, amid the silence, is entirely profound.

I make my way to the soldiers' quarter, where fallen AK (Home Army) insurgents based in the Las Kabacki forest are buried. The rock also commemorates prisoners from Pawiak prison executed in the forest by the Nazis.

Below: orderly rows of concrete crosses mark the graves. The votive candles placed several to a grave show how today, more than 66 years after the uprising, the soldiers are still in the memory of the local people.

Conclusion of cemetary weekend

Back to St Catherine's church in Sluzew as Eddie did another turn selling votive candles with his scout troop. Moni came along to lay candles in the cemetary. The picture above was taken at a 30 second exposure at f22 - right at the other end of the exposure spectrum to the mosquito photo in the previous post. Moni managed to stand quite still throughout. Like posing for a Daguerrotype.

(Below:) Looking down across the cemetary towards the apartment blocks of Sadyba. One of the chimneys of the Siekierki power station is visible on the horizon. There are definitely fewer candles burning today than on previous days; fewer people, lots of rain.

Lightening up somewhat, I take Eddie to McDonalds to dry off and eat something before joining Moni (she sings in the church choir) at the Dominicans' abbey for mass. While tucking in to Chicken McNuggets, Eddie quotes this hilarious dialogue from the Simpsons episode '22 Short Films About Springfield': (from http://www.snpp.com/ - the best Simpsons resource)

Lou: You know, I went to the McDonald's in Shelbyville on Friday night --
Chief Wiggum: [interrupting] The McWhat?
Lou: Uh, the McDonald's. I, I never heard of it either, but they have over 2,000 locations in this state alone. Must've sprung up overnight.
Lou: You know, the funniest thing though; it's the little differences.
Chief Wiggum: Example.
Lou: Well, at McDonald's you can buy a Krusty Burger with cheese, right? But they don't call it a Krusty Burger with cheese.
Chief Wiggum: Get out! Well, what do they call it?
Lou: A Quarter Pounder with cheese.
Chief Wiggum: Quarter Pounder with cheese? Well, I can picture the cheese...


(Above:) "Well, I can picture the cheese... " Eddie, as Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons episode 22 Short Films about Springfield. The couple over his shoulder were evidently very much in love. God bless them.

Wszystkich Swietych - All Saints

All Saints' Day (Wszystkich Swietych) is one of the key Polish national holidays, with most Poles visiting graves of departed family members on or around this day. Cemeteries are ablaze with votive candles, bought in their tens of millions. No grave was without its bouquets or candles.

We visited the local cemetery in Pyry, a half-hour walk north from Jeziorki. Above: the military quarter with the graves of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) partisans who gave their lives fighting the Germans in the Las Kabacki forest in 1944.

A time to reflect on life, death, growing older and What It's All About. Families silently reflect upon these big questions together by visiting the cemeteries in multi-generational groups. Poland as a nation draws its strength from this.

The universe is indeed held together by a web of coincidence. Yesterday in London I fortuitously came across two pieces of music I'd been searching for since 2001. Two song cycles by Ralph Vaughan Williams - On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel. I'd borrowed a recording many years ago from the public library, then bought the cassette (the tape snapped). I've not found any MP3 format files since I started looking. Yet as I was transferring a PowerPoint presentation from a colleague's memory stick - what should I find on it but a single MP3 file consisting of both pieces.

The songs of On Wenlock Edge, poems from A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad set to Vaughan Williams' music, are emotionally powerful at this time of year. The lyrics of Is My Team Ploughing? are especially moving, a dead young man's dialogue with his surviving friend who's now, as we learn, living with his girl.

Songs of Travel, poems by Robert Louis Stevenson set to music, have similar bleak, contemplative air; consider the refrain from The Vagabond:

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,

Nor a friend to know me;

All I ask, the heaven above,

And the road below me.

Above: On the corner (another Miles Davis title slips in!). Eddie squatting on the pavement on ul. Gajdy, in Pyry on our way home from the cemetary. This is the street where we used to rent a house before moving to our own place on ul. Trombity. The white streak across the top of the photo is an airliner inbound to land. The house behind Eddie was lived in by our friends Mark and Lesley and their boys Konrad and Adam; they moved to Shropshire (more coincidence, see above) in 2003.