The Traditions of Christmas - Crèches II

As I mentioned in my previous post we purchased a new crèche while we were living in Warsaw back in 2000 - a new crèche for the new millennium. There was a little shop, lodged in two small rooms in a cellar just off one of the main squares, filled with the work of Polish artisans - weaving, painting, pottery and wood carving. One day we saw a nativity set that took our breath away in its simplicity. In muted colours with figures, that though still showing the carver's knife, had a more natural look than the more traditional Polish figures around it. It was expensive - by the standards of the day - but we knew it was something we wanted to include in our Christmas traditions.

I found it an odd coincidence that in both our crèches the Mary figure is clothed in orange rather than the traditional white and blue. I can't find an iconographic justification or reason for this, so it may have just been one of those serendipitous choices by two artists twenty years and 8,000 kilometers apart. The figures are carved in various attitudes of awareness of this child in the manager. And following the European tradition the carver (we've lost the bill and of course didn't keep any notes so the only thing we know is his initials - CM) included tradespeople amongst the figures - an apple seller and an oil merchant. Unlike many of the Neapolitan figures they are not going about their business but have stopped to adore the new born infant and perhaps bringing offerings of their wares.

And there is a good chance that this is a miracle crèche: the figurines have been known to change position by themselves in the night. Or at least so it would seem if the "I don't know" response to questions like "Who moved the donkey?" are to be believed. Either that or there are two people in this house trying to stage manage the Nativity.

As a sidebar a bit of Vatican gossip: I have it from a close personal friend of the parties involved (as they say in the tabloids) that the outdoor Presepe in Piazza San Pietro may cause a bit of a stir when its unveiled on Christmas Eve. It's the handiwork of artisans in a small Alpine town near Trent and is nontraditional in several respects including the setting. We must get down to see it over the days after Christmas as there is no way we would even attempt to join the crowds on Christmas Eve.

19 decembre - Santa Fausta

A Picture is Worth .... Three Words??

When I left the Warsaw Business Journal to return to Canada my colleagues were at a loss as to what to buy me as a going away present. It had to be something that could be packed in a suitcase – our belongs had been shipped – and it had to be something that reflected our time in Poland and my time at the Journal. On the quiet I mentioned to our HR chief that I had always admired the work of Ziolek, our Editorial cartoonist, and one cartoon in particular had intrigued and unsettled me. And I would like to have the original.

Political cartooning is an art form in Poland and was often the only way dissidence could be expressed during much of the 20th century. Many Polish artists learned to work a type of shorthand into their work – particularly in cartoons and posters – that spoke volumes to the Polish viewer yet said nothing to the Government Censor. The cartoon I wanted had been published without a caption but subtly addressed the allegations made in a book that had been published the week before.

My colleagues at the paper were a little perplexed and unsettled by my request but on my final day I was presented with the framed original. It has hung in our two homes back in Canada and caused some equally unsettled reactions from many of our guests. Yes it is a strange cartoon and on the surface is just another rendering of the horrors of War. But this is a Polish cartoon and there is a hidden message that speaks to a disturbing event in corporate and world history.

(The picture is rather low quality as I was not able to successfully scan the cartoon but had to take a photo of it.)

Our Old Girl

We still miss her.

A Mr. and Mrs. Rajch Once Existed...

While attempting to clean up what I laughing call my office I knocked a box off a shelf - out tumble all the family photos I had found when I closed up my mother’s house. The photos I had promised myself I would scan and catalogue while there were still people around who could remember those faces and places. A well-intentioned task still not begun 10 years later.

That and a New York Times article about a photograph exhibition at the Yeshiva University Museum in New York had me turning to a bookshelf to find an incredible book Laurent bought me when we lived in Warsaw: And I Still See Their Faces.*

Compiled by Golda Tencer, a Polish Jew, it is filled with ordinary family photos of the 3.3 million-strong Jewish community that existed in Poland before the Second World War: photos of people at weddings, funerals and celebrations, in classrooms, at work, play and prayer – the marvelous and the mundane. Of themselves none of the photos are extraordinary except that most of those people did not survive the War and that over 90% of the pictures were sent to Tencer by gentiles, many of them Poles.

As affecting as the photos are the notations on them and the accompanying letters explain who these people are and how the sender came upon their pictures. Often they reveal prejudice against Jews except those who happened to be their friends and neighbors. (I was remined of my own upbring in Orange Protestant Toronto where all Catholics were bad except the Polish family next door who were amongst our best friends.) But more often they simply reveal decent people for whom those photos bring back happier days.

Of one couple in a photograph a correspondent wrote to Tencer:
They had three children - Zosia, Monika and Liba. My parents were invited to the confirmation ceremony of one of them, although they practiced a different religion. And this photograph might have been given to my parents at the hard moment of farewell - for them to remember their friendship. I am sending it to you, thus certifying that a Mr. and Mrs. Rajch once existed and lived happily in Kalisz.

*I was not able to locate this book on any of the bookstore sites but the link goes to a beautifully produced website that includes a good number of the photos and text. Sadly I was not able to find Mr. and Mrs. Rajch.