Antolak: The Deep Poetry

My Great Grandfather

2011-07-12T00:14:00.029+01:00

He was on his knees, my great grandfather, when they shot him. It was the Autumn of 1943, early in the morning. He was in the kitchen of his watermill (in Andruszówka,Volhynia), on the floor saying his prayers.

Antoszka, an eleven-year old Ukrainian girl, had just finished milking the cow. She put the milk jug on the table and was turning to leave, when three men entered. They were Ukrainians from the neighbouring village of Sadki. They were polite and inquired after my great grandfather’s health. Then they asked him who the little girl was. Just a neighbour’s daughter who has come to bring the milk, he informed them. The strangers told the little girl to run off home. They would pay her father a visit later, they added.

And so she skipped away. She had barely left the house when she heard three distinct gun shots. And knew immediately what had happened.

Antoszka Cymbaluk

Watching from a safe distance, she saw the men take everything of value they could carry out of the house: tables, chairs, pictures, cushions etc., and load it all onto a waiting horse cart. They even took the cow. One of them laughed as he tried on a woman's fur coat he had found among the booty. Then they drove away out of the village.

The three men were members of the OUN-UPA, a Ukrainian Nationalist organization whose members are today considered heroes in Ukraine. In major cities you will find statues and monuments to them, all of them festooned with flowers and hung with flags. These three particular heroes had helped "liberate" the Ukraine by shooting an eighty-year-old man at his prayers together with his middle-aged disabled niece (whose name was Dominka). For the simple reason that they were Poles. And these men were Ukrainians.

A local blacksmith’s son, Andrei, later recovered the two bodies and carried them to the cemetery where he erected a wooden cross to their memory. It is still there today, among the long grass. A rough, simple thing at the edge of the graveyard covered in lichen and riddled with woodworm. Over this cross I shed many, many tears.

The same three Ukrainian heroes returned later that day to little Antoszka’s house and hanged her father, Joachim Cymbaluk. He was Ukrainian. But they hanged him all the same.

Andrei

Today, Antoszka and Andrei both continue to live in the village. They are old and fragile but are still able to remember the events of those terrible years and give details about the shooting of my great grandfather. He was a good man, they kept repeating to me, a good man who should not have been killed. Antoszka related stories about how he had shared everything he had with his neighbours. A religious man whom everyone in the village had liked.

There are no Poles in Andruszówka today. All the inhabitants are Ukrainian. And the rich, fertile land of Volhynia, together with the graves of millions of its Poles, is part of the Ukraine. Just as the three men from Sadki had intended it.

Note:

According to historians, hundreds of thousands of Poles were murdered in the province of Volhynia during the years 1943-44 as a result of the operations of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA]. The ethnic cleansing took place in the rural countryside against unarmed Polish citizens: mostly old men, women and children. The victims' bodies were often cruelly mutilated and openly displayed in order to encourage remaining Poles to flee. Norman Davies in "No Simple Victory" gives a short, but shocking description of the massacres.

"The Jews of the region had already been killed by the Nazis. So in 1943-44 the wrath of the UPA fell on the helpless Poles (...) Villages were torched. Roman Catholic priests were axed or crucified. Churches were burned with all their parishioners. Isolated farms were attacked by gangs carrying pitchforks and kitchen knives. Throats were cut. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were cut in two. Men were ambushed in the field and led away. The perpetrators could not determine the province's future. But at least they could determine that it would be a future without Poles. They killed any number between 200,000 and half a million".

To this day, no-one has ever been brought to justice for these crimes.

© Ryszard Antolak

Return to Androszówka (Part 1)

2010-11-06T15:03:00.022Z

(For Marta Wajda-Spohn, who made it all happen, my thanks).

There is a mysterious and powerful communion between the soul and the soil that fashioned it.

If you listen to the hidden voices that sing within you; if you follow the channels of blood (and not the mind) to where they lead you through the twisted channels of your life, you arrive inexorably at the dust and soil of your ancestors.

In the summer of 2010 I travelled to the tiny village of Andrushivka in Volhynia (western Ukraine), to the place where my grandmother settled after fleeing Soviet Russia in 1920, to the place where my mother was born.

Volhynia is a landscape too vast and varied for any singing of it. The sky dominates everything here. It has the most fertile soil in all Europe, so dark and rich that almost anything can grow in it. But the earth is saturated with blood, including the blood of my own family. No place in Europe suffered more through massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide than Volhynia, the "killing fields" of WW2.

If you are ever fortunate enough to return to the soil of your ancestors, you break out in a sweat. You feel the tactile presence of the grandmothers and great grandmothers who struggled to bring you into existence. It is as if the earthen womb recognizes the worth of her children and demands an account. What have you done with your life? What did you do with the body I loaned you, the emotions I breathed into you, the talents I bestowed upon you? Did you squander them? Or use them wisely?

Until the summer of 2010, I had known Androszówka only from stories told to me in childhood. It was a place out of a fairy tale. So when I finally saw the Cyrillic signpost at the entrance to the village, my mind became intoxicated, dream-enlarged. It began to blossom out, to burst the confines of logic. I found myself weeping over the enormity of what had been lost, and the beauty I was unable to express. I spread out my arms like a great flying swan. I wanted to remember everything just as it was at that precise moment: the quality of the light, the shapes of the trees, the sound of the birds, the singing of the villagers in the Orthodox church, every twist and turn of the road.

This is an account of my visit; whom I met, what stories I was told, and what I brought home with me in my heart and my head.

© Ryszard Antolak

No Fellow Footfall

2010-11-06T08:34:00.004Z

She thought of the narrowness of the limits within which a human soul may speak and be understood by its nearest of mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual experience, in which no fellow footfall is ever heard.
Olive Schreiner

Thirty miles or so south of Shiraz, lies the little village of Qalat, situated among rich orchards of pomegranates and figs. It is a narrow, cramped Sassanian village, constructed on the side of a steep mountain streaked with horizontal lines, as if mauled by a gigantic lion.

It was a place, I had been told, where nothing remarkable had ever taken place, where poetry has been written and roses had fallen from their stems in silence, a place whose inhabitants had disguised their missions of love and hate behind the privacy of high walls and closed lips for centuries. There was really nothing to interest anyone there.

I tried hard to believe it. But every village has its secrets. We could feel it as we hauled ourselves up the steep lane that twisted between heavy-walled houses washed in faded ochre and terracotta, all of them shuttered and in various stages of dilapidation. We let ourselves believe we could hear voices coming from the thick semi-circular doors with the ring knockers of hammered iron built to withstand attack and deter intruders.

Now and again we caught sight of a figure disappearing into an adjoining alleyway. We glimpsed it more than once and presumed it was a dog that had followed us up the steep slope, curious at the presence of strangers.

Finally we reached what we had come to see: an old Armenian church that had been built (so we were told) sometime during the Qajar period. It was magnificently situated on an escarpment of rock near the summit of the village: the best preserved ruin in a town of countless ruins. But when we entered it, we found little more than an empty shell, its walls smothered in graffiti, its floors covered with the stains of countless impromptu fires.

Around the church was a crude wall that concealed not so much a large garden as a neglected orchard. Entry was via a metal door emblazoned with an Armenian cross. It groaned with gratitude at being opened. The interior was an overgrown paradise of pomegranate and fig trees. The cinnamon of pine needles and the perfumes of various blossoms hung heavy in the air. Branches rubbing on the empty windows created a melancholy that seduced that part of me that was sentimental and no-hoper. My imagination flickered to life. This was a space full of expectation, an emptiness waiting to be peopled with characters from a novel.

Because the faint whisper of trees and the murmuring of birds cast such a spell on us, it was some time before we realized we were not alone. In the far corner beneath the trees was a silent figure in a black chador. She was coming towards us, fingers of shadow caressing her body as she did so.

From a distance she looked quite young, even girlish. But as she approached she faded visibly. The woman had the face of an old child, neither young nor old. It was unbearably round and regular. She was decidedly matronly in form but comfortable and loose within her own body and dressed (as was the custom in those parts) in a many-layered skirt that trailed behind her a little across the ground.

The visitor said nothing, but only stood observing us intently. She would have cast a shadow in shadowless surroundings. We tried to offer her a few words of traditional greeting. But she did not reply, and continued staring at us as if searching for the handles of doors to some personal revelation.

Nothing could disguise for us the scent of tobacco and the odor of unwashed laundry that surrounded her. I felt uneasy in her presence and uncomfortable at the disorder of her hair which could not be contained by her ragged shawl.

My companion made a gesture to leave, and I turned briskly towards the gate. The woman called out to me in a thin grey voice, exposing the ruins of some teeth in the process. But I did not understand (or did not wish to) and merely waved my hand at her in dismissal. As we hastened down the cobbled lane of the village, I looked behind me momentarily and she was still there, following us with her large dark eyes and the great bulk of the scarred mountain looming behind her back.

I did not realize at first what gravity the encounter would have on me. It was only later, when we entered the local shop and let slip to the owner of our unusual meeting at the church, that parts of a jigsaw began to form around us. The old man came over and seated himself on a crate beside us. He was good and kind we could see, and he felt entrusted to tell us something of the woman’s history. He seemed to have an abundance of time to dispense. The stories he told were long and rambling and there seemed no order or logic to them. But we settled down for the next hour or so to listen.

If there had ever been a time when she was genuinely happy (the old man began), the war with Iraq turned everything to ashes. Her husband of only a few months disappeared in the first months of the conflict and his body was never found. No-one could tell her what had happened to him, whether he was alive or dead. So she waited for him, mourning her loss. She lived for interminable months and years waiting for a knock, looking for a sign that never materialized, clinging with inveterate obstinacy to the hope that one day, surely, he would return to her again. But no news arrived.

She no longer slept, no longer ate. In the evenings, she would spend her time standing on the veranda of her house facing the road to Shiraz, smoking endless cigarettes from a black holder that belonged to her grandmother. And with every day that passed, her body became thinner and thinner, and her thoughts began to take on an ever more corrosive quality.

I imagined her standing on the road at the bottom of the village waiting for him, the wind blowing her chador this way and that as her eyes swept the horizon. I expected candles to be dashed to the ground when doors were opened, and winds to rush down stone passages, swelling beneath the kilims on the walls around me.

During this time (the man continued), her intermittent headaches became ever more frequent and more severe. She consulted doctors in Shiraz who saw in her sleepless nights, in the shock of separation, in the daily terrors of the war, the root causes of her illness. They prescribed homeopathic medicines and cold water therapies. One of the doctors was blessed with natural healing powers and even offered to treat her for free. But to no avail.

One day, she went into her bedroom and took out the beautiful wooden chest her husband had given her in which she kept her wedding clothes and other items from their life together. She brought them out one by one and laid them on the floor beside her. There they were: the yellow love letters, the locks of hair, the handwritten pages of poetry, the sepia photographs enlarged to ridiculous proportions….and she became overcome with such inconsolable grief that she could not weep enough over the enormity of her loss.

Now began the darkest season of her life. From that day onwards, she withdrew into the protective walls of her house and emerged only at night. She began haunting the town in her black chador like a living ghost, searching the blizzards of memory for any vestige of him. There followed interminable months of wandering through unremembered villages, sleeping in the ruins of deserted buildings, eating any piece of rancid food she could find to quench her hunger. And each time her family found her, they brought her home and nursed her to health.

Finally the doctor told them what no longer needed telling: that the woman had broken her mind on the memory of her loss, and retreated into an innocence where no-one could reach her.

It was then that the war of the cities began, and the woman found herself caught up in a tide of refugees fleeing to escape the bombing. She found herself in Mashhad where the golden cupola of Imam Reza, the marble courtyards of pilgrims, the mirrored hallways bejewelled with divine art made such an impression that they returned her (briefly) to life. She spent her days among the pilgrims waiting to enter the tiled halls or else wandering through the shaded walkways where the cripples lay outstretched on the floor, chanting their prayers. Each evening she would bring them all home with her in her head, and fall asleep to the music of their rhythms.

In her youth she had written poetry. Now, in the silence of her cramped Mashhad dormitory, she found she was writing again, insatiably, on any scrap of paper that presented itself. It consumed her to such an extent that there was no time for anything else. All she had not lived was written down in paper and in ink. Her failures took shape too, but in mountains and flowers and in words of love she had never expressed before and which, for that reason, had the honesty of innocence. When the poems were finished they were burning on the paper like a lighted torch.

One morning, long before dawn, she made her way to the holy precinct and pushed her way to the front of the assembled crowds. As she drew nearer to the grave of the Imam, she stretched out a hand towards the marble tomb and by some luck or providence, managed to grasp hold of a corner against the seething crowd. She held it tightly with a desperate hand while with the other she searched inside her pocket and produced the bundles of poems she had written in her room, and squeezed them through the railings of the holy tomb. Then she took out her husband’s letters too, his photographs and everything else that was precious to her and forced them, one by one, into the sepulchre of Imam Reza saying as she did so in her fragile voice, “Take this too, and this. Take all of it!”

But they would not fit. An elbow from the crowd nudged her hand, spilling the items like confetti across the marble floor where they were churned and trodden under the feet of whirling pilgrims. She lost her grip of the tomb and was carried of a wave of worshippers out into to the adjoining hall where she was left, unceremoniously, against a wall.

It was only then, as she lay on marble floor of the Azadi courtyard before the golden dome and the tiled minarets of the imam that something in her lit up (at last) like the striking up of a match. She felt a joy begin to run through her hair like fire. She found she was laughing at herself infectiously, loudly, ridiculously, in a way she never done before.

There was more that the shopkeeper had to tell us. But I didn’t want to listen. The room was too confining. I needed to get outside. To breathe. I stood in the desolation of the abandoned street and continued thinking about the haunted woman. Her story pursued me as I retraced my steps up the village lane. It laid traps for me in the shadowy doorways that lay on either side. It gave me no rest.

I reached the narrow staircase of the Armenian Church and stood once more before the graffiti on its scarred walls. She was like this empty church (I thought), burned out, defaced, open to all the winds. What would have become of her, I wondered, if she had married again, raised children, nursed grandchildren? What would have happened if Love had touched her once again and opened up the woman in her? Instead of which, Time and circumstance had marooned her among these ruins of Sassanian houses that couldn’t be demolished because UNESCO wouldn’t allow it, and couldn’t be repaired for lack of money: a living ghost.

I set out to look for her in the walled garden, to apologize for my error, to ask her forgiveness for my actions. I found her standing where I had left her. Seeing me approach, she turned towards me and opened up the swollen leather of her hand to show me what she had. There, wrapped in the folds of a colored handkerchief were fresh figs, the delicate down still clinging to them like fine dew. I took the fruit, washed them in a nearby stream and returned immediately to share it with her.

We ate greedily. In silence. The woman closed her eyes for a moment and attempted to remove a strand of hair that had lodged on her lips. The operation, delicately performed, allowed me to look at her more properly without being observed. The glow of a distant youth seemed to emanate from her presence. She must have been beautiful in her youth, I thought. There was a great spaciousness of soul in her, a purity of being I could not quite convert into terms of my own reality. But I felt it. The varieties of love are so manifold, I thought, that we do not possess adequate words to define them.

Our eyes met suddenly and we started to laugh, as if we were partakers of some guilty secret. It seemed as if our minds branched out and touched high above our heads. And at that very moment, something in me shifted and opened like a green metal door in a high wall. I wanted some of that freedom she had: the freedom to expand and burn like a candle flame in straw, to be emptied and vanish into nothing.

It was good to be a little mad, I thought.

Ryszard Antolak

Return to Radziwillow

2010-10-14T21:48:00.025+01:00

Painting by Stefan Cmentomirski

Seventy years after my mother and her family were forcibly deported to Siberia by the Soviets, I returned to the town of Radziwiłłów in Volhynia, from whence they had been taken, to discover what traces (if any) remained of that episode of forgotten History.

In 1940, Radziwiłłów was an important town in Wolynia, a district of Eastern Poland. Today, it lies within the newly-independent Ukraine.

* * * *

On the 10^th February 1940, five members of my family (two adults and three children) were forcibly taken from this place at gunpoint, packed into cattle trains, and transported to the forced labour camps of northern Siberia. Their crime: that they were Polish citizens.

They were not the only ones whose fate was sealed on that February night. A quarter of a million other Polish citizens were similarly awakened to the sound of Russian soldiers knocking on their doors in the early hours of February 10th. They were given no hint or warning of what was to come. The vast operation, carried out all over eastern Poland on a single night under cover of darkness and snow, had been prepared months in advance. It was first of four mass deportations of the population resulting in the incarceration on Russian soil of almost two million Polish citizens. They were taken away in order that no trace would ever remain of their language or their culture in the territories occupied in 1939 by the Soviet Union.

You are not likely to have heard any of this at school, or read about it in the mainstream history books. For there are blank spots on the mental map of Europe, areas corresponding to the regions once labelled “Terra Incognita” by medieval cartographers. Britain, the US and the Soviet Union colluded together for almost 50 years to cover up, or obfuscate, the details of the crime. Even in (Soviet- dominated) Poland, until as recently as 1989, it was forbidden to refer to any part of this story.

All the arrests on that fateful night, February 10th 1940, followed a basic standard pattern. At four o’clock in the morning, while the whole family were asleep, a loud knock was heard at the door. Three or four soldiers entered, armed with pistols. They herded everyone (including children) into one room and put them up against the wall in their nightclothes. Meanwhile, the house was searched and an inventory made of all the family’s assets. They were then ordered to dress warmly and given fifteen minutes to gather together their belongings and prepare for what they were told was, “a long journey”.

It was the coldest night in living memory. The earth was frozen to a crystalline hardness and the snow was falling lightly. My family were packed into two waiting sledges and driven to the railway station of Michajlówka, a few miles outside Radziwiłłów. No-one saw them leave. The snow covered up the tracks of the sledges. They never saw their home again.

Michajlówka

Seventy years later, I discovered Michajlówka easily, a well-signposted, sleepy village 15 minutes by car from Radziwillow. The railway station was hidden away from the village by a corridor of mature pines. No sign or monument existed to commemorate the events of February 10^th 1940. Everything was quiet and peaceful, uncontaminated by intrusive uncomfortable history.

It was to this place that the Soviet soldiers drove the sleighs carrying the huddled members of my family. Here, a train with cattle wagons were waiting for them.
Thousands of frightened people were assembled in the snow: old men, women, children with the sand of sleep still glued to their eyelids. Many were crying. Some old women were wandering about outside with baskets of food looking for their relatives. Meanwhile, Soviet soldiers with rifles ticked off names on a list.

It was somewhere here, at the side of the railway track that one old woman, Mrs Bednarska, raised up her arms up to the sky and began to curse the Russians in a loud voice, crying out to God for revenge. She was immediately encircled by a dozen armed soldiers who aimed rifles at her. Several people leaped to her defence and pleaded with the officers to release her. She was mentally ill, they said. She did not know what she was saying. And the Russians, to their credit, lowered their rifles and released the old woman. In truth, Mrs Bednarska was not mentally ill at all, but highly intelligent. When the soldiers who arrived earlier that morning at her house to arrest her son, she had asked to be taken to Siberia along with him. “Let me go with him”, she had pleaded. “Because how can he look after himself?” And the soldiers granted her that great privilege. She was allowed to accompany her son to his place of slavery (and ultimately death) in the work camps of Siberia. This was the same Mrs. Bednarska, whose daughter later saved my mother’s life in the Siberian camp. But that is another story.

Here, at Michajlówka, everyone was loaded into waiting cattle wagons like sardines, one next to another in a standing position, families with children. There were seventy or eighty people to a wagon. In the centre stood a stove. There was also a small barred window. A hole in the floor served as the toilet, which was concealed with a bedcover for modesty’s sake. The doors were locked and padlocked, and were not opened again for three days while other families were collected and loaded onto the wagons. Some of the children began to faint for lack of water. The men beat against the metal doors with their hands and feet in desperation, until they gave up with exhaustion.

But the train was still standing. And while it did, there was still some hope that someone would learn of their fate. People back home must be told what was going on, they argued. Many people in the wagons voiced their belief that they had been taken by mistake, and would soon be freed. Oh God, how they hoped and prayed for help from their allies, from Britain and France! But their gallant allies did not hear them. And even if they had heard, they would not have helped (1).

Finally, after what seemed like an interminable wait, the train buffers shuddered. There was a sound of steam. The engine whistled, and slowly the train began to move off: in the direction of the East.

Everyone in the wagon began to shout, and although the wheels made a loud noise on the rails, the wailing and the shouts of the passengers were even louder. Cries of injustice went out to God: “Out of the depths do we cry out to you O Lord!” They were heart-rending these last moans. Desperate and lashed with despair.

And then there came a song, one that has often imparted spirit to this tortured nation. From inside the sealed wagons of tightly pressed bodies burst a loud rousing hymn: the National Anthem: “Poland has not yet passed away while we are still alive”! It burst out spontaneously. Totally exhausted, crowded together like sardines, they sang together through their tears. The engine whistled again. The melody of the national anthem ran out over the deserted fields, lost itself and disappeared into the emptiness of the open landscape.

Radziwiłłów

My mother had often spoken of Radziwiłłów as a large town with a predominantly Jewish population. From the many stories she told me about it, I had always imagined it as a city with wide boulevards and well-manicured parks. But in the summer of 2010 I found little more than a village consisting of a few rows of houses with colourful gardens, dissected by a long featureless railway line. The constant queues at the level crossing in the centre of town were the only bustle in a place so small and quiet, that it was difficult to believe that anything of note had ever occurred here to disturbed its solitude.

My grandfather, a forestry administrator, had been sent to Radziwiłłów just a few months before the outbreak of the war, so it was not the family’s real home. They were assigned a modest wooden villa outside the town in a patch of woodland next to the railway line. They did not consider it to be home.

It was this house that my companions and I searched for when we arrived in the town. If my mother had been with me, she would no doubt have been able to point out the place to us. But as it was, we were forced to find it ourselves from hand-written diagrams and verbal accounts. The process soon became frustrating and we were forced to ask help from the local Ukrainian inhabitants.

And it soon became evident that the people of Radziwiłłów were reluctant to say anything. From the youngish policeman who seemed so sympathetic to the officials at the newly-renovated railway station who phoned around for us, no-one seemed able to help. We were sent on one wild goose chase after another to find frightened elderly villagers who, we were assured, knew for certain the whereabouts of our war-time home. But always to no avail. No-one seemed to know anything. . Or else they were afraid of re-kindling old fires.

So we continued our search alone, cross-crossing the railway line and the following the vague directions my mother had supplied. Thick mature pine forests covered the whole area. In one place, we found a cemetery, all but overgrown in a clearing in the woods. But only one grave dated from the war period. Eventually, having resigned ourselves to failure, we met a middle-aged woman and her daughter gathering raspberries in the forest and she supplied us with directions to where she believed our villa may once have been.

And, we found it: the site of my mother’s home. There was no house that I could touch. Only a clearing in the trees to which my imagination reached out through the variegated shadows with a childish eagerness to the past. Not even one mute stone remained upon another, and yet the forest still remembered. It had reserved a space for it among the scubbery, where nettles waved their heads in the bright sunshine and baby saplings were already beginning to choke the place with a green forgetfulness. I remained here for a long time in silence.

Jews of Radziwiłłów

Before the war, the Jews had constituted the largest ethnic group in Radziwiłłów. Today there was no sign of them. My mother had often spoken of one particular Jewish shop where she had sometimes gone to buy foodstuffs. The woman-owner was very friendly. Whenever she saw her, the woman would laugh and pull her physically into the shop to entice her to buy. But when the Russians arrived, all this changed. Some of the Jews in Radziwiłłów had welcomed the invading Russians as their saviours. Many voiced complaints that the Poles had been their oppressors. The once-friendly Jewish shopkeeper now ignored and refused to serve my mother whenever she arrived at the store, while enthusiastically welcoming all Ukrainians and Russians.

What had happened to the Jews of Radziwiłłów? It was only by accident, while searching the forest for my mother’s house, that we came across a vast Jewish massacre site. It was wholly unsignposted, and accessed only by a dirt road through the forest. When the German army ploughed through Soviet occupied eastern Poland in 1941, the Jews of Radziwiłłów were rounded up and massacred in their thousands, just tens of metres from our home. Yet no-one in Radziwiłłów had even mentioned the existence of this place, or what it was about.

The site consists of a high, white, commemorative wall in the middle of the forest. On its curved surface can be found inscriptions in Ukrainian and Hebrew scripts. In front of it are several communal burial pits, now overgrown with grass. From the inscriptions on the wall and from an older commemorative stone further back, we learned that Jews from the town had been massacred and buried here in 1942 by the Nazis. There were almost 4000 of them.

NOTES

1. Three years later, in 1943, they would secretly collude with Stalin to sell their ally, Poland, to the Soviets. The Poles would not be consulted, and would not learn of the agreement until two years later, by which time their military and intelligence services were no longer required.

Journey to Alamut

2010-05-15T20:00:00.003+01:00

“In a beautiful valley enclosed between two lofty mountains was created a magnificent garden stored with every delicious fruit and every fragrant shrub...By means of small conduits in magnificent buildings, streams of wine, milk, honey and pure water flowed in every direction. ...and in order that none might stray into this delicious valley, a strong and impregnable fortress [Alamut] was built at the opening of it, through which entry was barred except by means of a secret passageway”. Travels of Marco Polo Ch 22

There is probably no other place in Iran better known around the world than the fortress of Alamut. This place has spawned so many legends of paradisiacal gardens, beautiful houris, intoxicated hashish addicts, ruthless assassins and other fanciful nonsense that they have reached to the utmost limits of incredulity.

Yet for all that, it is a truly awe-inspiring place. Even had you known nothing of its religious or political history; even if you had never heard of Hasan Sabbah, of the Assassins, the Ismailis or the grand proclamation of the Qiyamat, this place would seize the mind of any casual traveller who beheld it.

Alamut lies at the end of a tortured, winding road that twists and turns over three mountain ridges, countless valleys and across some of the wildest and most spectacular scenery in all Iran. No one comes here by accident. The 80kms journey from Qazvin takes some three hours of hard driving on a modern road that is only a few decades old. Before that, all that existed was a narrow donkey track to lead the traveller to his destination, a journey that could last days, and sometimes weeks.

The fortress itself clings impossibly to the summit of a gigantic boulder set against the high peaks of the Hawdeqan Mountains. The hills around it are folded in delicate shades of pastel green or lavender, pinkish in some places, terracotta in others. Ochres and browns are streaked in wide brush strokes across the landscape. It is a truly beautiful place.

But it is not until you come to the foot of this colossal mass of stone that you realize the immensity and impregnability of the fortress at its summit. Bigger than anything else in the world it seems, this rock is deeply scarred by grooves and curious striations that change colour with the quality of the light: now purple, now mauve, metallic grey, brown. You could almost believe this mass of rock was breathing like an immense, sleeping organism.

At the foot of the mountain on its western side lies the little village of Shotor Khan, nestled among orchards of pretty cherry trees. From this position, the rock appears as a slim, rugged pyramid. Juwayni, the chronicler of the Mongol siege of Alamut, compared it to a kneeling camel with its neck stretched out. But I could not envisage this. Rather as its name suggested, I imagined a giant eagle sitting on its nest and the fortress - a royal crown- perched high on its feathered head.

The ascent begins with 800 stone steps recently constructed for the benefit of visitors. Thereafter the path dwindles to a narrow goat track that winds its way laboriously around the northern side of the rock to its eastern side. Local village boys offer donkey rides up part of the track, but we declined the offer. One of them asked me where I had come from and I answered “Scotland”. Then seeing his confusion, quickly added, “England”. He smiled and nodded, repeating the only English phrase he knew: “I have a book. I have a book”, and disappeared down the track to his animals, laughing as he did so.

The last part of the climb is a hair-raising assault up a vertical cliffface covered in scaffolding and wooden planks. God only knows how people negotiated this part of the climb in Hasan’s day. Maybe, as my companion suggested, they were hauled up by rope, or there was some secret entrance long since lost.

Attaining the summit is a breath-taking and exhilarating experience. The fortress complex, one soon discovers, sits astride a dangerously narrow ledge of rock resembling the handle and blade of a knife. Precipitous slopes yawn on either side. You begin to experience a vague vertigo, a fear that you are only precariously on terra firma.

At the time of the Assassins, the fortress of Alamut consisted of two linked citadels, the first of which (the larger) was reached by a narrow tunnel to the east (which can still be seen). Excavations are continuing but much remains a mystery, a result of the deliberate dismantling of the fortress by the Mongols. Many of the buildings, it appears, were cut deeply into the rock so that the whole site was once honeycombed with countless subterranean passages and cavernous rooms. The mosque, for example, appears today as a giant chasm, or quarry, into which one peers from a great height, tens of metres above it. Slim, elegant pillars and walls of finely dressed stone can be made out in its dusty atmosphere. But there is no means of entry for the visitor. Elsewhere can be found stables, washhouses and rooms without doors or windows whose function may have been storage. No-one really knows.

In one of these rooms can be seen the legendary water basin which filled itself up by collecting rainwater and melting snow from channels and canals on the mountains. It was famed never to overflow. Other rooms were clearly intended for storage, perhaps once filled with barley, honey, oil, dried fruit and sheep fat to enable the citadel to hold out during a siege for years if need be. During its destruction by the Mongols, an invading soldier is reported to have fallen into one of these tanks and drowned in a vat of honey.

At the highest point and defended by its own walls and entrance gate, stands the inner citadel reserved exclusively for the Grand Master and his circle of associates. It is perched on yet a narrower neck of rock and consists of a long alleyway of low buildings clinging to both sides of a knife-edged ridge. The houses slope off slightly at an angle as if they were about to slip off the mountain to the earth, hundreds of feet below. The pathway inclines forward dangerously so that a barrier of plastic ribbon has been set up to prevent further access for the public.

Beyond it lies a smooth narrow ridge of rock stretching 100 metres or so to a dead-end overhanging a truly frightening precipice. Precariously perched at the end of this long slender finger of rock was the house of the Grand master of Alamut, Hasan Sabbah. His tiny cell was furnished with only a single window and stood out like a watch tower at the edge of the abyss: a kind of spiritual lighthouse raised against the darkness. Here the Grand Master spent the last thirty years of his life praying, writing and governing his scattered community. From his small monastic cell he sent out missionaries, spies and assassins all over the Middle East (and even as far away as Western Europe and India. He created a state of over 50 fortresses: an archipelago of gnosis, divine sparks of light in a universe of ignorance and darkness. Or so he believed. And the Gnosis that governed them was so secret that even today we have only fragments of the great jigsaw puzzle that ruled their lives.

The religious community of Alamut was committed to the cause of Nizari Ismailism, a radical Shiite interpretation of Islam formerly linked to the Fatimids of Egypt. Hasan Sabbah who was interested in all the advances of science, philosophy and poetry, developed the theology further. The Quran for him was an external shell enclosing a hidden spiritual truth. He read obscure inner meanings into its verses and formulated esoteric doctrines and abstruse theological hypotheses. The Mongols destroyed Hassan’s great library at Alamut so we have difficulty today piecing together their beliefs. But we can still discern something of the Order’s original structure. Hasan sat atop a hierarchy that descended through nine levels of initiation from da’is (missionaries), rafiks and lassiks at the top, to mujibs (or answerers) at the bottom. Above him was envisaged a similar (angelic) hierarchy, reaching into the heavens and up to God himself.

Hasan Sabbah acquired Alamut in 1090 and from that date onwards his agents worked with Jesuitical fervour to infiltrate their teachings into the strongholds of orthodoxy. He called some of his closest associates “assassiyun”, or people of the “assass” (the foundation of the faith). We might well call them “fundamentalists” today. Later the term was mistakenly taken to mean something to do with hashish. And in the West they became known as “Assassins”, a word that has come to mean the murder of any prominent individual for political ends.

Just like other political states, the Assassins engaged in war to protect their scattered communities. But they did not slaughter innocent soldiers pressed into the service of their masters. Instead, they used assassinations to strike at the rulers and potentates themselves. And for that reason they were reviled and slandered by the worst kinds of propaganda.

It was said that Hasan had spies and “sleepers” in every city of the Middle East. Disguised as merchants or carpenters, blacksmiths or bodyguards, they waited (sometimes for years or decades) for a signal from their master to execute his order whatever it might be. And they were willing to sacrifice their lives in the process. Only a few assassinations were necessary before the Ismaili sect gained such a reputation for terror that no-one dared move against them.

And yet only a few generations later this highly austere, hierarchical community, whose every action was governed by the strictest and severest of laws, transformed itself overnight into something wholly unprecedented.

In the year 1164 during the period of Ramadan, a successor to the Grand Master of Alamut (Hassan II) descended the fortress on the rock and addressed his followers from the place where the village now stands. On that momentous day (August 8th) he urged his community to turn their backs to Mecca and away from all outward forms of religion. He proclaimed the Qiyamat, the “Resurrection”, the announcement of a discontinuity in the flow of History and the passage of Time.

Islam had come of age, he told them. Its interior Truth had blossomed and burst free of its bonds. It no longer needed the outer code of the Law. The age of Sharia was over. Heaven, Paradise, Bliss, Redemption were all around them if they only looked with their spiritual eyes. Religion no longer meant an adherence to external laws. It was now a personal relationship between an “imam” and his followers. So all that had been forbidden was now allowed. On the doors of the great library of Alamut were inscribed the words: “With the aid of God, the ruler of the universe has destroyed the fetters of the Law (Shariah)”. Wine was drunk, music was played, people danced in the streets. A purely spiritual Islam of reformed Iranian Ismailism had been born.

But It did not last long. There was the inevitable backlash, various reactions and retractions. The Order began to weaken internally until the Mongols arrived to deal a final, swift death blow to the remaining shards of this religious experiment.

The Mongol leader (Hulagu) journeyed himself to the citadel in 1256 and ordered everything to be destroyed, including the famous library.Among the precious writings that disappeared were the works of Hasan himself and the complete history of the Assassins and their doctrines.

But just before the burning he allowed his historian Junayvi (who was writing a biography of the Mongol prince) to enter the library and bring out a few of the books, enough as would fit into a small wheelbarrow. No time was allowed to consider the matter. Junayvi hurriedly saved a few Qurans, a chronicle of Alamut and a biography of Hasan Sabbah. Everything else perished in the flames. The vast library filled with tens hundreds of thousands of manuscripts burned for seven days and seven nights bringing to an end the history of the Ismailis of Alamut. Over the years, knowledge of the Ismailis degenerated into misunderstandings, romances and other fanciful nonsenses such as those popularised by the explorer Marco Polo.

Or so it was believed. But later, as I sat sipping chai in the shade of the cherry trees below the famous rock, I started to doubt the commonly-held view. You reach a point, I realized, where you can have everything - all the facts, the dates, the various details slotted together into neat chronological order. And everything amounts to nothing. Only the heart redeems. And the language of the heart is not the language of fact. The history of the Assassins did not end with the sack of Alamut. Its ideas ran underground to inform Iranian Sufism for generations. Shams-e-Tabriz (the mentor of Jalaludin Rumi) was even rumoured to be the son of a grand master of Alamut. Facets of the doctrine were adopted by the Templars (and others) who introduced them to Europe. Strands of ideas ended up in the literature of the Holy Grail and the various Arthurian legends.
In the last resort Alamut is not just a mountain valley in northern Iran. It is a mandala of the heart, a place where the imagination finds a home outside of Time, where it feels intensely “grounded”.

If they ever existed, the legendary gardens of Marco Polo must have been situated at the foot of the mountain where I sat that hot July afternoon, sipping tea in the shade of the cherry trees. And for a brief moment perhaps, it seemed to me as if I really did inhabit paradise, and felt blessed with a rare form of peace.

So I lingered for a long time in the valley of Alamut wandering the various paths and tracks of that idyllic landscape until the sun sank low and I returned to the car. Then I was driven away in a cloud of dust, expelled like Adam from his homeland forever.

© Ryszard Antolak

Wojtek, żołnierz-niedźwiedź z pod Monte Cassino.

2010-03-20T15:26:00.006Z

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Po bitwie o Monte Cassino, jednej z najcięższych bitew Drugiej Wojny Swiatowej wiele pisano o odwadze i heroiźmie żołnierzy biorących w niej udział. Ale może najbardziej zadziwiająca była historia brązowego niedzwiedzia który walczył po alianckiej stronie u boku żołnierzy, w najgorętrzych bataliach. Mimo nieustającego bombardowania i ostrzeliwania niedźwiedź dostarczał niezbędną amunicję kolegom-żołnierzom walczącym na stokach. Wielu z tych którzy to widzieli nie wierzyło własnym oczom. Ale ta historia nie była legendą.

Kiedy umierał w 1964tym roku Wojtek był najbardziej znanym niedźwiedziem na świecie, odwiedzanym przez szeregi sławnych ludzi i adorowany przez międzynarodową prasę. Artykuły i książki były o nim pisane, tablice pamiątkowe i posągi stawiane upamiętniając jego wyczyny. Dla żołnierzy 22-giej Kompanii Transportowej Drugiego Korpusu (zaopatrzenie artylerii) był on jedynie Wojtkiem, nadzwyczajnym stworzeniem i ukochanym towarzyszem.

Urodził się w górach Hamadan, w jednej z wielu jaskiń znajdujących się na tym górzystym piaskowym lądzie.Jak miał osiem tygodni łowcy zabili mu matkę, ale znalazł go młody Irański chłopak który wrzucił go do parcianego wora i wyruszył wąską ścieżką w stronę domu.

Iran przeżywył wtedy jeden z cięższych okresów swojej historii. Okupowany przez Rosjan i Brytyjczyków, stosunki pomiędzy żołnierzami tych krai był zrozumiale trudne i napięte. W kwietniu jednak Iran otworzył swoje wrota by przyjąć setki tysięcy Polaków, mężczyzn, kobiet i dzieci, zwolnionych z Sowieckich łagrów na Syberii i w Kazakhstanie. Zjechawszy do Pahlevi (dziś Bandar-e Anzali) cierpieli oni na różne zarazy jak i na niedokarmienie. Odpoczywali, By nabrać sił odpoczywali w olbrzymim mieście namiotów postawionych dla nich na wybrzeżach morza Kaspijskiego. Wzmocniwszy się na tyle by móc podróżować dalej przewożeni byli do bardziej stałych obozów wojskowych i cywilnych rozrzuconych po całym Iranie.

Większość cywili (kobiety i dzieci) pozostali gośćmi Iranu przez okres do trzech lat. Zdrowi mężczyźni, w sile wieku, natychmiast odsyłani byli na zachód by dołączyć do Wojska Polskiego w Libanie. Długie rzędy krytych ciężarówek dziennie opuszczały Anzali wioząc przyszłych żołnierzy wąskimi krętymi drogami przez Qazvin, Hamadan i Kermansh do granicy Iraku i dalej.

Gdzieć na wąskiej górskiej drodze pomiędzy Hamadan i Kanvagar ciężarówka raptownie stanęła widząc małego Irańskiego chłopca niosącego ciężki worek. Wyglądal zmęczony i głodny więc mężczyźni poczęstowali go konserwą mięsną. Jak jadł żołnierze ze zdziwieniem zauważyli że worek poruszył się a z niego wyłoniła się do słońca miodowa główka niedzwiadka.

Chociaż nikt nie znał języka Farsi chłopiec potrafił na migi przekazać że znalazł niedźwiadka płaczącego przed jaskinią bo jego matkę zabili myśliwi. Osierocony niedźwiadek był w bardzo złym stanie i prawie pewnym było że nie dożyje końca dnia. Jeden z mężczyzn zaproponował że kupi niedźwiadka za kilka tumanów. Ktoś inny sięgnął do chlebaka i wyszukał tabliczkę czekolady i puszkę "Corned Beef" by dać chłopcu. Jeszcze inny wyciągnął z kieszeni scyzoryk który otwierał się w kwiatek. Chłopiec uśmichnął się, schował dary i na zawsze zniknął z życia żołnierzy.

Natychmiast zajęto się niedźwiadkiem. Z pustej butelki po wódce , wkładając w nią gałganek zamiast smoczka, stworzono butelkę do karmienia. Wypełnili ją kondensowanym mlekiem rozcieńczonym wodą i podali niedźwiadkowi do picia. Jak skończył przytulił się do jednego z żołnierzy i usnął mu na piersi. Zołnierz ten nazywał się Piotr. Pozostał on na zawsze największym przyjacielem niedźwiadka.

Niedźwiadek kurczowo trzymał się tej swojej przybranej matki przez całą ciężką drogę przez Persję, Irak i Jordanię, przez ten olbrzymi szmat ziemi który wydawał się poddany jałowej desperacji. Czasami żołnierz wtulał niedźwiadka w swój płaszcz, jakby go wcielał w siebie. Wieczorami, gdy żołnierze siedzieli przy ognisku i gaworzyli do ciemnej nocy, niedźwiadka do snu kołysał ich głośny śmiech.

Z czasem sierota-niedźwiadek wrósł w tych obcych ludzi i oswoił się w pełni z rytmem ich życia i odgłosami mowy. Od tego czasu stał się jednym z nich, ciałem i duszą.

W taki to sposób Wojtek, Irański niedźwiedź z Hamadan, połączył się z życiem żołnierzy Drugiego Polskiego Korpusu, wpływając na ich losy.

W przeciągu kilku miesięcy Wojtek zdobył serca wszystich ktźrzy się z nim spotkali. Zołnierze, którzy przetrwali gehennę Syberii potrzebowali miłości w życiu. Obecność Wojtka stała się wielkim ukojeniem podnoszącym morale. Mimo olbrzymiej siły, która rosła w Wojtku z dnia na dzień, zawsze był łagodnym delikatnym gigantem. Zołnierze od początku traktowali go jako swojego, członka kompanii, a nie jako marionetkę. Dzielili z nim jedzenie, nocą pozwalali mu spać w swoich namiotach i włączali go we wszystkie swoje poczynania. Gdy jednostka wywoływana stawała do marszu on maszerował z nimi jak żołnirz, na dwuch tylnych łapach. Gdy jechali w dalszą drogę siedział na przednim diedzeniu Jeepu czy innego samochodu transportowego, ku ogólnemu zadziwieniu przechodnich. Najbardziej jednak lubiał mocować się z żołnierzami, dwoma lub trzema naraz. Czasami pozwalał nawet im wygrywać. Przez następne kilka lat dzielił ich losy jeżdżąc z nimi gdziekolwiek byli wysyłani na Srodkowym Wschodzie. Wyrósł do prawie pięciu stóp i ważył 500 funtów.

Z początkiem roku 1944 żołnierze Wojtka kompanii dostali rozkaz przedostania się do Włoch by połączyć się z Alianckimi Wojskami nacierającymi na Rzym. Władze Brytyjskie wydały instrukcje zabraniające zabierania ze sobą zwierząt. Wtedy Polacy zapisali Wojtka do wojska jako rekruta i członka kompanii. Ładując się na statek w dokach Aleksandrii przedstawili Brytyjskim oficerom odpowiednie papiery. W tej sytuacji Bryryjczycy wzruszyli ramionami i pozwolili Wojtkowi wejść na statek. W ten sposób Irański niedzwiedź stał się żołnierzem 22-giej Kompanii Transportowej Drugiego Korpusu.

Monte Cassino było strategicznym punktem Alianckiego natarcia na Rzym. Trzy krwawe próby przez Brytyjczyków, Amerykanów, Indian, Francuzów i Nowo Zelandczyków by pogromić wroga kryjącego się na słynnym szczycie klasztornym nie udały się. W kwietniu 1944 posłani zostali Polacy. Była to najbardziej krwawa biwa wojny. Główna akcja toczyła się z bliska. Ostrzeliwanie, nie przerywane przez dnie i noce, spaliło i podziurawiło teren który przypominał pwierzchnię księżyca.

W przełomowym okresie walk grupy żołnierzy na stokach potrzebowały dostaw amunicji. Wojtek, który przez cały czas obserwował kolegów nerwowo ładujących ciężkie paki amunicji, podszedł do nadzorującego oficera i wystawił łapy, jak by mówił: "pozwólcie mi pomóc, ja to mogę robić". Oficer podał mu pake i z niedowierzaniem patrzył jak Wojtek bez wysiłku wkładał ją na platformę ciężarówki. Ogłuszający huk eksplozji i ognia armatniego nie przeszkadzały mu. Każda paka zawierała cztery 23-funtowe naboje; niektóre ważyły ponad 100 funtów. Ani jednej nie opuścił, i ciągle pracował, co dzień i w każdy dzień, aż do dnia zdobycia klasztoru. Jeden z żołnierzy narysował Wojtka niosącego pocisk. Rysunek ten stał się symbolem 22-giej Kompanii Transportowej noszonym z dumą na rękawach munduru, a potem wymalowanym na wszystkich pojazdach Kompanii.

Teraz sławny, Wojtek zakończył swoją służbę wojenną we Włoszech, a po zakończeniu akcji wojennej odpłynął z Wojskiem Polskim do Szkocji na wygnanie. Tu znów stał się celebrantem.W Glasgowie ludzie tysiącami wypełniali ulice by zobaczyć sławnego żołnierza-niedźwiedzia maszerujacego na dwuch łapach, w szyku, z kolegami.

Wojtka ostatnie lata, niestety, były smutne. w 1947-mym roku po zdemobilizowaniu Wojsk Polskich w Szkocji trzeba było znaleźć mu dom spoczynku na emeryturze.

Chociaż posiadał on światową sławę, niedźwiedź z pod Monte Cassino zmuszony był spędzić ostatnie dni swojego życia za kratami w ogrodzie zoologicznym w Edynburgu. Artyści pszychodzili by go rysować, rzeóbiarze by rzeźbić mu posągi. Czasami przyjeżdżali starzy przyjaciele z wojska by go odwiedzić i skacząc przez barierę jego zagrody by się z nim pomocować (ku przerażeniu widzów i pracowników zoo). Ale Wojtek źle znosił niewolę i z mijaniem lat coraz więcej czasu spędzał w pomieszczeniu, nie chcąc się z nikim widywać.

Raz, niedługo przed jego śmiercią w 1963-cim roku, miałem szczęście go ujrzeć . Siedział na tyłach swojej zagrody w cichym bezruchu. Mówiono że gniewa się i jest zły że został porzucony przez tych których kochał. Inni mówili że były to tylo oznaki starości. Nie zwracał uwagi na wołania zgromadzonych widzów. Jednak jak ja zawołałem do niego po Polsku coś w nim drgnęło, odwrócił do mnie głowę jak by we wspomnieniu.

Zmarł w Edynburgu, w wieku lat 22, 15-go listopada 1963. Władze ogrodu zoologicznego wystawiły mu tablicę pamiątkową. Jego posągi stanęły w Imperialnym Muzeum Wojennym w Londynie i w Kanadyjskim Muzeum Wojennym w Ottawie. Ale mimo że wymieniany jest w kartach historii militaryzmu, Irański niedźwiedź-żołnirz z pod Monte Cassino wolałby pozostać w towarzystwie żołnierzy z którymi spędził pięć lat wojny i niezliczone chwile oddanego koleżeństwa.

© Ryszard.Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

Groby Polskie w Qazvin, Iran

2010-03-20T15:07:00.009Z

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Qazvin został skreślony z listy cmentarzy wojennych w Iranie. Już nie istnieje. Na jego miejscu powstało miasteczko bloków mieszkalnych.

Latem roku 2008 pojechałem do Qazvin, miasta na północy Iranu, by odnaleźć ślady 40tu Polaków, mężczyzn kobiet i dzieci, którzy tam zmarli, ofiary Polskiego exodusu z Syberii w roku 1942. To co znalazłem było smutne i dręczące.
Znalezienie grobów nie było łatwe. Wiedziałem że żnajdowały się na Chrześcijańskim cmentarzu Chaldean. Były jednak dwa takie cmentarze w mieście, obydwa zamienione na place budowlane.

Pierwszy plac, w pobliżu znanego Meczetu Hussein, był już zupełnie zrównany z ziemią. Nic nie pozostało ze starego cmentarza oprócz ceglanego muru który go dawniej otaczał. Lokalni ludzie skierowali nas na drugi plac który właśnie przetwarzany był na park. Alejki i kląby były już wyznaczone, ale nie było śladów grobów.

Zaszliśmy do drewnianej szopy służącej za biuro gdzie przedstawił się nam główny inżynier, młody elegancki mężczyzna. Spytany o Polskie groby odpowiedział że są w pobliżu.Wpierw poprosił nas o dokumenty a po zapoznaniu się z nimi obiecał nam pomoc.

Zawiózł nas do swojego biura w oddalonym o kilka bloków Magistracie. Poczęstował nas herbatą i ciastkami po czym pokazał nam wielkie detaliczne mapy budowy. Wykazały one 40 grobów nie-regularnie ugrupowanych wśród rozbitych głazów i dziwnych oznaczeń.

Mówił spokojnie i był bardzo grzeczny. Zaprosił nas wieczoreem na kolację ale odmówiliśmy bo byliśmy w pośpiechu. Wytłumaczył nam że w Iranie miejsca pochówków mogą być likwidowane po 30tu latach i zamieniane na tereny pod zabudowania mieszkalne jeżeli nie są objęte specjalną kluzulą prezerwacji. To miejsce takiej klauzuli nie miało.

To było prawdą. W roku 1955 Rząd Iranu zwrócił się do ówczesnych komunistycznych władz Polski o wsparcie finansowe w utrzymaniu Polskiej działki w Qazvin. Władze odmówiły chcąc odżegnać się od wypadków roku 1942 które były dla nich politycznie niewygodne. Ofiarowali jedynie bardzo drobną sumę nie wystarczającą na utrzymanie dwuch grobowców. W konsekwencji grobowce podległy takiemu zniszczeniu że groby stały się prawie niedostrzegalne.

Sami ujrzeliśmy to miejsce położone w pobliżu szpitala Khoda w centrum miasta Qazvin. Był to plac budowy łączący się z główną drogą odrzewionym wyjazdem: duże puste miejsce pokryte piaszczystą ziemią i gruzem.

W samym centrum placu stały trzy głazy pamiątkowe wyryte nazwiskiem Filipowicz. Jest to nazwisko Polskiego lekarza który osiedlił się w Qazvin w czasie wojny i który figurował w filmie dokumentalnym Khosrow Sinaia "Zagubione Requiem". Pozatem było kilka Chrześcijańskich grobów ozdobionych zgrabnymi Ormiańskimi literami i krzyżami.Widać było że kiedyć był to duży cmentarz. Długi ceglany mur i ruiny domu w rogu wytyczały jego dawny zarys. Po drugiej stronie placu rósł stalowy szkielet przyszłego bloku a ekipa robotnicza mieszała cement tuż opodal pozostałych grobów.

Wyjąłem z kieszeni kartkę z nazwiskami ludzi pochowanych tu pod moimi stopami. Wyczytałem je szeptem. Te czterdzieści Polskich dusz zostały wygnane ze swoich domów nocą pod lufami karabinów, i zesłane do ciężkich robót na Syberii. Przetrwali katorgę, dotarli do "ziemii obiecanej" Iranu by umrzeć w Qazvin z niewiadomych przyczyn. W 1942gim roku Qazvin gościł noclegami Polskich uchodźców w drodze z Kaspijskiego portu Anzali (Pahlevi) do Teheranu. Przez Qazvin również przejeżdżały konwoje krytych ciężarówek wiozące młodych Polskich żołnierzy do Libanu (via Hamadan i Kermanshah) gdzie dołączali do alianckich wojsk. Dzić pozostało po nich jedynie trochę gruzu i kurz. Za kilka tygodni nie będzie już żadnego śladu.

Przed odejściem zrobiłem kilka zdjęć. Irańscy robotnicy którzy dotychczas trzymali się z respektem z daleka na widok kamery ośmielili się i jak groteskowe manekiny na wystawie sklepowej ustawiali się w pozie. Odeszłem i udałem się w stronę pobliswkiego Meczetu Husseina by się pomodlić za dusze swoich Rodaków. Wchodząc na dziedziniec zostałem wciągnięty w zawiły korowód pogrzebowy. Zwłoki zmarłego, owinięte w dwa dywany i złożona na cieńkich drewnianych marach obnoszone bały wokół dziedzińca tego wspaniałego lustrzanego meczetu. Kobiety zawodziły, mężczyźni w różnym wieku siedzieli wokół i płakali.

Dla mnie cała ta scena przyjęła specjalne znaczenie i wagę. Stałem z boku obserwując, dzieląc ich smutek włączając się w ich wspólną żałobę.

Sobota, 8my listopad 2008

Tekst i zdjęcia © Ryszard Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

Pracownicy Ambasady Polskiej regularnie odwiedzaja cmentarze w Dulab (Teheran) i w Isfahanie ( są one pięknie utrzymane), ale te w Qazvin i w Moshhad wyglądaja na zaniedbane od lat.

Cmentarz w Anzali, drugi z kolei wielkością w tym kraju, również ma problemy. Grobowce są tak zniszczone erozją czasu że napisy stają się nieczytelne. Stare drzewa wokół nich giną od suszy. Wszystkie te sprawy leżą w zakresie odpowiedzialności władz Polski, ale ci nie robią dużo, jeżeli cokolwiek.

Iran, Exodus Polakow z Rosii w roku 1942

2010-03-17T07:21:00.005Z

"Wyczerpani ciężką pracą, chorobami i głodem, prawie nierozpoznawalni jako ludzie, zeszliśmy ze statków w porcie Pahlavi (Anzali). Tam razem uklękliśmy rzędami na piasku plażowego wybrzeża by ucałować ziemię Perską. Były nas tysiące, uszliśmy z Sybiru i byliśmy wolni. Doszliśmy do naszej upragnionej "Ziemii Obiecanej"." Helena Wołoch.

Na cmentarzu Dulab w Teheranie położonym w zaniedbanej części miasta znajdują się groby tysięcy Polskich mężczyzn, kobiet i dzieci. Nie jest to jedyny taki cmentarz w Iranie ale jest największy i najbardziej znany.. Wszystkie groby, rząd za rzędem, mają wpisany ten samą rok: 1942

Owego roku Iran stał się symbolem wolności i nadziei dla prawie miliona obywateli Polski zwolnionych z sowieckich łagrów na Syberii i w Kazakhstanie. Po pokonaniu strasznych warunków podróży przez Rosję 115 000 z nich pozwolono udać się do Iranu. Większość dołączyła do wojsk alianckich na Srodkowym Wschodzie. Reszta (przeważnie kobiety i dzieci) pozostali gośćmi Iranu przez niemal trzy lata co w pełni zmieniło ich całe życie. Nigdy nie zapomnieli długu krajowi który tak gościnnie otworzył im wrota. Ich wspomnienia, jak i groby które pozostawili w Teheranie, Anzali i Ahvazie dają świadectwo temu rozdziałowi historii Iranu zatartego w publicznej pamięci.

Z Polski do Iranu.
W 1939 roku Związek Radziecki, połączył się z Nazistowskimi Niemcami w inwazji i podziale Polski. W przeciągu kilku miesięcy Sowieci wszczęli politykę czystek etnicznych na zajmowanych przez siebie terytoriach by je oczyścić z niebezpiecznych, anty-sowieckich elementów. Konsekwentnie około1.5 miliona cywili zostało przemocą wyrzuconych i pozbawionych swoich domów w czterech masowych deporacjach. Pakowani pod bagnetami do bydlęcych wagonów zostali wywiezieni do odległych łagrów rozrzuconych po Syberii i Kazakhstanie. (1)

Los ich zmienił się gdy w czerwcu 1941 jak Niemcy nieoczekiwanie napadły na Rosję.
W potrzebie sprzymierzeńców Rosja zgodziła się uwolnić wszystkich Polaków więzionych na ich terytorium (2). Wkrótce przygotowano warunki na stworzenie wojska z tych świeżo uwolnionych. Dowódcą tej armii został Generał Władysław Anders świeżo zwolniony z więzienia Lubyanka w Moskwie. Stalin planował natychmiastowy rzut tego wojska na zachód przeciw Niemcom, lecz Anders przekonał go by się powstrzymał i pozwolił ludziom, wycieńczonym dwoma latami ciężkiej pracy w łagrach, nabrać sił.

Krzepieni pogłoskami że Stalin pozwoli niektórym opuścić ten sowiecki raj, byli więźniowie Gulagu wszczęli swój desperacki pęd na południe, niktórzy pieszo, by dotrzeć do obozów czekających na nich na pograniczu Iranu i Afganistanu. Przemierzyli tysiące mil z miejsc swojej zsyłki na dalekich obrzeżach Związku Radzieckiego. Był to Exodus biblijnych proporcji w okropnych warunkach. Wielu zamarzło na śmierć, inni pomarli z głodu. Niektórzy utrzymywali się przy życiu wysprzedając cokolwiek im jeszcze pozostało z rzeczy które zabrali z Polski. Wycieńczone matki, nie mogące już iść dalej, przekazywały swoje dzieci obcym by je zbawić od niechybnej śmierci. (3).

Dobijając do wojskowych obozów przyjęć w Tashkent, Keremin, Samarkandzie i Ashkhabadzie uchodźcy starali zapisywać się do wojska na które Sowieci przeznaczyli trochę jedzenia i inne prowizje. Nic jednak nie było przewidziane dla setek tysięcy głodnych cywili, głównie kobiet i dzieci, którzy koczowali poza obrębami baz wojskowych. Zamiast podnieść racje Sowieci je zmniejszali. W odpowiedzi armia Polska przyjmowała w swoje szeregi kogo tylko mogła, nawet dzieci (bez względu na płeć i wiek) by ratować ludzi od głodu. W skwarze, szerzyły się dysenteria, tyfus i szkarlatyna. Wspólne groby w Uzbekistanie nie mogły nadążyać z pochowkami umierających. W 1942 tylko połowa tych 1.7 milionów Polskich obywateli aresztowanych przez Sowietów została przy życiu

Ich zbawienie nastało kiedy Stalin zezwolił ewakuację części wojsk Polskich do Iranu. Z wojskiem zezwolono też na wyjazd małej ilości cywili. Reszta nie miała wyjścia. Musieli pozostać i i przyjąć swój los jako obywatele Związku Radzieckiego.

Pahlavi.
Ewakuacja Polaków ze Związku Radzieckiego odbyła się morzem z Krasnovodska do Pahlavi (Anzali), i w mniejszym wymierze lądem z Ashkabad do Mashhad. Została przeprowadzona w dwuch fazach: pomiędzy 24tym marca i 5tym kwietnia oraz pomiędzy 10tym i 30tym sierpnia 1942. 115,000 ludzi zostało ewakuowane, w tym 37,000 cywili i 18,000 dzieci (7% obywateli Polski orginalnie wywiezionych do Rosji.

Prowizoryczne miasteczko ponad 2000 namiotów (dostarczonych przez armię Iranu) zostało sprawnie wzniesione na wybrzeżu w Pahlevi by dać uchodźcom schronienie. Rozciągało się ono przez kilka mil po obydwu stronach laguny: olbrzymi kompleks łaźni, latryn, budek desynfekcji, pralni, sypialni, piekarni i szpital. Każdy wolny dom w mieście został zarekwirowany, każde krzesło z lokalnego kina przywłaszczone. Mimo to wszystkiego było za mało.

Irańscy i Brytyjscy urzędnicy którzy pierwsi obserwowali tankowce i statki węglowe wpływające do portu Pahlevi 25go marca 1942 nie wiedzieli jakich ilości ludzi się spodziewać i w jakim oni stanie będą. Ledwo kilka dni wcześniej byli zaalarmowani wiadomością że wśród ewakuowanych będą cywile, kobiety i dzieci. Na to nie byli zupełnie przygotowani (4). Statki z Krasnovodska przybywały rażąco przeładowane. Każdy wolny kąt na okręcie zapełniony był pasażerami. Ludzie wyglądali jak chodzące szkielety otuleni łachami i zawszeni. Sciśle tuląc swoje tobołki schodzili ze statków w Pahlavi i całowali ziemię Perską. Wielu z nich siadało na wybrzeżu, modliło się i płakało z radości. Byli wolni.

Nie byli jednak całkiem wolni. Osłabieni dwoma latami głodu, ciężkiej pracy i chorób, cierpieli na różne dolegliwości, wyczerpanie, dysenterię, malarię, tyfus, choroby skórne, kurzą ślepotę, świeżb. Generał Esfandiari, delegowany przez Irańczyków do nadzoru ewakacji, spotkał się z Polskimi i Brytyjskimi reprezentantami by uzgodnić jak zapobiedz epidemię tyfusu, najpoważniejsze zadanie jakie przed nimi stało.

Zadecydowano by podzielić plac przyjęć na dwie części: zakaźną i zdrową, oddzielone od siebie drutem kolczastym. Po przyjeździe ci którzy byli podejżani o to że są zakaźnie chorzy kierowani byli na cztery dni kwarantanny do zamkniętego rejonu zakaźnego, lub wysyłani do obozowego szpitala. 40% pacjentów trafiających do szpitala miało tyfus. Większość z nich zmarła w przeciągu następnych dwuch miesięcy.W tym czasie w całym Pahlavi było tylko 10ciu lekarzy i 25 pielęgniarek.

W "czystej" części obozu nowo przybyli kierowani byli do namiotów gdzie zabierano ich ubrania do spalenia . Ludzie szli pod przysznic i do "odwszalni" gdzie dla higieny były im golone głowy. Potem, by ukryć goliznę kobiety przykrywały głowy chustami. Czerwony Krzyż rozdawał uchodźcom prześcieradła, koce i nowy ubiór po czym ludzie kierowani byli do swoich mieszkalnych namiotów.

Dostarczana żywność nie była odpowiednia. "Corned beef", tłuste zupy i baranina rozdawane przez Brytyjczyków wywoływały zaburzenia w trawieniu u ludzi przywykłych jedynie do małych porcji suchego chleba. Ich żołądki nie tolerowały tłustych posiłków. Wielu zmarło z przejedzenia.

Zmaltretowani, chorzy i zaniedbani Polscy uchodźcy bardziej byli żywieni uśmiechem i życzliwością zwykłych Irańczyków niż pokarmem rozdawanym przez Brytyjskie i Irańskie wojsko. Iran przeżywył wtedy jeden z cięższych okresów swojej historii. Okupowany przez Rosjan i Brytyjczyków, stosunki pomiędzy żołnierzami tych krai był zrozumiale trudne napięte. Z Polakami natomiast nawiązał się natychmiastowy kontakt na wszystkich szczeblach władzy, od najniższych do najwyższych warstw społecznych.

11go kwietnia 1942 Józef Zając, dowódca Polskich Sił Zbrojnych na Srodkowym Wschodzie napisał w swoim kalendarzu z okazji wizyty do Teheranu że Perskie społeczeństwo było lepiej nastawione do Polaków niż do Brytyjczyków czy emigrantów z Carskiej Rosji (do których byli nastawieni wrogo). Jego stosunek do Irańskiego Ministra Wojny, Aminollah Jahanbani (rok przedtem wypuszczonego z więzienia za spiskowanie przeciw Szahowi Reza Pahlavi) był specjalnie przyjazny i serdeczny. W trakcie rozmów 13 kwietnia pokazało się że obaj studiowali razem we Francuskiej akadamii wojskowej (5). Tego rodzaju osobiste przyjaźnie wzmacniały stosunki międzyludzkie. Kontakty pomiędzy Polskimi i Irańskimi żołnierzami były równie przyjazne. Polski zwyczaj salutowania Perskim oficerom na ulicy zrodził się sam z siebie i nie uległ nieuwadze Irańczyków.

Isfahan: Miasto Polskich Dzieci.

W szeregach uchodóców wpływyjących do Pahlavi było ponad 18,00 dzieci obydwu płci i w każdym wieku. (6). Nie wszystkie były sierotami. Wiele pogubiło się w trakcie długiej wędrówki przez Rosję i odłączyło od rodziców. Ich los był specjalnie rozpaczliwy. Wiele było wychudzonych lub wręcz zaglodzonych. Założenie sierocińców stało się sprawą pierwszej potrzeby. Natychmiast powstały sierocińce w Pahlavi, Teheranie i Ahvazie.

Pierwszy większy sierociniec został otwarty w Mashhad i był prowadzony przez Chrześcijańskie zakonnice. Otworzył drzwi 12go marca 1942. Dzieci do tego domu przyjechały głównie lądem, przewiezione przez granicę ciężarówkami z Ashkabad. Z czasem Isfahan został wybrany jako główne centrum opieki nad Polskimi sierotami, zwłaszcza małymi, poniżej siedmiu lat. Zaczęli tam zjeżdżać 10go kwietnia 1942. Uznano że w czystym powietrzu i pięknym otoczeniu tego miasta łatwiej im będzie dojść do fizycznego i psychicznego zdrowia.

Swieckie wladze Iranu oraz wiele prywatnych osób zwalniały domy by umieścić w nich dzieci. W krótce powstały szkoły, szpitale i organizacje służące rosnącej kolonii. Nowy Shah specjalnie interesował się dziećmi Isfahanu. Pozwalał im bawić się w swoim basenie i zapraszał do pałacu. Z czasem dzieci nauczyły się języka Farsi recytując Perskie wiersze by zabawiać Irańskich dygnitarzy którzy odwiedzali miasteczko. W okresie największego nasilenia 24 dzielnice miasta oddane były dzieciom. Z czasem Isfahan stał się znany w Polskich kołach emigracyjnych jako Miasto Polskich Dzieci.

Pobyt w Iranie.
Po lądowaniu uchodźcy czekali w Pahlavi przez okres od dwuch dni do kilku miesięcy przed dalszym transportem do bardziej stałych obozów w Teheranie, Mashhadzie i Ahvazie. Teheran posiadał największą ilość obozów. Stały strumień ciężarówek przewoził uchodóców krętymi drogami z nad morza Kaspijskiego do Quazvin gdzie nocowali w szkołach na podłogach, by z rana jechać dalej do stolicy.

Pięć obozów tranzytowych w Teheranie, jeden wojskowy i cztery cywilne, znajdywały się w różnych dzielnicach metropolii. Tu znów Irańske władze i indywidualni ludzie ofiarowali budynki (nawet stadiony i baseny pływackie) na wyłączny użytek uciekinierów. Jednak obóz nr 2, (największy) był jedynie zbiorowiskiem namiotów położonym poza granicami miasta. Obóz nr 4 to opuszczona fabryka amunicji. Obóz nr 3 znajdował się w prywatnych ogrodach Shaha, otoczony wodą, kwiatami i pięknymi drzewami. Był też Polski szpital w mieście, hostel dla starszych ludzi, sierociniec prowadzony przez siostry zakonne (Nazaretanki) i dom rekonwalescyjny dla dzieci (obóz nr 5) w Shemiran.

Prawie wszyscy mężczyźni w sile wieku oraz wiele kobiet natychmiast zapisywali się do wojska i dostawali przydział do wojskowych obozów. W Iranie nie przebywali długo. Armia szybko została ewakuowana do Libanu i włączona w Wojsko Polskie tam się formujące. Przerzut do Libanu odbywał się lądem z Kermanshah (6 postoi po drodze do Latrun), albo statkiem z południowego portu Ahvaz. Pozostali, kobiety, dzieci i mężczyźni w wieku ponad wojskowym , pozostali w Teheranie, niektórzy przez okres do trzech lat.

Potrzeba więcej niż pokarm i odzienie by duch ludzki przetrwał i rozwijał się. Sztuka i kultura to antydotum na przygnębienie i rozpacz. W przeciągu kilku miesięcy od przyjazdu uchodźcy stwarzyli teatry, galerie, świetlice i stacje radiowe rozrzucone po całym mieście. Artyści i mistrzowie-rzemieśnicy urządzali wystawy. Rozmnażały się Polskie gazety a Polskie restauracje reklamowały się po ulicach.

Wśród organizacji stworzonych na kulturalne potrzeby uchodźców powstał wpływowy Instytut Badań Irańskich stworzony przez małą grupę Polskich naukowców. (7) W przeciągu trzech lat grupa ta opublikowała trzy grube naukowe tomy i wiele dodatkowych artykułów na tematy Polsko-Irańskie. Większość z tego w późniejszych czasach została przetłumaczona na Farsi i wydana pod tytułem Lahestan.

Do roku 1944 Iran opróżniał się z Polaków. Wysyłani byli do innych obozów DP w odległych miejscach świata jak Tanganika, Meksyk, Indie, Nowa Zelandia, i Wielka Brytania. Głównym punktem odjazdu był Ahvaz, gdzie istnieje po dziś dzień dzielnica miasta zwana Campol, echo orginalnej nazwy Camp Polonia. Z Mashhad ostatnie dzieci wyjechały 10go czerwca 1944. Ahvaz ostatecznie został zlikwidowany w czerwcu 1945.
Ostatni transport sierot opuścił Isfahan, jadąc do Libanu, 12go paódziernika 1945.

Co pozostaje.
Najmocniejsze ślady przebywania Polaków w Iranie znajdują się w pamięciach tych którzy to przeżyli. Dług wdzięczności w uczuciach uchodźców w stosunku do tego gościnnego kraju odbija się echem w całej literaturze. Dobroć i życzliwość zwykłych Irańczyków dla Polakow jest ogólne uznawana. (8)

Polacy wywieźli ze sobą stałą pamięć wolności i przyjaźni, coś czego większość z nich nie zaznała więcej przez długi okres czasu. Niewielu z tych którzy przeszli przez Iran w latach1942-1945 zobaczyło jeszcze w życiu swą Ojczyznę. Okrutnym zrządzeniem losu ich przyszłość została zapieczętowana w Teheranie w roku 1943. W listopadzie owego roku przywódcy Rosji, Brytanii i USA spotkali się w tej Irańskiej stolicy i zadecydowali o losach po-wojennej Europy.

W trakcie tych dyskusji (prowadzonych w sekrecie) padła decyzja by po wojnie wpisać Polskę - pierwszego sojusznika w walce z Hitlerem - w strefę wpływów Związku Radzieckiego. Polska miała stracić swoją wolność i terytorialną integralność. Wschodnia część Kraju, z której uchodźcy w Teheranie pochodzili i z której zostali wywiezieni w czystce etnicznej, została w całości wchłonięta w Związek Radziecki. Rząd Polski nie był o tym poinformowany przez rok, a dowiadując się poczuł się zdradzony. 48,000 żołnierzy Polskich miało jeszcze stracić życie walcząc o wolność tych nacji ktźrych rządy ich zdradziły potajemnie w Teheranie, a następnie w roku 1945 w Jałcie. (9).

Przypiski:
(1) Tylko w latach 1940/1940 dbyły się cztery masowe deportacje ludności cywilnej ze Wschodniej Polski
a)10 luty 1940. 250,000 z terenów wiejskich zesłanych na Sybir w wagonach bydlęcych.(110 pociągów)
b)13 kwiecień 1940. 300,000, głównie kobiety i dzieci (160 pociągów) zesłane głównie do Kazakhstanu i Altai Kraj.
c)Czerwiec-lipiec 1940. 400,000 do Archangielska, Sverdlovska, Novosybirska etc.
d)Czerwiec 1941. 280,000 w różne strony ZSSR

Około 500,00 Polaków było też uwięzionych przez Sowietów w latach 1939-1941, większość urzędników państwowych, sędziów, nauczycieli, prawników, naukowców, pisarzy etc. W sumie 1.7 miliona Polaków yostało zniewolonych w Związku Radzieckim.

2) Porozumieniem, podpisanym 30go lipca 1941 przez Polskiego premiera Generała Sikorskiego i Rosyjskiego reprezentanta I Mazskiego, Rosja zgodziła się na uwolnienie aktem tak zwanej "amnestii" wszystkich zniewolonych Polaków. Słowo amnestia było rażąco niestosowne. "Amnestia" została podpisana z Londynie z obecności Winstona Churchila i Anthony Edena.

3) Chociaż amnestia oznajmjona była w lipcu, wiadomość nie dotarła do bardziej odległych obozów wschodniej Syberii do grudnia. Do wielu wogóle nie dotarła, pozostali w Rosji.

4)Generał Anders sam, bez porozumienia z Brytyjczykami, podjął decyzję i wziął na siebie odpowiedzialność ewakuacji cywili.

5) Studiowali w Ecole Superieure de Guerre w Paryżu. Generał Anders, który odwiedził Jahanbani kilka miesięcy porem też był absolwentem tej szkoły.

6)6go stycznia 1943 Ambasada Polska dostała nakaz zamknięcia 400 swoich placówek na terenie Rosji (łącznie z sierocińcami i szpitalami). Dwa miesiące potem Polscy obywatele znajdujący się na terenach Risji zostali uznani za obywateli Sowieckich.

7)Prezesem był Stanisław Kościałkowski.

8) Słowo kisz-misz przeszlo do słownika uchodźców. Wielu Polskich chłopców ochrzczono imieniem Dariusz wciąż popularnym w Polsce.

9) Polscy żołnierze nie zostali dopuszczeni do udziału w marszu zwycięstwa w Londynie w 1945tym roku.

Referencje:
1. Faruqi, Anwar. Forgotten Polish Exodus to Iran. Washington Post. 23 Nov 2000.
2. Kunert, Andrzej. K., Polacy w Iranie 1942-45. Vol I. R.O.P.W.i M. Warsawa. 2002.
3. Mironowicz, Anna, Od Hajnowki do Pahlewi. Editions Spotkania. Paris 1986.
4. Woloch, Helena, Moje Wspomnienia. Sovest. Kotlas 1998.

© Ryszard Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

Powrót na Sybir

2010-03-14T16:34:00.003Z

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Kilka dni temu Tadeusz Kotlarz powrócił na Sybir. Pierwszą podróż przed sześdziesięcioma pięcioma laty odbył jako więzień polityczny. Tym razem pojechał jako turysta z Anglii by odwiedzić miejsce swojej skrzywdzonej młodości.

W lutym 1940 pół miliona obywateli Polski, po lufami karabinów, zostało wyrzucone ze swoich domów, wprowadzone do bydlęcych wagonów, i wywiezione na obrzeża Związku Radzieckiego. Rodzina Pana Kotlarz wylądowała w Khristoforovo, koło Kotlasu, w rejonie Syberii Lalsk. Miał wtedy czternaście lat.

"Szukałem wzmianki o deportacjach w Rosyjskim internecie", mówi Pan Kotlarz "gdzie natknąłem się na Irinę Dubrovinę". Jest przewodniczącą małej oganizacji pomagającej byłym więźniom obozów pracy w rejonie Kotlas. Wysłałem jej e-mail i nawiązaliśmy kontakt. Potem przyznałem że chciałbym tam pojechać.

Spotkaliśmy Tadeusza gdy przyjechał do Kotlas z Iriną Dubroviną. Wygląda na dużo mniej niż swoje 80 lat. Sorężysty, grzeczny, dobrze ubrany, typowy Europejczyk, od razu nas ujął. Odbył całą drogę z Nottingham (Anglia) samolotem przez Warszawę do Petersburga, a potem 24 godziny pociągiem do Kotlas. To aby odwiedzić miejsce w którym spędził dwa lata swojego życia.
"Musisz być w odpowiednim wieku by zrozumieć chęć podjęcia takiego trudu" wytłumaczyła Irina Dubrovina.

Chcielićmy pokazać Tadeuszowi cmentarz "Makarikha" gdzie pochowani są wygnańcy. Przypadkiem dołączyli do nas młodsi ludzie którzy przyjechali z Archangielska w poszukiwaniu informacji o obozach.

Jak staliśmy przed małą pamiątkową tablicą Irina opowiedziała nam o tysiącach Polaków którzy tu zginęli. Tadeusz w zadumie kiwał głową od czasu do czasu, potwierdzając. Czasami dodawał kilka słów po Angielsku, Polsku czy Rosyjsku.

Wzięliśmy go do muzeum w Kotlasie by zobaczyć wystawę współczesnych Niemieckich malarzy. Tadeusza jednak bardziej interesowały eksponaty z życia Rosjan z okresu w którym tu przebywał.

Następnego dnia wybraliśmy się samochodem morderczo wyboistą i krętą drogą do Khristoforiovo. Nie mieliśmy mapy i nie było drogowskazów.. Kilka razy zagubiliśmy się na leśnych dróżkach jeżdząc godzinami w kółko. Dzień mijał a my nie mogliśmy odnaleźć celu.

Ostateczne, jakimś cudem trafiliśmy. Ku zadziwieniu Tadeusza pozostały ślady dawnego obozu. Drewniany barak, dawniej biuro administracji gdzie więźniom nadawano pracę, ocalił się. Wyglądał tak samo jak przed 60ciu laty. W tym miejscu wygnańcy wyładowali się z bydlęcych wagonów w których przyjechali z Polski. "Był to pierwszy obiekt który zobaczyłem kiedy tu przyjechałem po trzech tygodniach podróży", tłumaczył Tadeusz. "i nadal tu jest. A tuż przy torach stały dwa baraki (drewniane szopy), większa i mniejsza. Mieszkaliśmy w tej małej." Dziś śladu po nich nie ma.

"Zycie było ciężkie. Musieliśmy coddziennie pracować, od rana do późnej nocy. Ci co pracowali dostawali 400 gramów chleba i coć co wygądało na zupę. Dzieci i starzy ludzie nie dostawali niczego. Wspierani byli przez rodziny. Nasza rodzina przywiozła ze sobą trochę rzeczy z Polski. Moja matka sprzedawała je lokalnym ludzim za kartofle które nieraz były zepsute. Wiele osób nie przetrwało zimy".

Po uwolnieniu rodzina państwa Kotlarz (matka, ojciec i czworo dzieci) wyruszyło w długą drogę do Chelyabinska by szukać pracy. W podróży napotkali Polskich żołnierzy szukających rekrutów do Polskiej armii w Tatischevo (koło Saratov). Rodzina natychmiast zmieniła kurs i wyruszyła w stronę Saratov, spędzając zimę jako robotnicy w kołhozie.

Tadeusz Kotlarz zawsze chciał powrócić na Syberię by odwiedzić miejsca zapisane w swojej pamięci, miejsca które po dziś dzień prześladują go w snach. Teraz kiedy te miejsca odwiedił może ponownie przeżyć swoje wspomnienia.

W 1940tym roku pół miliona mężczyzn, kobiet i dzieci ze Wschodniej Polski, uznanych za "niepożądanych" przez rząd Sowiecki, zostały zesłane pod karabinami do lasów Syberii. Wielu zginęło. Ci co przetrwali nigdy już nie zobaczyli swoich ojczystych stron.

Anna Starczewa
Ryszard Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

10ty luty

2010-03-14T16:22:00.008Z

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Jestem dzieckiem wygnańców na Sybir. Wielu moich przodków spoczywa w zimnej ziemii tej posępnej krainy: wszyscy wbrew swej woli wysiedleni przez bezwzględne, totalitarne państwo, Sowiety. Syberię mam we krwi. Jej wiatry przeszywają moją duszę.

Tego dnia w roku 1940 pięcioro członków mojej rodziny, razem z prawie pół miliona innych mężczyzn, kobiet i dzieci, przemocą, pod lufami karabinów, zabrani zostali ze swoich domów, wpakowani w bydlęce wagony i wywiezieni do obozów na Syberii i w Kazakstanie,do ciężkiej pracy . Ich przewinienie to to że byli obywatelami Polski.

Nie byli powiadomieni o tym co ma się stać. Ta wielka akcja, przeprowadzona w całej Polsce Wschodniej w jedną noc pod przykryciem ciemności i śniegu, planowana była od miesięcy. Była to pierwsza z czterech masowych deportacji ponad dwuch milionów obywateli Polskich, mających na celu uwięzienie ich w Rosii. Zostali wywiezieni po to aby zanikły ślady ich języka i kultury z terenów świeżo okupowanych przez Związek Radziecki.

Prawdopodobnie nie słyszeliście o tym w szkołach, ani nie czytaliście w podręcznikach historii. Wielka Brytania, USA i Związek Sowiecki, w zmowie przez prawie 50 lat, taiły detale tej zbrodni. Nawet w Polsce (pod dominacją Sowiecką) do 1989go roku zabronione było wspominanie tej historii.

Tej strasznej nocy, 10go lutego, aresztowania toczyły się według ustalonego schematu. O czwartej rano, kiedy cała rodzina spała, głośny stukot w drzwi. Trzech lub czterech żołnierzy uzbrojonych w pistolety wchodziło do mieszkania. Spędzali mieszkańców w nocnym odzieniu , łącznie z dziećmi, do jednego pokoju i stawiali pod ścianą. W tym czasie przeprowadzali rewizję i spisywali inwentarz. Po zakończeniu nakazywali ludziom ciepłe odzienie się dając piętnaście minut na spakowanie i zaopatrzenie w "daleką podróż".

Na dworze padał mocno śnieg. Temperatura minus 40 stopni. Dwie pary sań zaprzęgniętych końmi czekały by przetransportować ludzi na stację kolejową. Tam pakowani byli jak sardynki (stojąc jeden przy drugim) w bydlęce wagony często po siedemdziesiąt osób, rodzin z dziećmi, na wagon. Nie bało miejsca by się położyć, nawet żeby usiąść.

W środku wagonu stał mały piecyk, jedyne źródło ciepła. Wentylację dawało małe okienko uzbrojone drutem kolczastym pod dachem wagonu. Dziura w podłodze służyła jako toaleta. Drzwi wagonu z hukiem zamykane z zewnątrz na kłódkę nie otwierane były przez trzy dni. Dzieci mdlały z braku powietrza i wody. Mężczyźni w desperacji walili w drzwi, na próżno .
Po czterech dniach pociąg ruszył na północ w stronę zamarzniętych wód Sybiru. Podróż trwała około czterech tygodni.

Wielu nie dojechało do celu, nie przetrwali. Dzieci pierwsze padały ofiarami zimna oraaz braku powietrza, jedzenia i wody. Od czasu do czasu pociąg stawał na jakiejś opuszczonej stacyjce na pustkowiu, drzwi się otwierały i pasażerowie mogli grzebać się swoich zmarłych. Gleba bała zamarznięta, prawdziwy pochowek nie był możliwy. Pokrywali zwłoki lekką warstwą śniegu, odmawiali pacieże i wznawiali dalszą podróż w północ.

Historia ich wygnania, cud wyzwolenia i desperacki wysiłek setek tysięcy z nich w przemierzaniu się przez Rosję w drodze do wolności w Iranie to oddzielny rozdział historii.

Tylko niewielu z tych którym udało się uciec z Syberii powróciło do swoich domów. Okrutny tok wypadków zrządził że ich losy zostały zapieczętowane w Teheranie w 1943cim roku. W listopadzie owgo roku przywódcy Rosii, Wielkiej Brytanii i USA spotkali się w stolicy Iranu by uzgodnić los powojennej Europy. Zdecydowali po wojnie wpisać Polskę w strefę wpływów Związku Sowieckiego.

Polska miała stracić swoją wolność i spójność terytorialną. Wschód Polski, z którego wygnańcy na Sybir pochodzili, został w całości włączony w Stalinowski Związek Radziecki. Rząd Polski o tej decyzji został poinformowany w rok potem. Słusznie poczuł się zdradzony.

48,000 żołnierzy Polskich straci jeszcze życie walcząc za wolność, między innymi za wolność tych narodów których rządy ich zdradziły w Teheranie a potem (w roku 1945) w Jałcie.

10ty luty nie ma znaczenia dla większości świata. Jednak są domy, takie jak mój, gdzie data ta nie może przejść bez solemnych wspomnień i refleksji. Syberię mamy w krwi. Jej wiatry chłodzą nasze serca.

© Ryszard Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

Podróż do Tengeru.

2010-03-14T15:52:00.010Z

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W lutym 2002, przejeżdżając przez piękne miasto Arusha w Tanzanii, skąpanym w bouganvilli, przypomniałem sobie opowieści mojej matki i babki o Polskim obozie wojennym w Tengeru gdzie spędziły kilka lat. W czasie wojny wielu z tysięcy obywateli Polskich zwolnionych z Syberyjskich obozów pracy, po tułaczce przez Rosję,Persję, Indie; dotarło do Tengeru. Obóz położony był gdzieś w pobliżu Arushy. Tyle tylko pamiętałem.

Na tle Kilimanjaro dominującego na horyzoncie szukaliśmy kogoś kto mógł wiedzieć o Polskim obozie. Spytałem naszego Tazmańskiego szofera czy słyszał o miejscu zwanym Tengaru, lub o Polskim obozie z okresu wojny. Tak, rzeczywiście, odpowiedział. Jest w okolicy Arusha miejsce zwane Tengeru. Mógł nas tam zawieść. Ponieważ nigdy nie słyszał o Polskim obozie zatrzymał się przy stacji lokalnej policji by zapytać. Przyjazny policjant bardzo nam pomógł. Wiedział o Polskim osiedlu, wytłumaczył nam jak jechać i zatelefonował by oznajmić nasz przyjazd. Dowiedzieliśmy się że miejsce starego Polskiego obozu teraz leży na terenie dużej uczelniv rolniczej. Potrzebowaliśmy specjalnego zezwolenia by tam wejść.

Zjeżdżając z głównej drogi jechaliśmy piękną aleją obsadzoną po obu stronach starymi, dostojnymi drzewami. Smugi cieni pieściły posuwający się samochód.. Droga była wąska i wyboista co powodowało kołysanie się landrovera.. W okół nas w bogatej czerwonej glebie rosły banany.

W połowie alei czekał na nas szczupły, starszy Tanzańczyk w poszarpanej odzieży i dziwnej czapce wyścielonej futrem. Nie ogolona twarz i zdarte ubranie uderzały w oczy. Był to nasz przewodnik. Nie znał Angielskiego ale przez tłumacza (naszego kierowcę) powiedział nam że pamięta Polaków z lat 1940tych.

Po czasie zatrzymaliśmy się. Ten stary człowiek wziął mnię za ręką by pomóc mi wyjść z landrovera i długim palcem wskazał przed siebie. Przed nami stał biały mur z metalową bramą a przed nim trzy kobiety z pękami kluczy. Przywitały nas, otworzyły bramę i mogliśmy wejść.

Był to duży cmentarz, jedyne co pozostało z Polskiego osiedla. Rozrzucone tu i tam szerokie drzewa dawały kojący cień. Przy bramie skromny kamień pamiątkowy mówił ( po Polsku, Angielsku i Swahili) że to groby Polskich wygnańców którzy nie mogli wrócić do Ojczyzny. Jest tam sto do dwustu grobów, każdy nagrobek czysty i wybielony gorącym Afrykańskim słońcem.

Przez dłuższy czas przechodziłem się wśród grobów odczytywując nazwiska i daty, patrząc na wyryte na nich krzyże, Rzymskie i Ortodoksyjne, jak i na kilka Gwiazd Davida. Najnowsza data to rok 1963! Wszystkie kamienne płyty były schludnie białe. Jedynie długa, sucha, żółta trawa rosła między nimi. Nie dowiedziałem się kto otaczał opieką te groby, ale były pieczołowicie zadbane.

Było to bardzo wzruszające przeżycie. Tyle Polskich nazwisk! Tylu zmarłych na Afrykańskiej ziemii nie mogąc powrócić do swoich domów. Przypomniałem sobie że moja matka spędziła tam kilka miesięcy w 1944tym roku zanim została wysłana do Szkocji jako pilęgniarka. Reszta rodziny, babcia, ciotka i wujek, spędzili cztery lata w Tengeru nękani przez UNNRA by odjeżdżali gdzie chcą, nawet do Polski, jedynie żeby zejść im z oczu. Ale oni nie mieli gdzie jechać. Ich kraj został przekazany Stalinowi przez "wiernych aliantow" za których walczył (W.Brytania i USA).

Dla mnie było to zmartwychwstanie pogrzebanej historii: wspomnienie zdrady kraju przez swoich aliantów. Hańba i upokorzenie tego aktu zostało zatatre i ledwo jest wspominane w podręcznikach historii. W miejscu w którym byliśmy kilkaset Polaków zakończyło swoje życie daremnie czekając na powrót do domów, zapomnieni w piekącym skwarze Afrykańskiego nieba.

Oczy zapełniały mi się łzami. Stary człowiek, który spokojnie oczekiwał przy bramie z kobietami, podszedł do mnie. On też miał łzy w oczach. Uścisął mnię. Powiedział że z czułością wspomina ludzi z obozu . Wiele razy bywał tu z matką sprzedając banany.
"Czy ktokolwiek odwiedza to miejsce ?" zapytałem.
"Nie" odpowiedział przez tłmacza. Dowiedzieliśmy się jednak że kilka miesięcy temu przyjechała ekipa by robić zdjęcia do filmu dokumentarnego. Oprócz tego nikt.
"A kto opiekuje się grobami?" zapytałem.
Stary człowiek nie zrozumiał. Uśmiechnął się, pokazując zepsute zęby. Ponownie mnię uścisnął.
Podziękowałem mu i włożyłem mu w rękę kilka dolarów. Skinął głową, smutno się uśmiechnął i znikł.

Zrobiliśmy kilka zdjęć i wróciliśmy do landrovera w zadumie nad tym smutnym epizodem Polskiej historii. Nawet wśród tej bujnej natury w babanowych zagajnikach Wschodniej Afryki było to smutne, opuszczone miejsce.

© Ryszard Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

Fashion Parade

2010-03-11T07:09:00.002Z

We are pleased to announce the arrival, this morning, of the long-awaited Snowdrop Collection.

Designed by Mother Nature and distributed by Winter Garden Enterprises, this year's "must-have" collection of spring fashions features some of the old favourites we know and love. This designer knows the wisdom of staying with a classic style, so we were not disappointed when the famous green-and-white hallmark colours of the snowdrop appeared again this year.

All morning, the models paraded elegantly in groups and rows up and down the garden, some of them even venturing into our neighbour's neglected vegetable patch.

It was touching to see a few of the young models, evidently still new to the business, shaking their little heads nervously from beneath the garden shed, reluctant to come out. But there was a round of applause when they finally emerged into the sunlight and revealed themselves in all their resplendent glory. Others, more seasoned and experienced, wandered off boldly through the shade of pine trees to flaunt their woodland outfits from the rockery. A few even ventured as far as the steps at the front door where their rich foliage was contrasted to great effect against the wall of the house.

The Snowdrop Collection is the first of the season's major fashion houses to reveal their designs. We can hardly wait to see what delights the Classic workshops of Crocus Colours, Bluebell Bevies and Daffodil Delights have in store for us later in the year. We wish them as much success as this morning's surprise Snowdrop display. All were applauded, congratulated and treated warmly as old valued friends.

Although invited to stay, many had pressing engagements elsewhere, and signalled that they would be leaving us soon for other venues. All the more reason to enjoy them before they disappear for another year.

Polski Cmentarz Wojenny w Anzali (dawniej Pahlewi), Iran

2010-02-27T12:25:00.018Z

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Wielkie żelazne wrota Polskiego cmentarza zamknięte są stale na kłódkę. Nie były otwierane od dziesiątek lat. Wchodzi się przez mniejszą, bardziej prozaiczną bramę w zachodniej części ogrodzonego terenu. Jak inne Polskie cmentarze wojenne w Iranie cmentarz jest pod opieką lokalnej społeczności Ormiańskiej, usługa za którą należy się im głęboka wdzięczność.

Przyjechałem z bukietem czerwonych i białych kwiatów. Przy drzwiach przywitał mnię dozorca, Pan Reza Moghadam, szczupły, łagodny, skromny człowiek który bez pośpiechu prowadzi mnię przez jakby tajemniczy ogród raczej niż cmentarz. Przechodzimy obok dwuch malutkich Ormiańkich kościółków zamienionych na mausolea, otoczonych nagrobkami o napisach Ormiańskich. Zieleń jest bujna a powietrze ciężkie zapachem róż, granatów i kwitnących krzewów.

Wnet stajemy przed metalową bramą - wejściem na Polski cmentarz - gdzie uderza kontrast z poprzednią sekcją. Nieliczne krzewy czy rośliny, kilka sadzonek walczących o życie w ostrym lipcowym skwarze. Oprócz kilku miejsc cienia przy samym murze jest pusto i piaszczyście, prawie jak na pustyni.

W środku stoi prostokątna kolumna z białego marmuru bogato wygrawowana Polskim Orłem. Pod nim, po angielsku i polsku, wypisane są słowa:

"Tu spoczywa 639 polaków zołnierzy Armii Polskiej na wschodzie Generala Władysława Andersa i osób cywilnych byłych jenców i więżniów sowieckich łagrów zmarłych w 1942r w drodze do ojczyzny. Cześć ich pamięci."

Kilka stóp obok leży wcześniejszy kamień upamiętniający. Brązowy, zdysfigurowany czasem, z inskrypcją chociaż z trudem jeszcze odczytywalną :

“Pamieci żolnierzy Polskich kobiet, meżczyzn i dzieci, do kraju ojczyznego zdążajacych na ziemi obcej zgaslych i tu pochowanych w roku 1942”

Złożyłem swoje kwiaty przed nim i usiadłem opłakując swoich rodaków. Wokół mnie małe, schludne grobowce ułożone blisko siebie długimi cementowymi rzędami. Na wielu z nich zatarły się nazwiska i daty. Na dwuch całkiem się wykruszyły.

Jeden grób odbija się od innych: nowy nagrobek wystawiony niedawno przez młodą Polską parę która przyjechała by wymienić kruszący się nagrobek swojego krewnego. Jest on wyższy od reszty grobowców, pionowy, z dumnego szarego marmuru.

Pan Moghadam, który mieszka na cmentarzu i zajmuje się grobami, nie otrzymuje żadnego wynagrodzenia za swoją usługę oprucz domku w którym mieszka darowanego mu przez Ormiańską społeczność. Z żoną żyje z dotacji odwiedzających i dobroczyńców. W zeszłym roku cmentarz odwiedzily trzy osoby z Polski. W obecnej burzliwej sytuacji politycznej (po wyborach w Iranie) nie spodziewa się on więcej wizyt w najbliższej przyszłości. "Boją się" mówi.

"Ludzie czasami pytają mnie czy nie boję się żyć na cmentarzu" mówi w trakcie naszej przechadzki pomiędzy grobowcami, " ale ja im zawsze odpowiadam: dlaczego mam się bać zmarłych, to żywych należy się bać."

W trakcie rozmowy Pan Moghadam zdradza że jest artystą malarzem więc proszę go o pokazanie mi swoich dzieł. W szopie przy bramie frontowej przeglądam stos wielkich obrazów olejnych o żywych kolorach. Tematy to historią Iranu i religijne ikony. Nad nami, na kamiennej ścianie swojej pracowni, namalował gigantyczna figurę Chrystusa Zmartwychwstającego z rozpostartymi ramionami. "to tylko dla siebie" mówi z nieśmiałym uśmiechem.

Kilka lat temu otrzymał zamówienie na cykl ikon dla kościoła w Turcji. Przesyłka zaginęła w drodze do celu, prawdopodobnie skradziona, a on stracił wszystko. W krótce potem został zaproszony przez rząd Iranu do malowania propagandowych afiszy ale odmówił tłumacząc że to nie jest praca do której się nadaje.

Na koniec pytam go o smutny stan Polskiego cmentarza. Chyląc kiwa głową. Tłumaczy że dwa lata temu bardzo ostra zima zwaliła wiele starych sosen na cmentarzu. Posadził nowe, ale tylko kilka się przyjęło z braku wody. "Mamy tu studnię" mówi, "czy widzisz? ma zmotoryzowaną pompę która wciąż pracuje. Trudność leży w przeprowadzeniu wody ze studni do drzewek". Potrzebny jest długi wąż i małe naprawki w pompie.

Zaczynam się rozgrzewać. Rok temu, po pierwszej wizycie na cmentarzu, napisałem kilka listów do Ambasady Polskiej w Teheranie prosząc o pomoc. Nie byli na tyle uprzejmi by odpowiedzieć.

Kilka tygodni potem znów napisałem do nich w innej sprawie, w sprawie potencjalnego zniknięciem ważnego Polskiego cmentarza wojennego w Qazvin (północny Iran) zagrożonego rozbiórką przez developerów. Sprawa była pilna, ale cmentarz mógł być uratowany gdyby zadziałali stanowczo i szybko. Znów nie było żadnej odpowiedzi, a kilka tygodni potem ambasada skreśliła z listy Polskich cmentarzy wojennych w internecie nazwę Qazvin . To była suma ich zaangażowania w problemie. Hańba.

Zły i rozdrażniony poszedłem sam kupić plasticowego węża na rzecz męszczyzn, kobiet i dzieci którzy zmarli tu, na wygnaniu, przeżywszy straszne warunki w obozach pracy na Syberii; współobywatele kraju którego rządu nie stać na 25m plastykowago węża na osłodę pamięci ich egzystencji.

© Ryszard Antolak
Tłumaczyła Marta Wajda-Spohn

The Polish War Cemetery at Anzali (formerly Pahlavi), Iran

2009-08-12T21:41:00.035+01:00

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The grand, wrought iron gates of the Polish wartime cemetery are permanently padlocked and have not been opened for decades. Entrance is gained via a smaller, more prosaic, gate at the western end of the compound. As with the other Polish war cemeteries in Iran, the site is cared for by the local Armenian community, a service for which it deserves a deep debt of gratitude.

Arrived with a bouquet of red and white flowers in my hands, I am welcomed at the door by the caretaker, Mr. Reza Moghadam, a slim, gentle, self-effacing man who leads me leisurely through what looks like a secret garden rather than than a graveyard. We pass a couple of tiny Armenian churches, now turned into mausoleums, surrounded by gravestones inscribed with Armenian characters. The vegetation is lush and the air is heavy with the scent of roses, pomegranates, and flowering bushes.

A few moments later, we arrive at a low metal gate – the entrance to the Polish cemetery – and the contrast with the previous section is immediately evident. There are precious few bushes or plants to be seen anywhere: only a few thin saplings standing here and there, most of them struggling to survive the intense July heat. Apart from a few shaded areas close to the perimeter wall, it is bare, sandy, almost desert-like.

At the centre stands a high rectangular column of white marble lavishly engraved with a Polish eagle. Below it, in English and Polish, are inscribed the words:

“This is the resting place of 639 Poles, the soldiers of the Polish army of the east, of General Władysław Anders and civilians the prisoners of war and captives of the Soviet camps who died in 1942 on the way to their homeland. Peace to their memory.”

There is an earlier commemorative stone lying in the soil a few feet away. Brown and disfigured by time, its inscription can still be made out, but only with considerable difficulty:

“Pamięci żołnierzy Polskich kobiet, mężczyzni i dzieci, do kraju ojczyznego zdradzających na ziemi obcej zgasłych i tu pochowanych w roku 1942”

I lay down my bouquet of flowers in front of it and sit down on the ground to mourn my fellow countrymen. All around me lie small, neat gravestones, close together in long cemented rows. The names and dates on many of them are decayed and weathered. Two have crumbled away altogether.

One grave stands out among the others: a new headstone which was erected only recently by a young Polish couple who arrived to replace a relative’s crumbling headstone. It is higher higher than the other stones, upright and of proud grey marble.

Mr Moghadam, who lives in the cemetery and tends the graves, receives no salary or remuneration for his services, only the house he lives in, donated to him by the Armenian community. Together with his wife, he survives on donations from visitors and well-wishers. In the last year, only three visitors from Poland had come to the cemetery. And with the recent volatile political situation (following the Iranian elections), he does not expect any more in the immediate future. "They are frightened to come", he says bluntly.
“People sometimes ask me whether I am afraid to live in a cemetery,” he continues as we walk among the headstones. “But I always tell them: why should I be afraid of the dead? It is the living I should be afraid of.”

In the course of our conversations, he lets slip that he is an artist and I persuade him to show me his paintings. In a shed near the front gate I rummage through a stack of large oil paintings executed in thick, vibrant colours. The themes range from Iranian history to religious icons. Above us, on the stone wall of his work shed, he has painted a gigantic figure of Christ rising from the dead with outstretched arms. “This is purely for myself”, he says, and smiles shyly.

Several years ago he received a commission to paint a series of icons for a church in Turkey. But the consignment disappeared (stolen most probably) somewhere on the way to its destination, and he lost everything. A short while later, he was asked to work for the Iranian government making propaganda posters, but he refused, saying it was not the kind of work to which he was suited.

Eventually, I ask him about the sad state of Polish cemetery. He lowers his head, and nods slowly. Two years earlier he explains, the winter here was so severe it brought down many of the mature pines in the graveyard. He planted new ones to replace them, but only a few had taken root for lack of water. He directs my attention towards a vague stone structure in a distant corner of the plot. “We have a well here”, he says. "Can you see it? It has a motorized pump that still works. But the difficulty is getting the water from the well to the trees”. What is required is a long length of pipe and a few minor repairs to the pump.

I begin to become heated. The year before, after a previous visit to the cemetery, I had written several letters to the Polish Embassy in Tehran informing them of the matter and asking for help. But they didn't have the courtesy even to reply. A few weeks later I wrote to them again about a different matter, the imminent disappearance of the important Polish wartime cemetery in Qazvin (Northern Iran), which was threatened with demolition from developers. The matter was urgent, but the cemetery could still be saved if they acted promptly and decisively. Again, there was no response whatsoever, and a few weeks later the embassy quietly removed the name Qazvin from the list of Polish wartime cemeteries on its website. This was the sum total of their involvement with the problem. Shame on them!

Angry and exasperated, I finally went out and purchased the necessary plastic piping myself, on behalf of the men, women and children who had died here in exile after enduring horrific conditions in the work camps of Siberia; fellow citizens of a country whose government is unable to afford 25 metres of plastic tubing to sweeten the memory of their existence.

The Moon Maker of Khorassan. Veiled Prophet of Khorassan

2009-05-27T05:36:00.014+01:00

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The Moon of Nakhshab was the most famous creation of Hashim ibn Hakkim, the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, known sometimes as Mah-sazanda (the moon maker).

Twelve centuries after he set himself alight in his mountain fortress to evade capture, his name remains a potent symbol of political and religious excess. A deranged charismatic prophet, a seducer of men’s minds (and women’s bodies), the leader of a failed revolt against the Abbasids, an illusionist who bound thousands to his cause through trickery and false promises: few figures in Iranian History have exercised a stronger fascination over the western imagination than the celebrated Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (1)

More commonly known by his epithet “Mokhanna” (the veiled one), he is said to have concealed his features behind a mask of burnished silver or, in other accounts, a veil of green damask silk, fearful lest the light of his countenance should blind anyone who gazed upon it.

What lay behind his mask is still a matter of conjecture. His enemies maintained that it hid a face “horribler than Hell e’er traced on its own brood” (2), a face hideously deformed beyond all recognition so that he needed to hide it from the sight of men. He was horribly scarred they said, hairless, ugly, one-eyed: wounds received in the service of his master, Abu Muslim, or alternatively as the result of an accident with corrosive liquids.

His followers, however, claimed that behind the mask was a face so radiant with divine light that anyone who gazed upon it would be blinded from the experience.

In the late 8th century CE, Islam was not yet a thing encased in amber. There was still a common belief that it was capable of being a source of endless variety and subtlety, its form breaking to reveal brilliant and dazzling shapes. In Khorassan (and other eastern provinces), Islam came to be mingled with Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Manichaean and Turkic shamanic beliefs to create a bubbling cauldron of strange and exotic sects from which would arise (one day) the spiritual movement known as Sufism.

Many of the Islamic messianic movements at that time were clustered around the charismatic figure of Abu Muslim, the mysterious Persian from Merv who had brought down the first Islamic Caliphate and replaced it with the Abbasids (3). In 755, Abu Muslim had been murdered by the caliph al Mansur (whom he had loyally served), and his mutilated body was thrown into the Tigris. He was only thirty-seven years old. The murder fuelled resentment among the population of his native Khorassan, and heretical religious movements immediately arose claiming that he had not really died but was hiding in the mountains; or else he had resurrected from the dead and was coming to exact his revenge.

Chief among these Muslimiyya sects was the cult of Mokhanna. In his more extravagant moments, Mokhanna told his closest associates that he was illuminated by the uncreated light of God, the very light that had burned in the prophets Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad (and also, briefly) Abu Muslim himself. It was a light understood as both intelligence and gnosis, transcending spirit and matter. Those who followed him cast off their worldly clothes and put on white woollen garments as a sign of their purity and adherence to the Light. It also marked their opposition to the Abbasids, (whose banner and clothes were black).

In 769 AD Mokhanna proclaimed himself the successor to Abu Muslim, rightful lord of Khorassan. His revolt spread like wildfire, especially into the eastern areas of the caliphate (to Soghdia, Khorassan and Tokaristan) where sixty cities joined him against the Abbasids (4)

It was during this time that he performed his greatest miracle for which he became famous. The prophet is said to have constructed a deep well in the Soghdian city of Nakhshab from which would emerge, (each night), a great false moon, bright and large enough to rival the real one. Its light could not spread a long distance, but for three months it kept emerging from its well to the wonderment of the assembled crowds who flocked to the city in their thousands to witness the marvel. Then one fateful night, without explanation, it faltered and crashed to earth. (5)

The moon of Nakhshab haunted the imagination of poets for centuries. In the works of Sanai, Anwari, Nizami (as well as many others) it became a metaphor for any man-made creation of such daring and grandeur that it rivalled the works of God himself: anything wonderful but (ultimately) imperfect. Many unexplained astrological or meteorological phenomenon was ascribed to his genius. By marvels such as these, the prophet convinced thousands of his divine claims.

In 776, an Abbasid army led by Gibrayil b. Yahya set out from Neishapur to crush the rebellion. It gained some initial success against the rebels, but was finally defeated near Samarkand. As a result, Mokhanna’s followers took hold of the Zarafshan and Kashka Darya valleys and all the areas south of Termez. Even the local Turkic tribes flocked to his cause and donned the white robes in defiance to Baghdad. There were other supporting rebellions in Herat and Gurgan where, in 776 (or 778), Asma (the daughter of Abu Moslem) led a triumphant march of followers to Rayy on behalf of her son. (6) In the words of the historian Narshaki, who wrote a century or so afterwards, “For a time, it seemed as if the whole world might turn at last to the religion of Mokhanna”.

But the burst of bloom was quickly over. In 779 AD the caliph Al Madhi gave orders to destroy the prophet by any means possible, and sent his most trusted Arab generals, Said al-Harashi and Mo’ab b. Moslem, with vast armies against him.

Pursued relentlessly by the superior Abbasid forces, Mokhanna retreated to his fortress of Sanam, somewhere in one of the (as yet) unidentified mountaintops in the vicinity of modern Shahrisabz (Uzbekhistan). An impregnable fortress, legend says it was built in the image of paradise, its lower portions containing gardens, orchards, fields of corn and running water in abundance. At its centre, high on an isolated crag, was an inner a tower from whose heights the prophet would sometimes reveal himself with his immediate family and an inseparable black slave.(7)

Besieged for two years on his hilltop fortress, he kept the spirits of his peasant army alive with public spectacles of wondrous magic and promises that a legion of angels was coming to their aid. But as food became scarcer, his followers demanded ever more signs of divine intervention. They begged him to remove his silken veil and reveal his face to them. He replied that the sight of it would blind them, like the reflection of the sun in a mirror. No man was able to see the face of God and live, he said. But they persisted in their entreaties and finally, after a lengthy pause, he agreed to do as they wished.

At a time agreed by the prophet, the armies assembled before his isolated tower like countless flocks of birds. The clamour to see him was like the noise of a mighty sea in a storm. When he finally appeared, a reverential silence fell over the crowds as they watched this angel moving across the gardens with his own saintly momentum, exuding the odour of his sanctity and trailing his white garments behind him.

Then he began to slowly loosen his veil, the silken veil that concealed his divine features. And as he did so, a hundred women of his household (who had lined themselves on the walls of the citadel) raised up their mirrors to the sun to reflect the light onto his unveiled countenance. In this way Mokhanna gave them what they desired, a vision of the world incandescent with the light of a thousand suns, totally transformed by the overwhelmingness of the miraculous. The sight of it burned away their minds so that they fell down to the ground claiming they had seen the very face of God.

But the siege continued and no angels of light appeared to announce their salvation. Instead, the black-coloured Abbasids began to construct siege engines and dig tunnels to undermine the fortress. Inside, hunger and despair grew ever greater and many succumbed to cannibalism to assuage their hunger. Finally, the prophet’s brother surrendered the lower part of the fortress together with 30,000 men to the government troops in exchange for clemency and conversion to Islam.

But Mokhanna refused to give in. He continued to hold out with his closest associates in the inner tower of the fortress. Until one morning, the soldiers of the Abbasids awoke to a deathly silence. The citadel gates were open, and there was no-one to be seen.

The soldiers entered the fabulous stronghold of the prophet of Khorassan without opposition. They saw the walls of the fortress lined with ingenious mirrors to catch the light. They saw the vessels of mercury as large as bathing pools and thousands of oil lamps burning in the passageways.

Only later, when they reached the inner palace and pushed aside the barricade of chests and cabinets that barred their way up the staircase, stepped over the bodies of the household guard that lay scatted everywhere (poisoned or partly charred) and burst at last with one triumphant shout of victory in to the sanctuary of the man who had denied them entry to that fortress for two whole years, did they realize…. that he had eluded them. There was no trace of Mokhanna. All that remained of him was the light of countless fires burning all around them

What happened in those last desperate hours is still a matter of conjecture. The various existing accounts are confused and contradictory. Some say that he immersed himself a vat of corrosive acid and was wholly dissolved in it. Others on lesser authority, record that soldiers found a charred body and presumed it belonged to the prophet so they hacked off its head and they sent to the caliph at Aleppo. Others say that they discovered only traces of his hair floating in a giant vat of acid.

The most likely explanation was the one given by the only survivor of the massacre, a woman of the prophet’s household who was found sheltering in the ruins. She related how, during a final banquet, she saw the prophet lace the wine of his followers with poison. She only pretended to drink it, and poured the liquid secretly instead into her sleeve. As she lay on the ground feigning death, she saw Mokhanna hack off the head of his favourite servant. Then he removed his clothes and leaped with a loud echoing scream into a burning furnace in order to burn off all that was mortal in him. And was gone.

So great had been the danger to traditional Islam from the ideas of Mokhanna, that immediately after his defeat, the caliph instigated an Islamic Inquisition to weed out all the variant forms of the religion. From this time onwards, Islam was to become a thing enclosed in amber, and any attempts to deviate from traditional beliefs and practices were ruthlessly uprooted and punished.

The Inquisition sat between the years 780 and 785 AD. Anyone found guilty was put to death. Poets (of course) were the first to be investigated. Those sentenced were charged not with heresy (ilhad) or unbelief (Kufr) or even apostasy (ridda). They were charged with Zandaqa, the old Zoroastrian designation for the duality professed by certain Manicheans. Those professing recognized religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism were left unharmed. (8)

The Abbasids were merciless to the memory of Mokhanna and ensured that nothing of his legacy remained. But it was hardly possible for the memory of such a charismatic individual as the Mah-Sazanda to be entirely erased.

His supporters continued to cling with inveterate obstinacy to the hope that one day he would return to them. In his last words he had promised that after his death he would be resurrected in the form of a grey-headed man riding a greyish beast, and would give them the whole land of Persia for their possession.

And so they continued to wait for him, clothed in their woollen white garments, until the twelfth century when the sect finally died out or was wholly absorbed into various shi’ia sects of the region.

NOTES
(1) In the 18th century, Thomas Moore wrote his famous poem “Lala Rooke”, which began the craze for anything associated with Mokhanna. His memory spawned a host of Masonic-like organizations, secret sisterhoods and brethren(both in Europe and the United States) with names such as “Daughters of Mokhanna” whose ritual activities were supposedly based of the cult of the prophet. St Louis held an annual “Veiled Prophet” celebration. Charles Villiers Stanforth wrote an opera on the subject.For Moore and his contemporaries, Mokhanna represented a movement of fanaticism and irrationality, the error that occurs when there is no centralised controlling power For the western colonial powers, he represented the potential forces of lawlessness, chaos, fanaticism and heresy that would result when strong, absolute, despotic power was absent: a rationalisation for western dominance of the middle east.

(2) Lala Rooke, by Thomas Moore

(3) Abu Muslim had brought the Abbasid dynasty to power and he served it faithfully to the end of his life. His Khorassanian army was the most disciplined and feared in the whole caliphate. A convert to Islam, he was short, swarthy, stern, and emotionless. After his death, despite his power and influence, his possessions were found to be only “five serving girls, fame, notoriety” and two daughters, Fatima and Asma.

(4) For several decades, the intelligentsia of the old pre-Islamic Soghdia, the families of rulers dispossessed by the Arab invaders, had been gravitating to the Zerafshan valley, and in particular to the fertile oasis of Nakhshab. Here were to be found the descendants of Khushtiyar (chief Zoroastrian priest of pre-Islamic Bukhara), Turghar (last Ikshid of Soghdia) and the families of most of the ruling dynasties of Kesh, Merv, Tokharistan and Padjikent. Nakhshab, once the capital of pre-Islamic southern Soghdia became once again the spiritual and cultural heart of popular resentment against the Abbasids. Its people were fiercely independent and consistently refused to bow to Arab or Islamic rule. In this heady political atmosphere, only a spark was required to ignite all of Soghdia (and with it all of Khorassan) against the Abbasids)

(5)Arab historians ascribe the wonder to mercury and chemicals. From the works of later writers such as Abd ar-Rashid al-Bakuvi, it is possible to surmise that the moon of Nakhshab was a kind of well-like container filled with mercury. The mercury was spun around on a rotating device in order to give a concave surface to the mercury which was able to produce a clear magnified the image of the moon. This was in essence, the first reflecting mercury telescope in history. The image was then reflected away into a large standing mirror nearby, so that to an observer, the moon’s reflection seemed to hang in the air.

(6) Her followers wore red, to signify the blood of Abu Moslem, and hence were known as Muhammira. They were defeated by an army led by the governor of Tabaristan.

(7). It may have been the same fortress of the Sogdian Rock that Alexander found so difficult to capture in the Hissar mountains.

(8) In 784, the blind Persian love-poet Bashar bin Burd who was known for his anti-Arab sentiments (and had one mocked the call to prayer while drunk) was charged with heresy, imprisoned, beaten to death and thrown into the Tigris. Hammad al-Rawiya who had compiled the Muallaqat, the pre-Islamic anthology of odes that was hung in gold letters of the walls of the Kaaba also fell victim to the inquisition. The same fate befell Ishaq bin Khalaf, Ammara bin Harbiyya, Hammad bin al-Zibirqan, Abu Shamaqmaq and Jamil bin Mahfuz.

The Inquisitor General was known as the “Sahib al Zanadiqa”. In many areas the Inquisition was little more than an elaborate witch hunt in which accused individuals were not even allowed to defend themselves.

References:

 Rustamov, Abasali. MUKANNA "MOONMAKER" - DISCOVERER OF MERCURY TELESCOPE. 
Astronomical Journal (AAJ 2007, v.2, N:1-2
 http://www.shao.az/AAJ/vol2_n1_2/)

http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1756.html

No Fellow Footfall

2009-04-24T20:22:00.007+01:00

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“She thought of the narrowness of the limits within which a human soul might speak and be understood by its nearest of mental kin, and how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual experience in which no fellow footfall is ever heard”.
(Olive Schreiner)

30 miles or so south of Shiraz, lies the little village of Qalat, situated among rich orchards of pomegranates and figs. It is a narrow, cramped Sassanian village, constructed on the side of a steep mountain streaked with horizontal lines, as if mauled by a gigantic lion.

It was a place, I had been told, where nothing remarkable had ever taken place, where poetry has been written and roses had fallen from their stems in silence, a place whose inhabitants had disguised their missions of love and hate behind the privacy of high walls and closed lips for centuries. There was really nothing to interest anyone there.

I tried hard to believe it. But every village has its secrets. We could feel it as we hauled ourselves up the steep lane that twisted between heavy-walled houses washed in faded ochre and terracotta, all of them shuttered and in various stages of dilapidation. We let ourselves believe we could hear voices coming from the thick semi-circular doors with the ring knockers of hammered iron built to withstand attack and deter intruders.

Now and again we caught sight of a figure disappearing into an adjoining alleyway. We glimpsed it more than once and presumed it was a dog that had followed us up the steep slope, curious at the presence of strangers.

Finally we reached what we had come to see: an old Armenian church that had been built (so we were told) sometime during the Qajar period. It was magnificently situated on an escarpment of rock near the summit of the village: the best preserved ruin in a town of countless ruins. But when we entered it, we found little more than an empty shell, its walls smothered in graffiti, its floors covered with the stains of countless impromptu fires.

Around the church was a crude wall that concealed not so much a large garden as a neglected orchard. Entry was via a metal door emblazoned with an Armenian cross. It groaned with gratitude at being opened. The interior was an overgrown paradise of pomegranate and fig trees. The cinnamon of pine needles and the perfumes of various blossoms hung heavy in the air. Branches rubbing on the empty windows created a melancholy that seduced that part of me that was sentimental and no-hoper. My imagination flickered to life. This was a space full of expectation, an emptiness waiting to be peopled with characters from a novel.

Because the faint whisper of trees and the murmuring of birds cast such a spell on us, it was some time before we realized we were not alone. In the far corner beneath the trees was a silent figure in a black chador. She was coming towards us, fingers of shadow caressing her body as she did so.

From a distance she looked quite young, even girlish. But as she approached she faded visibly. The woman had the face of an old child, neither young nor old. It was unbearably round and regular. She was decidedly matronly in form but comfortable and loose within her own body and dressed (as was the custom in those parts) in a many-layered skirt that trailed behind her a little across the ground.

The visitor said nothing, but only stood observing us intently. She would have cast a shadow in shadowless surroundings. We tried to offer her a few words of traditional greeting. But she did not reply, and continued staring at us as if searching for the handles of doors to some personal revelation.

Nothing could disguise for us the scent of tobacco and the odor of unwashed laundry that surrounded her. I felt uneasy in her presence and uncomfortable at the disorder of her hair which could not be contained by her ragged shawl.

My companion made a gesture to leave, and I turned briskly towards the gate. The woman called out to me in a thin grey voice, exposing the ruins of some teeth in the process. But I did not understand (or did not wish to) and merely waved my hand at her in dismissal. As we hastened down the cobbled lane of the village, I looked behind me and she was still there, following us with her large dark eyes and the great bulk of the scarred mountain looming behind her back.

I did not realize the gravity this encounter would have on me. It was only later, when we entered the local shop and let slip to the owner of our unusual meeting at the church, that parts of a jigsaw began to form around us. The old man came over and seated himself on a crate of bottles beside us. He was good and kind we could see, and he felt entrusted to tell us something of the woman’s history. He seemed to have an abundance of time to dispense. The stories he told were long and rambling and there seemed no order or logic to them. But we settled down for the next hour or so to listen.

If there had ever been a time when she was genuinely happy (the old man began), the war with Iraq turned everything to ashes. Her husband of only a few months disappeared in the first months of the conflict and his body was never found. No-one could tell her what had happened to him, whether he was alive or dead. So she waited for him, mourning her loss. She lived for interminable months and years waiting for a knock, looking for a sign that never materialized, clinging with inveterate obstinacy to the hope that one day, surely, he would return to her again. But no news arrived

She no longer slept or ate. In the evenings, she would spend her time standing on the veranda of her house facing the road to Shiraz, smoking endless cigarettes from a black holder that belonged to her grandmother. And with every day that passed, her body became thinner and thinner, and her thoughts began to take on an ever more corrosive quality.

I imagined her standing on the road at the bottom of the village waiting for him, the wind blowing her chador this way and that as her eyes swept the horizon. I expected candles to be dashed to the ground when doors were opened, and winds to rush down stone passages, swelling beneath the kilims on the walls around me.

During this time (the man continued), her intermittent headaches became ever more frequent and more severe. She consulted doctors in Shiraz who saw in her sleepless nights, in the shock of separation, in the daily terrors of the war, the root causes of her illness. They prescribed homeopathic medicines and cold water therapies. One of the doctors was blessed with natural healing powers and even offered to treat her for free. But to no avail.

One day, she went into her bedroom and took out the beautiful wooden chest her husband had given her in which she kept her wedding clothes and other items from their life together. She brought them out one by one and laid them on the floor beside her. There they were: the yellow love letters, the locks of hair, the handwritten pages of poetry, the sepia photographs enlarged to ridiculous proportions….and she became overcome with such inconsolable grief that she could not weep enough over the enormity of her loss.

Now began the darkest season of her life. From that day onwards, she withdrew into the protective walls of her house and emerged only at night. She began haunting the town in her black chador like a living ghost, searching the blizzards of memory for any vestige of him. There followed interminable months of wandering through unremembered villages, sleeping in the ruins of deserted buildings, eating any piece of rancid food she could find to quench her hunger. And each time her family found her, they brought her home and nursed her to health.

Finally the doctor told them what no longer needed telling: that the woman had broken her mind on the memory of her loss, and retreated into an innocence where no-one could reach her.

It was then that the war of the cities began, and the woman found herself caught up in a tide of refugees fleeing to escape the bombing. She found herself in Mashhad where the golden cupola of Imam Reza, the marble courtyards of pilgrims, the mirrored hallways bejewelled with divine art made such an impression that they returned her (briefly) to life. She spent her days among the pilgrims waiting to enter the tiled halls or else wandering through the shaded walkways where the cripples lay outstretched on the floor, chanting their prayers. Each evening she would bring them all home with her in her head, and fall asleep to the music of their rhythms.

In her youth she had written poetry. Now, in the silence of her cramped Mashhad dormitory, she found she was writing again, insatiably, on any scrap of paper that presented itself. It consumed her to such an extent that she had no time for anything else. All she had not lived was written down in paper and in ink. Her failures took shape too, but in mountains and flowers and in words of love she had never expressed before and which, for that reason, had the honesty of innocence. When the poems were finished they were burning on the paper like a lighted torch.

One morning, long before dawn, she made her way to the holy precinct and pushed her way to the front of the assembled crowds. As she drew nearer to the grave of the Imam, she stretched out a hand towards the marble tomb and by some luck or providence, managed to grasp hold of a corner against the seething crowd. She held it tightly with a desperate hand while with the other she searched inside her pocket and produced the bundles of poems she had written in her room. And squeezed them desperately through the railings of the holy tomb. Then she took out her husband’s letters, his photographs and everything else that was precious to her and forced them, one by one, into the sepulchre of Imam Reza saying as she did so in her fragile voice, “Take this too, and this. Take all of it!”

But they would not fit. An elbow from the crowd nudged her hand, spilling the items like confetti across the marble floor to be churned and trodden under the feet of whirling pilgrims. She lost her grip of the tomb and was carried of a wave of worshippers out into to the adjoining hall where she was left, unceremoniously, against a wall.

It was only then, as she lay on marble floor of the Azadi courtyard before the golden dome and the tiled minarets of the imam that something in her lit up (at last) like the striking up of a match. She felt a joy begin to run through her hair like fire. She found she was laughing at herself infectiously, loudly, ridiculously, in a way she never done before.

There was more that the shopkeeper had to tell us. But I didn’t want to listen. The room was too confining. I needed get outside. To breathe. I stood in the desolation of the street thinking about the haunted woman. Her story pursued me as I retraced my steps up the village lane. It laid traps for me in the shadowy doorways that lay on either side. It gave me no rest.

I reached the narrow staircase of the Armenian Church and stood once more before the graffiti on its scarred walls. She was like this empty church (I thought), burned out, defaced, open to all the winds. What would have become of her, I wondered, if she had married again, raised children, nursed grandchildren? What would have happened if Love had touched her once again and opened up the woman in her? Instead of which, Time and circumstance had marooned her among these ruins of Sassanian houses that couldn’t be demolished because UNESCO wouldn’t allow it, and couldn’t be repaired for lack of money: a living ghost.

I set out to look for her in the walled garden, to apologize and ask her forgiveness for my actions. I found her standing where I had left her. Seeing me approach, she turned towards me and opened up the swollen leather of her hand. There, wrapped in the folds of a colored handkerchief were fresh figs, the delicate down still clinging to them like fine dew. I took the fruit, washed them in a nearby stream and returned immediately to share them with her.

We ate greedily. In silence. The woman closed her eyes for a moment and attempted to remove a strand of hair that had lodged on her lips. The operation, delicately performed, allowed me to look at her more properly without being observed. The glow of a distant youth seemed to emanate from her presence. She must have been beautiful once, I thought. There was a great spaciousness of soul in her, a purity of being I could not quite convert into terms of my own reality. But I felt it. The varieties of love are so manifold, I thought, that we do not possess adequate words to define them.

Our eyes met suddenly and we started to laugh, as if we were partakers of some guilty secret. It seemed as if our minds branched out and touched above our heads. And at that very moment, something in me shifted and opened like a green metal door in a high wall. I wanted some of that freedom she had: the freedom to expand and burn like a candle flame in straw, to be emptied and vanish into nothing.

It was good to be a little mad, I thought.

© Ryszard Antolak
(text and pictures)

The Riddle of Natanz

2008-12-03T21:11:00.002Z

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I have always been drawn to those who are dangerous in some way: those who love too passionately, who think (and act) too radically, whose imaginations are easily heated to incandescence. So I should not complain when I get burned and lose everything. We need to experience the “Grand Passions” at least once in our lives. We need to live life at white-hot heat to feel that we are truly alive and human. “I am alive, therefore I bleed. I am human, therefore I weep”.

But what I value more than the “grand passions” of Life is a subtler form of emotion that is paradoxically more potent than passion. I hesitate to call it “tenderness” because that word has other implications, but I have no other word large or clean enough to describe it. Physical consummation is no more than a crude metaphor for this Love. It flows from the most vulnerable places in us, those of least resistance which, I suppose, we have to call the “soul”. It is expressed in a gentle touch of hands, in a heartfelt hug, or a wife sewing on a button to her husband’s shirt.

As with interior landscapes, so with physical ones. There are places that proclaim their religious and artistic passion with loud fanfares of architectural bravado: places such as Esfahan and Mashhad. But other (quieter) spaces woo the visitor in subtler ways that are ultimately more potent. I am thinking of places such as Natanz in Central Iran.

Forget all about stories of nuclear complexes, underground chambers and uranium enrichment centrifuges. There is far more to Natanz than pears and conspiracy theories.

The ancient town of Natanz lies on the Qum to Yazd road, skirting the mighty Kavir desert. It is a green oasis surrounded by mountains and shielded from desert winds by an amphitheatre of rock that resembles a rampart of teeth. The traveller, coming upon it in mid-summer, might let himself believe he is approaching a paradise. For Natanz arises out of the dust haze as if from some vision, or from the depths of unconscious experience: a green plain stretched out like a vast Persian carpet before his incredulous eyes.

It is a place rich in legends. Long before you even enter the town, your attention is drawn to a strange domed building perched impossibly high on a slender pinnacle of rock thousands of feet above the road.

The story goes like this. There was once a king who loved hunting, and on one of his expeditions to Natanz, he stopped at a small stream to rest. As he leaned over the edge to drink, his hunting hawk swooped down over his head causing him to flee for cover. After a few minutes he returned to the water, and once again the bird dived at him, dislodging a cup from his hand. The king cursed the bird and made efforts to retrieve his cup, and this time the falcon struck him forcibly on his cheek, drawing his royal blood. Incandescent with rage, the king ordered the bird to be shot down immediately. Then, when the bird lay dead at his feet, he returned to the water in peace. But as he leaned over to drink, he heard something rustling in the bushes beside him. Pushing aside the layers tangled branches, he saw a poisonous snake slithering away into the shadows. And at that moment, in a flash of insight, he realized that the hawk had been trying to warn him of this danger. By its actions, it had quite possibly saved his life.

Grief-stricken, and swaying under the enormity of what he had done, the king ordered a mausoleum to be built for his faithful falcon. He chose the highest outcrop of mountain overlooking Natanz: a thin needle of rock cleft from the side of the lofty Kuh-e-Karkas. To build it, masonry had to be carried on the backs of sheep, the only animals capable of reaching the precarious summit. And there to this day, it stands as a monument to the king’s most loyal servant: an octagonal tower crowned by a marble coloured cupola high up in the Natanz sky.

Locals love to tell visitors the story. But they also add that it is entirely fanciful. Kuh-e-Karkas means the “mountain of vultures”. It is a reminder of the days when the region’s Zoroastrian inhabitants laid out their dead on the tops of lofty mountains for vultures and other creatures of the air to dispose of. The Natanz tower was originally a Zoroastrian structure, they say, a fire altar or a dakhma (a “tower of Silence”), and not a mausoleum to the memory of Shah Abbas’s falcon.

But in Natanz, things are rarely what they seem. There is a tantalising ambiguity about everything here. Literal facts are secondary to other, less accessible, truths. The important element in the falcon story is not its historical accuracy, but its lesson about good and evil, faith and distrust, service and sacrifice.

In the same way, a local Natanz legend stubbornly maintains that the last Achaemedian King (Darius III) met his end in these hills, pursued by the armies of Alexander. They ignore all the many historians who unanimously locate the site of Darius’s death much further north (near Semnan). For the people of Natanz, however, Logic is too confining to be followed religiously.

It takes a little time to adjust yourself to this idea. But once you do, you can make your way immediately to the khanaqah, or dervish monastery, situated on the outskirts of the town. Do not be misled by its tranquillity. This building is a dangerous love affair, a smouldering passion.

The complex began as an octagonal pavilion around the grave of some unidentified saint buried in the last years of the 10th century, perhaps an imamzada or shrine for the descendant of the prophet. In the 13th century a little-known Sufi mystic, Abd al-Samad (a disciple of Suhrawardi), came to be buried there; and in the years that followed, a whole cluster of little religious buildings grew up around his grave. For centuries travellers were given hospitality here, irrespective of their religion or their class.

For the Sufis who built this place, truth was not a verbal explanation, or even a divine image, but a particular way of living and perceiving. They criticised those who held blind beliefs, those who loved and cherished their conceptions of God more than the real thing. They hated all kinds of rigid intellectual theology which (they believed) often concealed the subtlest form of atheism. And as a result, they built their monastery with a measure of ambiguity and hesitation. Nothing about it was allowed to be absolutely regular or definite. Everything was made to reflect a poetic imprecision, or “negative capability”.

Standing in front of the main doorway, completely blocking its entrance, is an ancient plane tree over eight hundred years old. It was planted deliberately at the same time that the khanaqah was built. Its twenty-two trunks lean forward like a procession entering the shrine. It provides some welcome shade for parked cars and motorcycles. But originally, the tree was an integral part of the building. Indeed, its roots have become so entangled in the foundations now, that building and tree constitute one indivisible organism.

The purpose of the tree is evident. It stands in front of one of the most spectacular architectural facades in all Iran: a dazzling kaleidoscope of coloured glazed tiles, pastel-coloured stucco and terracotta symbolism. Some of the geometric patterns are recognizable as scientific symbols; others have become trademarks of Western companies like Mercedes Benz. The shadows of the leaves tremble on the fevered blues and pinks like the fluttering wings of a thousand birds, changing their qualities from moment to moment, granting them a joyful, shimmering kind of life. They breathe out colour, softening the lines of the stones, blurring the geometric patterns, creating a hypnotic effect that is sheer magic.

Inside the monastery there could once be found one of the largest and most lavish mihrabs in all Iran: a masterpiece of craftsmanship unrivalled anywhere in the world. In the nineteenth century, however, British adventurers (i.e. thieves) tore it wholesale out of the wall and transported it off to England. Then they ripped out the magnificently carved entrance door and carried that away as well. Today they are both unashamedly on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Over the years, other visitors came and (one by one) took away the famous glazed tiles around the saint’s tomb. Decorated with delicate calligraphy from the Koran, they were emboldened in a subtle variety of pastel blue shades. Some had figures of exotic birds sitting amidst lush foliage, their heads defaced by later religious zealots, (which makes them easily recognizable today in the displays of Western museums).

Despite its fate at the hands of such looters, this remarkable building somehow managed to retain its dignity and fascination. Academics continue to write volumes about it. But poetry resists academic pretensions, just as the mystery of religious faith evaporates on contact with dogma. Here, more than in the mosques of Esfahan or Mashhad, it is still possible to experience the occasional “lifting of the veil”: - as long as one enters without guides and without preconceptions.

In the middle of the courtyard is a series of steps descending into a deep qanat whose waters are considered holy. When I visited the complex recently, there was no-one there. I descended alone to wash my hands and face. Then I took off my sandals and entered the tiny mosque behind it. As I stood there, light fell onto my hands from somewhere far above my head, and for a moment the presence of something supremely precious and powerfully benign beamed down upon me.

The Sufi brotherhood that built this remarkable building found wisdom in all the religions; and all were respected. For hundreds of years they lived shoulder to shoulder with the Zoroastrians, whose fire temple stood just metres away from them. Today, its Sassanian stone arches can still be seen rising above the ruins of the adobe houses surrounding it. Generations of Zoroastrians worshipped here until quite recently, (apparently peacefully), until their community died out, or were converted to Islam.

The little town of Natanz is an oasis for the spirit. It is a pity that today it is virtually ignored by tourists, and known only to the world for its controversial nuclear power facility, 30 miles away in the emptiness of the Kavir desert.

© Ryszard Antolak
(text and pictures)

The Hollow Hills of Nain

2008-11-09T12:10:00.005Z

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If you travel a hundred miles or so eastwards out of Isfahan, through a landscape of pink-coloured mountains and desert wastes inhabited by strange willowy trees and clumps of yellow grass, you come inexorably to the ancient city of Nain.

Situated on the very edge of the great Kavir desert, Nain was once an important station on the Silk Road. Today, however, the concrete cubes of Modernity have lent it an air of apathy and neglect. Only the magnificent fortress of Nareen Ghaleh, towering over the city like a broken tooth, still speaks proudly of a rich and illustrious past.

But Nain has secrets not disclosed to the casual visitor. On the main road leading to the centre is a low sandy hillside, honey-combed with countless caverns. Black holes stare out at you as you pass. Misshapen doorways like yawning entrances to mine shafts, invite you to descend (if you are willing) into the very bowels of the earth.

These are not the remnants of settlements long since abandoned. These caves are inhabited by a remarkable community of weavers, carrying on a tradition that goes back centuries. The hollow hills of Nain have echoed to the sound of their looms for generations. Now, the intermittent click of a shuttle is all that is heard. For the subterranean workshops are falling silent. An ancient way of life is fast passing away.

Entering one of the caves, I descend a number of steps into the interior. The temperature is at least 15 degrees cooler than outside. There are no lamps. No windows. The entrance is the only source of light, and I have to consider each step I make carefully in order to avoid stumbling.

A few moments later, the darkness peels away to reveal a narrow chamber chiselled out of honey-coloured rock. It is so crude and primitive that I can barely distinguish the walls from the ceiling. In the amber light from the doorway, the contents of the cavern seem to float on air.

On each side of a paved walkway are sunken pits, clean-cut and rectangular, each one holding a hand loom in some state of decay. Ill-placed sacks of wool, together with various wooden implements, lie scattered on the floor. Yellow plastic bags peer out from behind almost every object.

Sitting below me in one of the pits is Abbas, a small, elderly man with a gentle smile. The irregularities of his stubble and the dilapidation of his clothes are evident. He sits at a horizontal hand loom that has hardly changed since Biblical times. I cannot see his legs, which are hidden permanently under the loom machinery. His socks (and vest) are slung unceremoniously over the loom opposite him, and he sits on a small pile of plastic bags.

He is the very last weaver in this cave. The last of a long line. At one time (he tells me) there were twelve of them here. Now nine have died, and two are sick. He too has submitted to the inevitability of his fate. He is fast approaching the end of his strength, he admits. And when he dies, there will be no-one left to carry on.

He smiles, revealing the remnants of some teeth, and invites me to feel the material he is weaving. It is an abaa, a loose sleeveless garment made from camel's wool, worn by Moslem clerics. It is as stiff and rough as a kitchen rug and the same colour as the Qashkai sheep I had seen wandering around outside. You can buy the very same garments in Yazd, he informs me. But there they use powered looms. He sighs, and reaches for a sack of wool beside him.

Once, he continues, everyone in the city lived underground. It was cool down here in summer and warm in winter. This particular cave has been inhabited for thousands of years.

As he talks, he takes out a short stick and places it into a hole in the side of his loom: a handle with which he can rack up the warp threads that are held parallel to each other under tension. He slides the shuttle backwards and forwards between them, his movements almost mechanical. He could be doing this in his sleep. And his mind seems distant somehow, very far away

I want to ask about his family, whether he has children, where he lives…but it seems too intrusive. So I fall silent and begin playing with a completed garment lying nearby.

From the wall, two faded pictures of Hazrat Ali stare down at me oddly, their edges rough and serrated from when they had been unceremoniously torn from some magazine. Further back I catch sight of another loom, the warp already set up for work, but abandoned months, maybe years, earlier. No longer white or tight, the wool has darkened to an unhealthy yellow shade, and dust has settled decidedly upon it.

Abbas had begun his working life out in the cotton fields (he tells me) but soon decided that back-breaking labour was not for him. He was small and slight, and had developed some vague, unidentified illness. So he decided to join the weavers underground. “I put the noose firmly about my own neck,” he jokes.

When he was young, the work was easy. And sixty years later he is still here doing it. But now he gets tired easily. Sometimes he is so exhausted he lies down on the floor of his cave until the cold filters into his bones. Then he goes out to warm himself in the sun.

He has no-one to talk to here. No-one to tell. Despite the winning smiles, it is evident his life has long since been shipwrecked on some personal sorrow.

At intervals, he produces a hard bristle brush from beneath his seat and starts to comb the underside of the fabric he has woven. Sometimes he stops to choose a small spool of wool, no larger than a bobbin of thread, and places it into his metal shuttle. Then the whole process starts up once more.

Without any warning, he suddenly begins to tell me of his youth: of playing outside in the fields as a boy, of a good friend who had rescued him from drowning, of a mysterious dream his mother had once had. Even now, six decades after the facts, the stories are bright and vivid for him as when they had first occurred. And I begin to realize he has entered a labyrinth of memories from which there is no exit.

I stand and listen, carried away by the tide of his tales. In the music and cadences of his voice, I recognize a serenity and dignity that has all but passed away from the world: a dignity not bestowed by wealth or privilege or birth.

I carry it all away with me in my head, this private vision of a natural aristocracy living quietly in villages all over Iran: all those who have remained loyal to the land and traditions of their ancestors, but are able to look the modern world that is coming to destroy them squarely in the face, without flinching. They are all around me, I realize: those static, wary men I had seen scuttling through the cotton fields and the ravaged, tireless women bent double over their crops.

I walk back up the stairs into the bright sunshine carrying my personal revelation with me, larger somehow and more human than when I first entered.

Note:
The Nareen Ghaleh is a magnificent pre-Islamic fortress with walls up to 40 metres high. Its exact function has not yet been ascertained. It has not been documented by UNESCO. Some parts of it are used as a rubbish dump by locals.

© Ryszard Antolak (text and pictures)

Polish War Graves in Qazvin, Iran

2008-11-08T20:24:00.025Z

Qazvin has been deleted from the Polish embassy's list of wartime gravesites in Iran. The cemetery no longer exists. High-rise flats have taken its place.

In the summer of 2008, I travelled to the northern Iranian city of Qazvin to find traces of the 40 Polish men, women and children who had died there, victims of the Polish Exodus from Siberia in 1942. What I found distressed and saddened me.

Finding the graves was no easy matter. I knew that they were located in the Chaldean Christian cemetery. But there were two such cemeteries in the city, both of them active building sites .

The first site, not far from the famous Hussein mosque, had already been completely levelled. Nothing of the old cemetery remained except the ancient red-bricked wall that once enclosed it. Local residents directed us to the other site, which was in the process of being developed into a park. Paths and circular features were clearly marked out. But we could find no signs of any graves.

We wandered over to a wooden shack that served as the site office, and were introduced to a tall, soft-spoken, sophisticated, young man who introduced himself as the chief engineer. We asked about the whereabouts of Polish graves, and he answered that they were not far away.

He asked to see our papers, and after studying them intensely for some time, offered to help us. First, however, he drove us to his office in the City Chambers a few blocks away. He served us tea and confectionery, and then brought out a series of very large detailed maps of the building site. They clearly showed 40 graves in an irregular grouping amid various broken stones and unidentified markings..

He was soft-spoken and very polite. He asked whether we would like to have dinner with him that evening, But we were in a hurry, and politely declined. He explained to us that in Iran, any graveyard could be re-used for housing after 30 years if it was not covered by a special preservation order. This particular cemetery did not have such an order.

It was true. In 1955, the Iranian government had approached the authorities in Poland to ask them to contribute something to the upkeep of the Polish plot in Qazvin. The officials had declined, wishing to distance themselves from the events of 1942 which were politically embarrasing for the Polish Communist government. Instead, they had offered only a miserly sum, barely enough to buy a couple of dressed stones. And as a result, the graves had fallen into such disrepair that traces of them were barely visible above ground.

We finally saw the remains of the graveyard ourselves. It was adjacent to the Qazvin Khoda hospital in the centre of the city. It was nothing but building site open to the main road by a hedged driveway: a large open space of dusty earth covered with broken stones.

In the very centre stood three upright monumental stones with the name Filipowicz engraved upon them. This was the name of the Polish doctor who had settled in Qazvin during the war, and who featured in Khosrow Sinai’s documentary The Lost Requiem. Beside them were a few other Christian graves with elegant Armenian letters and crosses still emblazoned on their surfaces.

It was obvious this had once been a very large graveyard. A long red-bricked wall and a ruined house in the corner defined its former contours. On the opposite side of the plot, a tangle of multi-storey steel girders were already approaching fast, and a team of workmen were mixing cement within feet of the remaining graves.

Out of my pocket I took out a list of the names of those buried here beneath my feet. I read them out in a whisper. These forty Polish souls had been dragged at gunpoint out of their homes in the middle of the night and exiled to the work camps of Siberia. They had all survived the ordeal and finally reached the promised land of Iran only to die in Qazvin of unidentified diseases. In 1942, Qazvin was stopping place for the Polish exiles on their way to Tehran from the Caspian port of Anzali (Pahlevi). Qazvin was also host to the stream of covered trucks that carried young Polish soldiers to Lebanon to join the allied armies (via Hamadan and Kermanshah)

Barely a trace of their existence now remained , nothing but a few broken stones and dust. In a few weeks there would be nothing at all to see.

I took a few last photos and began to take my leave. The Iranian workmen, who all this time had been keeping a respectful distance, pushed forward when they caught sight of my camera and began to pose grotesquely like manikins in a shop window.

I left, and headed for the nearby Hussein Mosque to say a prayer in memory of my compatriots. As I entered the courtyard, I was immediately caught up in an elaborate funeral ceremony. A body, wrapped in two carpets and carried on a thin wooden bier, was being processed around the precinct of the magnificent mirrored mosque. Women wailed, and men of all ages sat around weeping openly. For me, the whole scene took on added meaning and significance. I stood and watched from the sidelines, sharing their grief and silently entering their community of mourning.

text and pictures © Ryszard Antolak

Embassy officials regularly visit Dulab (Tehran) and Isfahan Polish cemeteries (which are beautifully upkept), but those at Qazvin and Mashhad seem to have been neglected for years.

The Polish war cemetery at Anzali, the second largest in the country, also has problems. The stones are so weathered away that many of the inscriptions are illegible. In addition, the mature pine trees around them are withering for lack of water. These are all matters for the Polish authorities, which seem to be doing very little, if anything.

Sohrab Sepehri at 80

2008-08-08T09:05:00.003+01:00

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“There is a city somewhere beyond the seas
Where windows open on illumination...
Where the earth listens
To the music of your heart
And the wind carries sounds
Of the fluttering of mythical birds …”

October 7th 2008 marks the 80th anniversary of the birth of one of Iran’s most celebrated modern poets, Sohrab Sepehri. On that day, hundreds of people will make their way to the lonely, remote mosque of Mashhad Ardehal, (on the desert road between Kashan and Dilijan), to pay their respects, recite poetry and lay flowers on the grave of this much-loved poet.

Awaiting them will be no grand memorial tomb such as that of Hafez or Sa’adi: no pavilion with fragrant gardens, no trees to adorn and give shade. All they will see is a marble flagstone in the courtyard of the mosque (outside the women’s entrance), sometimes trodden below the feet of visitors on their way to prayer. The inscription on the stone reads:
“If you come to visit me
Tread softly,
Lest you break the fragile shell
Of my loneliness.”
It is a modest, humble grave, one eminently in keeping with the character of the poet.

His was a truly singular voice in 20th century Iranian Literature: fresh and natural, almost childlike sometimes in its directness. At a time when other poets were wrestling with complex social and political concerns in their works, Sohrab Sepehri was an advocate of all that was small and personal, intimate and homely. He was a friend of roadside flowers, of people walking home from work, of goldfinches and swaying poplars. For him, the most familiar objects - a willow, a red rose - could open suddenly to reveal an aspect of the Divine hitherto concealed. He explained in his poem, “Water’s Footfall”, that the poet need not go beyond his own immediate environment to discover the wondrous and the divine. Transcendence was per-ception, seeing through the everyday details of life to the empowered presence beyond.
“I am a Muslim.
And my direction of prayer is the red rose,
My prayer rug is... the fountain,
My prayer stone is... light,
The meadows are my prayer hall.
I kneel down when the muezzin wind
Calls out the time of prayer
From the cypress tree.”
The words sound almost like a paraphrase of Ibn Arabi’s famous profession of faith.

Born in Kashan in 1928, Sepehri’s imagination was dominated by the Dasht-e Kavir, the desert that stretches before the city like a grey nothingness for a thousand kilometres. Something of that emptiness, that loneliness, filtered into his bones and sank deeply into his heart.
“Come to me and I will tell you
How colossal my loneliness is”
It was as if the desert called out to him in an almost religious voice, (as it called many prophets and mystics in the past) and Sepehri responded both physically and metaphorically:
“Tonight I must go
I must take my suitcase
Large enough to hold the garments of my loneliness
And go to the place where trees sing out in epic song
And where the vast wordless expanse
Calls out to me: “Sohrab!”
Listen! There it is again!
I must find my shoes quickly…”.

He became a restless spirit, unable to settle, travelling the world in search of something he could never quite define, which lay just beyond the horizon, just out of sight. During his wanderings, he encountered a variety of different literary styles, some of which found their way later into his poetry enriching the language in ways which bore the indelible seal of his genius. Through his writing and his painting, he created a new home for himself (another Kashan) “on the far side of the night”, one that could not be taken away from him by force or by distance.
“It does not matter were I am
Because the sky is always mine
And windows, ideas, fresh air, love”…

In the end, his body “descended from a piece of pottery on Sialk Hills”, longed for the soil of its birth. He discovered at the age of fifty that he was suffering from leukaemia and that the illness was incurable. In 1980, the poet made his final journey home to his beloved Kashan to be buried (according to his own wishes) in the grounds of Mashhad Ardehal.

When I visited his grave recently during the baking heat of a torrid summer, the place was almost deserted. There was only a large family of dark-skinned gypsies from Khuzestan taking advantage of the shade and the water. Their children splashed around the fountain and chased each other amid great bouts of laughter. None of them ventured out of the shade of the central courtyard. The poet remained alone in his element.

Until a frail old man arrived asking for the grave, dressed (despite the searing heat) in a smart black business suit. He was supported on a walking stick and was evidently in great pain. I lead him around the side of the building to the poet’s marble flagstone, and he stood over it for some time, seemingly in deep thought. Then he put his stick between his legs and suddenly slipped to the ground. I rushed to assist him, thinking he was falling, but he thrust an open palm out at me to stop. This was evidently something he needed to do for himself. Holding his stick firmly in his left hand, he got down painfully on one knee and reached out an exploratory hand to the gravestone, tracing his finger lovingly over the inscription. I could see by his face that he had reached his destination. He was home.

I was deeply moved. I remembered the words of another poet, one from my own country, who had written
“If you want to drink from a carafe
You can grip its neck and press it to your lips.
But if you want to drink from a spring
You have to get down on your knees and bow your head”.

Over the next few months, many more pilgrims will come to this isolated place to drink from the spring. For the works of Sohrab Sepehri are a breath of fresh air, full of the sights and sounds of nature, redolent with the joys of being alive, of being a human being with a face and a name.

Sohrab Sepehri
Poet and Painter
October 7, 1928 – April 21, 1980

© Ryszard Antolak
(text and pictures)

Oldest Living Iranian

2008-07-29T16:14:00.004+01:00

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On the Silk Road from Yazd to Shiraz, in the desert city of Abarkuh, stands the oldest living being in Iran (perhaps in the whole world) . It is at least five thousand years old, and some say eight thousand. Ancient and mysterious even to botanists (who cannot decide on its true age), the Cypress Tree of Abarkuh is surrounded by legends and revered by countless visitors.

To anyone approaching it, the tree appears more mineral than vegetable. You are confronted by a wall of massive trunks - 19 meters thick - packed together tightly like the tentacles of a giant squid, each one vying with others for space and for sky. Thirty metres above your head they finally explode, showering a canopy of lingering fragrance and delicious shade down onto the earth below.

The tree stands next to an old caravanserai, surrounded by a low circular hedge of manicured privet (sometimes also with a small pool of water). Visitors come in their hundreds, their hands immediately drawn to stony surface of the trunk. They feel along it for a time, as if searching for a concealed entrance or a living heart. They circle it in wonder like pilgrims round the Kaaba, constantly touching and caressing. The tree is very much loved. Some visitors bring coloured ribbons to hang on the lower branches as signs of reverence or supplication. At these times the tree resembles a woman in a Qashkai skirt, her hands raised to her hair, ready to perform a dance. Or perhaps a decorated Christmas tree. Other visitors spread out blankets and eat watermelon in the delicious cool of its shade.

An ugly green information sign once gave visitors statistics about this cypress, but it has been removed recently (perhaps to make way for a new one). The height of the tree is 30 metres and the width of its trunk is 19 metres in diameter. When it was first mentioned in 1335 AD (by a certain Hamd-Allah Mostawfi), the tree was already “famous throughout the world”.

Cypress trees (cupressus sempervirens) are native to Iran. They were carried by travellers to Europe in the distant past, and then spread to other areas of the world. Mediterranean cypresses seldom survive longer than two thousand years. In their homelands on the plains of Iran, they can can grow to many times that age.

Cypresses were once revered all over Ancient Iran. Saints and sages were buried in their hollowed-out trunks, the bark carefully replaced so that they would continue to grow. (1)

There is a legend that Zoroaster planted two famous cypresses in Khorassan, both of which grew to enormous proportions: the Cypress of Kashmar (near Mashhad) and the Cypress of Faryumaz (near Sabsevar) (2). When the local king Gushtasp accepted the religion of the prophet, Zoroaster ordered the trunk of the former to be inscribed with the words, "Gushtasp accepts the Good Religion". And from that time onwards, cypresses were planted at the doors of many Zoroastrian temples and became a familiar feature of the Iranian landscape. Their slender pyramidal shapes were likened to living flames, burning and transforming the face of the earth. In time, they came to represent the Iranian prophet himself.

Islam too, lays claim to this particular tree. A persistent cluster of legends links it to Abraham, (who is said to have planted it), and other local traditions and geographical features around Abarkuh are associated with the life of this patriarch. From at least the twelfth century AD, Abarkuh was known as the City of Abraham. (3)

In the pages of the Avesta, the Cypress is listed first among the trees that “give no fruit to man”. But anyone who rests for a short time beneath its shade soon discovers the opposite. The water in the pool is brown and warm. Frogs brood nearby and swallows swoop low in the branches. Light yawns its way out of the desert hills and lies smoothly down with the dappled shade. The tree may not feed the body, but it nourishes the spirit and feeds the imagination.

Plans have been drawn up to develop the area around the cypress as a park to protect the tree's future. UNESCO is involved in the planning. A slender young cypress has been planted nearby so that when the old tree sickens or falls, the younger will take its place. There is likely to be a cypress tree at Abarkuh for many centuries to come.

Iran is a country full of remarkable monuments and architectural marvels. But all of them are lifeless. The Cypress Tree of Abarkuh is a living monument, an ancient noble organism well worthy of celebration and protection.

Notes:

1 . In this way we can better understand legends of Cypress trees singing in human voices. Two cypresses speaking in a human voice are said to have foretold the death of Alexander. And in the Testament of Abraham, a cypress tree prophesies the patriarch's death etc.

2. When the latter tree was cut down in 847 AD on the orders of the Abassid caliph Al Mutawakkil, earthquakes shook, buildings fell and a swarm of birds filled the night sky screaming with rage. It was cut down in sections and transported on more than 300 camels to Samarra. The Abarkuh cypress is older than the cypress of Kashmar.

3. Two hills of ashes in Abarkuh were once associated with the “Fires of Nimrod” into which Abraham was thrown. The patriarch is also said to have prophesied that rain would never fall within the walls of the city, and that its inhabitants would never raise cows.

c Ryszard Antolak

Forgotten Exiles

2008-02-28T15:37:00.001Z

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Turkmenistan has long been a place of compulsory exile for poets, revolutionaries and writers. Over the years, countless thousands of Poles, Russians, Germans, Chechens (and other nationalities) have been forcibly deported to this distant corner of the Soviet empire to silence their voices and suppress their activities. With the collapse of Communism and the break-up of the old Soviet Union, they are (at last) able to return to the lands of their ancestors if they wish; and most of them have done so. Only the Poles remain, abandoned by the International Community (and their own Polish Government), stranded in the most repressive and isolated of all the former Soviet Socialist republics.

Once the most far-flung, southerly region of the Russian empire, Turkmenistan still has the air of being somewhat on the periphery of the world. Its capital, Ashkhabad, is a soul-less city of Soviet concrete with a distinct feeling of impermanence about it (the result no-doubt, of the 1948 earthquake that demolished the city). There are few cars on the broad tree-lined boulevards. The ever-present dust of the great Karakum desert hangs oppressively over the city, turning the air at times into a soup of suffocating sulphur. This is a place that has long since resigned itself to the despair of barrenness, and only waits expectantly for the next chapter of its history to be meted out.

Waiting for me at the airport is Pani Irena, an elderly member of the Polish community in Ashkhabad. She was deported here in 1946, a victim of the Soviet-engineered wave of arrests that awaited many Poles who chose return to Poland after the war.

Although she has never seen me before, she picks me out from among the crowds at the arrivals gate and calls out to me (by name).
“How did you know it was me?” I ask, when I finally reach her. Her smile is broad and infectious, revealing a prominent gold tooth. “Who else could you be but you?” Her logic is unassailable. She speaks in a luxurious, old-worldly accent that is found today only among the oldest members of émigré communities. She hands me a small bouquet of wild flowers with the dewdrops still clinging to them like living pearls, and embraces me as if I were a long-lost member of her family. I am humbled and made silent by the gesture.

Security in the arrivals hall is surprisingly tight in what is, by European standards, just a small provincial airport. The boys in smart suits are eyeing me intently from the entrances, and I feel out of place among the colourful Turkoman crowds bustling around me.

“They are always suspicious of everything”, Irena explains in a low conspiratorial tone as we head for the taxi. “Nothing very much has changed here since the Soviet era.”

Her voice, I realize, is the only thing about her that is still young. She is matronly, composed of rounded forms, but comfortable and loose in her own body. Her hair, stained with an immensity of grey, is drawn up tightly on her head in a neat bun. Her unnaturally pale cheeks are veined in a watered ink. I wonder how old she can be. Seventy? Eighty? It is difficult to tell.

As we drive through the rambling assemblage of suburbs, shadows are already beginning to tug at the corners of buildings, and the sun is low over the Koppe Dag (the mountains that separate Turkmenistan from its turbulent southerly neighbour, Iran). Despite being on the edge of one of the most inhospitable deserts in the world, the city is remarkably cool and green at this hour. There are narrow irrigation channels criss-crossing the roads at regular intervals, and old established trees line the boulevards, giving welcome shade from the sun. One cannot, however, escape from the Orwellian presence of the nation's eccentric president-for-life, Turkmenbashi Saparmurat Niyazov, whose image is reproduced everywhere. “We even have a statue of him made of gold”, Irena tells me dryly. “It revolves in a full circle every 24 hours so it is always facing the sun…..He is supposed to be the light of our nation, you see!” She laughs sardonically.

There is a bitter edge to her laughter. During the Soviet era, no one was permitted to speak of the mass deportations to Turkmenistan. Even today, no one does so openly. Freedom of speech is non-existent here. There’s no right of assembly, no right of association. Every organization has to be registered with the state. The country has been slow to throw off its old Communist habits.

Once arrived at her apartment on the second floor of a modest housing block, Irena draws the curtains and (at last) begins to breathe more easily. Tomorrow, she tells me, she will introduce me to her circle. But in the meantime, I must be hungry.

She begins to take over the kitchen, as women often do, and asks me to help her chop some vegetables. I bow to her authority. We dovetail splendidly: I cut, and she prepares. The luxury of exotic cooking smells begins to infiltrate my senses and I know we are going to get along famously. Within an hour, we are eating our our “plov” (a local rice dish) by candlelight, the Turkish coffee is served, and we begin to talk.

“The first wave of political prisoners came here from Poland in the mid nineteenth century”, Irena explains. “They were revolutionaries, sentenced to hard labour for taking part in the 1863 Polish Uprising, which was bloodily put down by the Russians. They were forced to make the journey on foot. Hundreds of them perished during the building of the 700 km railway across the Karakum desert from Ashkhabad to Krasnovodsk. Later, other groups joined them, in 1903, 1921, 1935, and 1948. At one time, a tenth of the population of Ashkhabad were Poles”.

Irena knows her dates from memory. The still, deep river of her heart hoards its images and reflects them in a language that is simple, but powerfully effective, because still raw. Here is a woman whose life stands for something. For 15 years, she has devoted her energies to documenting and preserving the names and histories of the exiled. Her stories are without number. She keeps scrawled notes in faded children's jotters, hidden from prying eyes between the volumes of Russian Poetry on her bookcase. She brings them out and we go over the manuscripts together, correct references, peer myopically into maps sprawled across the living room floor

“No-one knows how many of us are left, because all archival material is considered secret. Any information we have has had to be passed by word of mouth. Hardly anyone, for example, has even heard of the mass deportations here in 1921, even though they were some of the largest. They occurred just after the Polish-Russian War when borders were established for the first time between the two countries. Poles who found themselves on the Soviet side of the border were deported to Kazakhstan, Uzbekhistan, Turkmenistan, Siberia - god knows where else. Most of their names are lost. We don’t know what happened to them”

Hours pass, talking of distant, but not-forgotten wars. Irena brings out sepia photographs, more coffee-and-cream than black-and-white, and enlarged to ridiculous proportions. We talk of the millions who lost their lives during Soviet and Tsarist eras, their names unregistered in any account book, buried without ceremony or marker in mass graves all over Russia. “If we do not remember them,” she says, “who will”?

She is a religious woman. But it is a faith expressed less in words than in the silences between them. She has nothing with which to confront the events of those years except her simple faith in a god, she says, “who betrayed them”. She uses the word “betrayed” with strong emphasis. “One day”, she adds, “God will take them into his arms and beg forgiveness for having forgotten them”. She looks directly into my eyes. “You and I will remind Him”
“What kind of God do we have who can be so... unjust,” I ask delicately?
She thinks for a moment. “You are talking about a God ‘up there’ in Heaven judging people’s actions in accordance with human concepts like Justice. That’s a naïve notion. That kind of God doesn’t exist. It’s enough for me to remember the millions who have died and been murdered to know that God exists… and is not just. It is we who must be just.”

She releases the hair from the bun on the back of her head and it fans out freely around her. The glow of a distant youth begins to emanate from her presence. She must have been beautiful in her youth.

What are her chances of repatriation to Poland? She makes a gesture of despair with her hands. “It’s possible only if a county or a district (in Poland) invites you over, offers you a place to live, and a job, and social security... before you can even think of applying. Who’s going to do that? It's hopeless. And we can’t travel anywhere else abroad because our wages are too low. She points to a photograph on the bookcase of two beautiful women with dark hair and poppy coloured lips. “My daughters. I am too old now, of course. But I would like my daughters to have a better life. We would even go to Russia if we could. But you have to show a birth certificate proving that you were born or have relatives there".

In the bloom of the candles, she looks young, even girlish, but is now visibly fading. In an effort to raise her spirits, I begin to tell her stories of my journey to Ashkhabad: exaggerated anecdotes involving lost companions, mysterious visitors and confiscated hand luggage in Istanbul. She begins to smile, and we are soon both transformed into schoolchildren, giggling and rocking against one another. I continue in the same vein for a few minutes. But when I look up, I find her fast asleep on the sofa, a cushion cradled in her arms like a child, her mouth slightly open.

I acknowledge my affection for this remarkable woman, forty years my senior. I feel a great spaciousness of soul in her, and a purity of being which I recognize but cannot convert into terms of my own reality. The varieties of love are so manifold that we do not possess the words to define all of them.

I cover her with a blanket, blow out the candles, and wander off to my room. Dawn is already in evidence. From my small window, the Persian mountains across the border hang weightless and rosy in the fresh morning light. It has been a very long day.

© Ryszard Antolak

Iran and the Polish Exodus from Russia 1942

2008-01-22T20:48:00.003Z

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"Exhausted by hard labour, disease and starvation - barely recognizable as human beings – we disembarked at the port of Pahlavi (Anzali). There, we knelt down together in our thousands along the sandy shoreline to kiss the soil of Persia. We had escaped Siberia, and were free at last. We had reached our longed-for Promised Land". – Helena Woloch.

In Tehran's Dulab cemetery, situated in a rundown area of the city, are the graves of thousands of Polish men, women and children. It is not the only such cemetery in Iran, but it is the largest and most well-known. All of the gravestones, row upon row of them, bear the same date: 1942.

In that year, Iran stood as a beacon of freedom and hope for almost a million Polish citizens released from the Soviet labour camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan. After enduring terrible conditions travelling across Russia, 115,000 of them were eventually allowed to enter Iran. Most of them went on to join the allied armies in the Middle East. The rest (mostly women and children) remained guests of Iran for up to three years, their lives totally transformed in the process. They never forgot the debt they owed to the country that had so generously opened its doors to them. Their reminiscences, as well as the many graves left behind in Tehran, Anzali and Ahvaz, are testimony to a chapter of Iranian history almost erased from the public memory.

From Poland to Iran
In 1939, the Soviet Union had participated with Nazi Germany in the invasion and partition of Poland. In the months that followed, the Soviets began a policy of ethnic cleansing in the area to weed out what they called socially dangerous and anti-soviet elements. As a result, an estimated 1.5 million civilians were forcibly expelled from their homes in the course of four mass deportations. Thrust at gunpoint into cattle trucks, they were transported to remote labour camps all over Siberia and Kazakhstan.[1]

Their fate was completely changed in June 1941 when Germany unexpectedly attacked Russia. In need of as many allies it could find, Russia agreed to release all the Polish citizens it held in captivity.[2] Shortly afterwards, provision was also made for the creation of an army from these newly-freed prisoners. It was to be commanded by General Wladyslaw Anders, recently released from the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. Stalin intended to mobilize this new army immediately against the Germans in the West; but Anders persuaded him to hold back until the Poles had recovered their health and strength after two years of exhaustion in the labour camps.

Swept onwards by the rumours that Stalin was about to allow some of them to leave his Soviet Paradise , these former prisoners of the Gulag system began a desperate journey southwards, some of them on foot, to reach the reception camps set up for them on the borders of Iran and Afghanistan. They travelled thousands of miles from their places of exile in the most distant regions of the Soviet Union. It was an exodus of biblical proportions in terrible conditions. Many froze to death on the journey or starved. Others kept themselves alive by selling whatever personal objects they had been fortunate enough to have brought with them. Exhausted mothers, unable to walk any further, placed their children into the arms of strangers to save them from certain death.[3]

Arrived at the army reception camps in Tashkent, Kermine, Samarkand and Ashkhabad, the refugees attempted to enlist in the Polish army, for which the Soviets had allocated some food and provisions. There was nothing, however, for the hundreds of thousands of hungry civilians, mostly women and children, who were camped outside the military bases. Instead of increasing provisions to the camps, the Soviets actually cut them. In response, the Polish army enlisted as many of the civilians as they could into its ranks, even children (regardless of age or sex) to save them from starvation. In the baking heat, dysentery, typhus, and scarlet fever became rampant. Communal graves in Uzbekistan could not keep up with the numbers who were dying. By 1942, only half of the 1.7 million Polish citizens arrested by the Soviets at the start of the war were still alive.

Their salvation finally came when Stalin was persuaded to evacuate a fraction of the Polish forces to Iran. A small number of civilians were allowed to accompany them. The rest had no option but to remain behind and face their fate as Soviet citizens.

Pahlavi
The evacuation of Polish nationals from the Soviet Union took place by sea from Krasnovodsk to Pahlavi (Anzali), and (to a lesser extent) overland from Ashkabad to Mashhad. It was conducted in two phases: between 24 March and 5 April; and between the 10th and 30th of August 1942. In all, 115,000 people were evacuated, 37,000 of them civilians, 18,000 children (7% of the number of Polish citizens originally exiled to the Soviet Union).

A makeshift city comprising over 2000 tents (provided by the Iranian army) was hastily erected along the shoreline of Pahlavi to accommodate the refugees. It stretched for several miles on either side of the lagoon: a vast complex of bathhouses, latrines, disinfection booths, laundries, sleeping quarters, bakeries and a hospital. Every unoccupied house in the city was requisitioned, every chair appropriated from local cinemas. Nevertheless, the facilities were still inadequate.

The Iranian and British officials who first watched the Soviet oil tankers and coal ships list into the harbour at Pahlavi on the 25th March 1942 had little idea how many people to expect or what physical state they might be in. Only a few days earlier, they had been alarmed to hear that civilians, women and children, were to be included among the evacuees, something for which they were totally unprepared.[4] The ships from Krasnovodsk were grossly overcrowded. Every available space on board was filled with passengers. Some of them were little more than walking skeletons covered in rags and lice. Holding fiercely to their precious bundles of possessions, they disembarked in their thousands at Pahlavi and kissed the soil of Persia. Many of them sat down on the shoreline and prayed, or wept for joy. They were free at last!

They had not quite escaped, however. Weakened by two years of starvation, hard labour and disease, they were suffering from a variety of conditions including exhaustion, dysentery, malaria, typhus, skin infections, chicken blindness and itching scabs. General Esfandiari, appointed by the Iranians to oversee the evacuation, met with his Polish and British counterparts to discuss how to tackle the spread of Typhus, the most serious issue facing them.

It was decided to divide the reception area into two parts: an infected area and a clean area, separated from each other by a barbed wire fence. On arrival, those who were suspected of having infectious diseases were quarantined in the closed section for four days, or else sent to the camp hospital. 40% of patients admitted to the hospital were suffering from typhus. Most of these died within a month or two of arriving. At this time there were only 10 doctors and 25 nurses in the whole of Pahlavi.

In the clean area, the arrivals were channelled into a series of tents where their clothes were collected and burned. They were then showered, deloused, and some of them had their heads shaved in the interests of hygiene. As a result, women began to wear headscarves to conceal their baldness. Finally, they were given sheets, blankets and fresh clothes by the Red Cross and directed to living quarters.
Food provision was inappropriate. Corned beef, fatty soup and lamb, distributed by the British soldiers, caused havoc with digestions accustomed only to small pieces of dry bread. They could not tolerate the rich food, and a large number died purely from the results of over-eating.

Beggarly, unwell and dishevelled, the Polish refugees were nourished more by the smiles and generosity of the Iranian people than by the food dished out by British and Indian soldiers. Iran at that time was going through one of the unhappier episodes of her history. Occupied by the Russians and the British, her relations with the soldiers of these two countries were understandably strained and difficult. With the Poles, however, there was an immediate affinity which was evident from the moment they arrived and which extended from the lowest to the highest levels of society.

On 11th April 1942 Josef Zajac, chief of Polish forces in the Middle East, noted in his diary on a visit to Tehran that the Persian population were better disposed to them than either the British or the White Russian émigrés (who were distinctly hostile). His relationship with the Iranian Minister of War, Aminollah Jahanbani (released a year earlier from prison for plotting against Shah Reza Pahlavi), was genuinely friendly and cordial. During the course of their discussions together on 13th April 1942, they discovered that they had been students together at the same French military academy.[5] Personal friendships such as these further smoothed relations between the two populations. Contacts between Polish and Persian soldiers were equally cordial. The custom of Polish soldiers saluting Persian officers on the streets sprang up spontaneously, and did not go unnoticed by the Iranians.

Isfahan: The City Of Polish Children

Washed up in the detritus of evacuees arriving at Pahlavi had been over 18,000 children of all ages and sexes (mostly girls).[6] Not all of them were orphans. Some had been separated from their families during the long journey through Russia. Their condition was especially desperate. Many were painfully emaciated and malnourished. Orphanages were set up in immediately in Pahlavi, Tehran and Ahvaz to deal with them as a matter of urgency.

The first major orphanage to be opened was situated in Mashhad, and was run by an order of Christian nuns. It opened its doors on March 12 1942. The children at this home were predominantly those transported over the border from Ashkabad by trucks.

Eventually, however, Isfahan was chosen as the main centre for the care of Polish orphans, particularly those who were under the age of seven. They began arriving there on 10th April 1942. It was believed that in the pleasant surroundings and salutary air of this beautiful city, they would have a better chance of recovering their physical and mental health.

Iranian civil authorities and certain private individuals vacated premises to accommodate the children. Schools, hospitals and social organizations sprang up quickly all over the city to cater for the growing colony. The new Shah took especial interest in the Polish children of Isfahan. He allowed them the use of his swimming pool, and invited groups of them to his palace for dinner. In time, some of the children began to learn Farsi and were able to recite Persian poems to a delegation of Iranian officials who visited the city. At its peak, twenty-four areas of the city were allocated to the orphans. As a result, Isfahan became known ever after in Polish émigré circles as The City of Polish Children.

Exile in Iran
The refugees remained in Pahlavi for a period of a few days to several months before being transferred to other, more permanent camps in Tehran, Mashhad, and Ahvaz. Tehran possessed the greatest number of camps. A constant stream of trucks transported the exiles by awkward twisted roads from the Caspian to Quazvin, where they were put up for the night on school floors, before continuing their journey next morning to the capital.

Tehran's five transit camps, one army and four civilian, were situated in various parts of the metropolitan area. Once again, certain Iranian authorities and individuals volunteered buildings (even sports stadiums and swimming baths) for the exclusive use of the refugees. Camp No.2, however, (the largest) was nothing more than a collection of tents outside the city. Camp No. 4, was a deserted munitions factory. No. 3 was situated in the Shah s own garden, surrounded by flowing water and beautiful trees There was also a Polish hospital in the city, a hostel for the elderly, an orphanage (run by the Sisters of Nazareth) and a convalescent home for sick children (Camp No. 5) situated in Shemiran.

Most able-bodied men (and women) of military age enlisted forthwith in the army and were assigned to military camps. Their stay in Iran was a short one. The army was quickly evacuated to Lebanon and included in the Polish forces being reformed there. Their route to Lebanon was either overland from Kermanshah (6 rest stations were set up for them along the way to Latrun), or by ship from the southern port of Ahvaz. The remainder women, children and men over the age of military service - remained behind in Iran, some of them for periods up to three years.

Something more than food and clothing are necessary for the human spirit to survive and grow. Art and Culture are antibodies to feelings of despondency and decay, and within a few months of their arrival, the exiles had set up their own theatres, art galleries, study circles, and radio stations all over the city. Artists and craftsmen began to give exhibitions. Polish newspapers began to spring up; and restaurants began to display Polish flags on the streets.

Among the organizations formed to care for the educational and cultural needs of the exiles was the influential Institute of Iranian Studies begun by a small group of Polish academicians.[7] In three years from 1943 to 1945 this group published three scholarly volumes and scores of other articles on Polish-Iranian affairs. Most of the material was later translated into Farsi and published under the title Lahestan .

By 1944, however, Iran was already emptying of Poles. They were leaving for other D.P camps in places such as Tanganyika, Mexico, India, New Zealand and the UK. Their main exit route was Ahvaz, where an area of the city still called Campolu today, is a distant echo of its original name Camp Polonia. Mashhad s last children left on the 10 June 1944. Ahvaz finally closed its camp doors in June 1945. The last transport of orphans left Isfahan for Lebanon on the 12 October 1945.

What Remains
The deepest imprint of the Polish sojourn in Iran can be found in the memoirs and narratives of those who lived through it. The debt and gratitude felt by the exiles towards their host country echoes warmly throughout all the literature. The kindness and sympathy of the ordinary Iranian population towards the Poles is everywhere spoken of.[8]

The Poles took away with them a lasting memory of freedom and friendliness, something most of them would not know again for a very long time. For few of the evacuees who passed through Iran during the years 1942 1945 would ever to see their homeland again. By a cruel twist of fate, their political destiny was sealed in Tehran in 1943. In November of that year, the leaders of Russia, Britain and the USA met in the Iranian capital to decide the fate of Post-war Europe.

During their discussions (which were held in secret), it was decided to assign Poland - the first ally in the battle against Hitler - to the zone of influence of the Soviet Union after the war. It would lose both its independence and its territorial integrity. The eastern part of the country, from which the exiles to Iran had been originally expelled, would be incorporated wholesale into the Soviet Union. The Polish government was not informed of the decision until years later, and felt understandably betrayed. 48,000 Polish soldiers would lose their lives fighting for the freedom of the very nations whose governments had secretly betrayed them in Tehran, and later (in 1945) in Yalta.[9]

Footnotes:
1. 1. There were four mass deportations of the civilian population of eastern Poland in 1940/41 alone:
a) 10 Feb 1940. 250,000 from rural areas sent to Siberia in 110 cattle trains.
b) 13 April 1940. 300,000, mostly women & children 160 trains) mostly to Kazakhstan and Altai Kraj.
c) June/July 1940. 400,000 to Archangielsk, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk etc.
d) June 1941. 280,000 to various part of USSR.
Some 500,000 Poles had also been arrested by the Soviets between 1939 and 1941, mostly the government officials, judges teachers lawyers, intellectuals, writers etc. So the total of 1.7 million Poles were in captivity in the Soviet Union.
2. Under an agreement signed on 30th July 1941 by the Polish premier, General Sikorski and the Russian representative I. Mayski, Russia agreed to release all the Poles who had been arrested under what was termed an amnesty . The word amnesty was extremely ill-chosen. The amnesty was signed in London in the presence of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden.
3. Although the amnesty was announced in July, the news did not filter through to many of the remoter camps of eastern Siberia until December. For others, the news never reached them at all, and they remained in Russia.
4. General Anders himself took the responsibility to evacuate the civilians before he had even discussed it with the British.
5. They had studied at the Ecole Superieure de Guerre in Paris. General Anders, who visited Jahanbani in Teheran a few months later, was also a graduate of this school.
6. On Jan 6 1943, the Polish embassy was told to close all 400 of its welfare agencies on Russian soil (including orphanages and hospitals). Two months later, all Polish citizens remaining on Russian soil were deemed to be Soviet citizens.
7. The president was Stanislaw Koscialkowski.
8. The word kish-mish passed into the vocabulary of the survivors. Many Polish boys were named Dariusz, still extremely popular as a boy s name in Poland today.
9. Polish soldiers were not even allowed to participate in the Victory parade in London in 1945.

References:
1. Faruqi, Anwar. Forgotten Polish Exodus to Iran. Washington Post. 23 Nov 2000.
2. Kunert, Andrzej. K., Polacy w Iranie 1942-45. Vol I. R.O.P.W.i M. Warsawa. 2002.
3. Mironowicz, Anna, Od Hajnowki do Pahlewi. Editions Spotkania. Paris 1986.
4. Woloch, Helena, Moje Wspomnienia. Sovest. Kotlas 1998.

© Ryszard Antolak
antolak@blueyonder.co.uk

Zapomnieni

2007-01-01T11:46:00.000Z

...

Z gór, gdzie dźwigali strasznych krzyżów brzemię,
Widzieli z dala obiecaną ziemię,
Widzieli światło niebieskich promieni,
Ku którym w dole ciągnęło ich plemię,
A sami do tych nie wejdą przestrzeni!
Do godów życia nigdy nie zasiędą,

I nawet, nawet może zapomnieni będą!

Zoroaster and "Quality Management".

2006-12-26T18:48:00.000Z

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Concern over Zoroastrian Courses offered by the Latin American Spenta University Foundation

".... there is now a “new ancient approach” which I propose in the field of quality management. This strategy goes beyond the traditional focus on procedures, policies and the final product or service. This “new ancient approach” to quality issues is concerned with the ethical values proposed by Zarathushtra, or Zoroaster, thousands of years ago".

- Dr Jose Abreu. Director of Zoroastrian Studies.

The problem is not that Zarathushtrian principles are being applied to management (would that this were so) but that images and ideas from Business management and Information Technology are providing the superstructure to which Zoroastrian principles are being accommodated (often clumsily and not without casualties).

Of course, such language is in fashion, in vogue, and there is nothing wrong with restating ancient truths, as long as these truths are not reduced or damaged in the process. But one has to ask oneself, why the inordinate pre-occupation with Business Management and IT? Why do they not concentrate on images of trade-unionism, or solidarity, or husbandry, or family-life or something more.....well more organic? Apart from the suspicion that these people have business, or management uppermost in their minds, the real reason may have something to do with the idea that the way we imagine the world (and ourselves within it) determines how we approach it, react to it, treat it. Only conceive of the world as mindless, worthless stuff waiting to be "managed" or dominated and already you conspire in its exploitation. On the other hand, see it imbued with a divine presence (or even in terms of today's ecology, as a subtle network of interrelationships) and you are immediately predisposed to it with a sense of solidarity, a vague sense of brotherhood, of belonging to nature . The successors of Zarathushtra (and the prophet himself if we are to believe Mary Boyce) perceived the world in a sacramental way. Everything and every function was ever ready to light up for them into a sacrament which yielded not to rounded off knowledge, but to an overwhelming sense of mystery. They were awed, rather than informed.

But instead of being invited to conceive of ever more more apt, sublime, meaningful imagery to describe the experience of the sacred, we are asked to perceive them in terms of managements and organizations (profit-making or not) with images of the workplace, of managers and "processes" (whatever they are), classification, information. Even the mind itself is to be imagined as something assembled, put together from various disparate sources (like a machine or a body of men) rather than an organic whole, something that grows and has its own integrity.

The result of all this reduction is that we get ever more "explanations" which become ever more shallow, bordering on the meaningless. Explaining the mind by calling it "a collection of different mental processes" does not explain mind any more than calling a flower a "collection of flowery processes" tells us anything about flowers. (But it does introduce us to another overriding obsession of theirs: classification). Why is the mind a collection of processes and not a gestalt, an organic whole? Perception is far more complex (and actively creative) than merely the "organized reception of information"; memories are not the mere "storage of information", and it is possible to believe many things of which one has no information whatsoever (indeed ignorance is the cause of many beliefs).

And what of love, and sympathy, vulnerability, altruism, tenderness and the other receptive human and Zarathushtrian qualities which do not fit in with good business practice? They are there, but these qualities of the heart are to be cultivated for no higher end than to relieve anxieties and restlessness: as therapuetic aids, "fitting" one comfortably to accept the current norms, fashions and politics of the day. Zarathushtrianism as therapy, rather than as an aesthetic of empowered presence. And everywhere the promises of material well-being and peace-of-mind if one accepts this sugared pill.

© Ryszard Antolak
painting: Mina Mokhtarzadeh

The Black Muse

2006-11-08T19:19:00.001Z

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Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

William Shakespeare

Signs to look for

2006-11-05T16:10:00.000Z

'
Whenever we enter a relationship buoyed up on waves of love and emotion, we all too often ignore (or willingly overlook) the inevitable warning signs of potential violence in our partners, until it is too late.

Below is a list of behaviours commonly found in individuals (male and female) who physically assault their partners or spouses. The last four signs are the strongest indicators of all. These four are almost always seen only in someone who is a batterer.

If your partner has several of the other behaviours (say three or more) then he (or she) has a strong potential for physical violence. The more signs the person has, the more likely he or she is to be a batterer. In some cases, they may have only a couple of behaviours you will recognize, but they may be much exaggerated (e.g., extreme jealousy over ridiculous things, or extreme controlling behaviour). Initially the batterer will try to explain such behaviour as signs of love and concern, and you may be flattered at first. But as time goes on, the behaviours will only serve to increase their dominance over you.

1) Quick Involvement: Battered partners often knew or dated their abusers for less than nine months before they became engaged or started living together. They come on like a whirlwind: “You’re the only person I could ever talk to”; “I’ve never felt loved like this by anyone.” They are charming, attentive, understanding, (a dream come true), and want to spend every free minute of time with you from the moment you start to date. They push for quick commitment and profess their love way too soon. You are swept off your feet!

2) Jealousy: At the beginning of a relationship, an abuser will always say that this is a sign of their love. Jealousy, however, has little to do with love and more to do with insecurity and possessiveness. You will be questioned about whom you talk to. You may be accused of flirting. Your partner may begin to question your need to spend time with family, friends or children. As the jealousy progresses, he/she may call you frequently during the day or drop by unexpectedly to see what you are up to. They will check your computer to discover who you are talking to, or take a note of your car mileage. Jealous and possessive, you will be interrogated constantly.

3) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Mood swings.. Abusers change positions on issues constantly, keeping you on edge. Many domestic violence victims report their partner’s “sudden” mood changes, and are confused by them. They will describe how one minute they are nice and the next minute they explode into some kind of “mental problem” or become “crazy”. Explosiveness or mood swings are typical of individuals who physically assault their partners; and these behaviours are related to other characteristics such as hypersensitivity

4) Controlling Behaviour: This is one of the strongest indicators to look out for. The batterer will say that this kind of behaviour is just concern for your safety, or because they want you to use your time well, or make good decisions. They become angry if you are “late” coming back from the store or an appointment. They will question you closely about where you went, whom you talked to. As this behaviour gets worse, there may come a time when you will not be allowed to make any major household decision at all. You will be told what you should wear, when you should visit relatives and friends, when you should go to church etc. Your partner will attempt to control all the household money. You will have to account to him/her for every purchase you have made by producing receipts. They will monopolise the TV remote and the computer. They will lay down strict household rules which they do not follow themselves. Batterers often have problems with authority: they are rebellious, confrontational or quick to start quarrels in restaurants or stores or on the phone. However, they are usually good providers financially, and successful in their careers.

5) Isolation: In order to control your behaviour, your partner will attempt to isolate you geographically- you will be the one who “must” move away from familiar surroundings, quit your job and live in your partner’s environment. You may even be persuaded to live in the country, without a phone. Your partner will try to cut you off from all your resources and circles of support. If you are a woman meeting friends, you will become a “whore”. If you are close to your family, you will be “tied to mommy’s apron strings”. Questions are always asked when you want to entertain or have family and friends over. They will find plausible reasons for cancelling visits to them, and may even accuse them of “causing trouble”. Your partner may not let you use the car. They may try to keep you from working or going to school. Fewer and fewer visitors will be allowed in your home

6) Verbal Abuse: Your partner will be able to pick apart anything you say and twist it to the point where you may even question it yourself! In addition to saying things that are meant to be cruel and hurtful, abusers constantly degrade their partners, cursing them, running down their accomplishments. This may involve waking them up in the night to verbally abuse them, or not letting them get enough sleep.

7) Unrealistic Expectations: They become dependent on you for all their emotional needs. They will say things like “If you love me, I’m all you need—you’re all I need.”

8) Blames you for everything: An abuser never expresses true, honest guilt unless they can benefit by it. If they make mistakes, they will blame you for upsetting them. They will tell you, “You make me mad”, “You’re hurting me by not doing what I ask”, “I can’t help being angry”. They will use feelings to manipulate you. Harder to catch are their claims that, “You make me happy,” “You control how I feel”.

8) Hypersensitivity: They are easily insulted; they claim their feelings are “hurt” when really they’re just very mad. They take the slightest setbacks as a personal attack. They may “rant and rave” about the injustice of things that have happened to them—things that are really just part of living, like being asked to work overtime, getting a traffic ticket, being told that something they do is annoying. They will patronize or degrade you in front of others.

9) Cruelty to Animals or Children: Sixty percent of people who assault their partners also beat their children. They may expect children to be capable of doing things far beyond their ability. He/she may for example severely punish a two year old for wetting its diaper. They may not want children to eat at the table or expect them to keep to their room all evening while he/she is home. They can also be cruel with pets: threaten to kill, get rid of, or take them to the pound. Alternatively, he/she may lavish love upon them at times of his/her choosing and then suddenly ignore them for long periods. This is a person who punishes animals brutally or is insensitive to their pain or suffering...

10) “Playful” Use of Force in Sex: They may want you to act out fantasies during sex where you are their “prisoner”. They may show little concern about whether you want to have sex and use sulking or anger to manipulate you into compliance. They demand sex when you are ill or tired. They may use playful use of force during sex: forcing you to do things you aren’t comfortable with doing. Want sex daily or more. Unable to be a whole person without a relationship

*11) Past Battering: You may hear from friends that your partner has been abusive to others in the past. Situational circumstances do not make a person an abusive personality. Sooner or later, a batterer will beat up their partner,no matter who they are.

*12) Threats of Violence: Only acts abusive when others aren’t around. They can turn sweet at the drop of a hat, or at the drop of a 911 call. They will drive recklessly on the freeway to intimidate you. They will threaten you with violence or the police, and then say he/she wasn’t serious or was just kidding. This would include any threats of physical force meant to control your behaviour. “I’ll slap your mouth off”, “I’ll kill you”, “I’ll break your neck”. I’ll kill myself”. Most people do not threaten their mates, but a batterer will try to excuse this behaviour by saying, “Everybody talks like that”.
Likes angry music or enjoys watching violent movies

*13) Punishments. This behaviour is used to terrorize you into submission. They may withhold mail or gifts given to you by friends/relatives because “you don’t deserve them”. They may beat on tables with their fists; throw objects near you; drive recklessly on the freeway. Again, this is a very remarkable behaviour; only very immature people beat on objects in the presence of other people in order to threaten them.

*14) Any Force during an Argument: This may involve holding you down, physically restraining you from leaving the room, or any pushing or shoving. They may hold you up against a wall and say, “You’re going to listen to me”).

Lost Elegy

2006-11-01T22:09:00.002Z

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Officials at the Polish embassy in Iran have been invited to a rare screening of the documentary “Lost Elegy” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Teheran

The documentary, filmed in 1985 by distinguished Iranian film maker Khosrow Sinaii, tells the story of the war-time arrival in Iran of hundreds of thousands of Poles released from the Soviet labour camps of Siberia. Ships crammed with emaciated men, women and children arrived at the Caspian port of Anzali almost every day during the months of April and August 1942. Their condition was desperate. Thousands died from malnutrition and typhus on arrival. The healthy young men travelled on to Syria and Lebanon to join the allied forces there. The remainder (mostly women and children) remained in Iranian refugee camps for a further three years, their lives totally transformed in the process. Their reminiscences, as well as the many graves left behind in Tehran, Anzali and Ahvaz, bear testimony to a chapter of Iranian history almost erased from public memory.

Abdol Rahimi filmed the arrival of the exiles in Anzali with his camera. His photographs are the most complete visual record of the event that exists.
"They were in bad shape”, he recounts in the documentary, “thin, ill and in rags. A friend of mine, a carpenter, used to make boxes [coffins] for them. About 50 were dying every day."

The events made such an impression on him, that even on his deathbed, he was still recounting to his friends the pitiful state of the refugees. Abdol Rahimi's heroic efforts to document the arrival of the Poles have never been publicly recognized or published

The Documentary “Lost Elegy”, is a priceless Iranian (as well as Polish) historical resource. At present it is gathering dust in the archives of the IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) in Tehran. Its condition is deteriorating rapidly. The film’s director Khosrow Sinaii warned that if nothing was done to restore it the documentary would soon be irretrievably lost to posterity. To date, all requests for prompt action have been met with silence by the film’s producers (IRIB).

Khosrow Sinaii was born in Sari in 1940. He studied film directing and screenwriting at the Academy of the Dramatic Arts in Vienna and music theory at the Vienna Conservatoire. He is famous for his documentaries "In the Alleys of Love", “The Inner Monster”, and “Bride of Fire”. He is married to the Hungarian visual artist Gizella Varga Sinai.

See also
http://www.iranian.com/main/2007/lost-requiem

Ryszard Antolak

Jestem jak droga polna

2006-10-14T17:59:00.000+01:00

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Jestem jak droga polna, niczyja,
którą się mija,
co nigdzie wiodła i wieść nie będzie
choć idzie wszędzie.
Dzieli mnie zawsze, tak jak tę drogę,
miedza od nieba,
a poco jestem pojąć nie mogę,
bo mnie nie trzeba!
Nie byłam nigdy sobie, czy komu,
drogą do domu –
i dobrze życzę każdej godzinie
kiedy już minie...

Gdybym spotkał ciebie znowu pierwszy raz

2006-08-13T09:52:00.000+01:00

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Gdybym spotkał ciebie znowu pierwszy raz,
Ale w innym sadzie, w innym lesie -
Może by inaczej zaszumiał nam las
Wydłużony mgłami na bezkresie....

Może innych kwiatów wśród zieleni bruzd
Jęłyby się dłonie dreszczem czynne -
Może by upadły z niedomyślnych ust
Jakieś inne słowa - jakieś inne...

Może by i słońce zniewoliło nas
Do spłynięcia duchem w róż kaskadzie,
Gdybym spotkał ciebie znowu pierwszy raz,
Ale w innym lesie, w inym sadzie...

Picture: Wiesława Kwiatkowska

Return to Siberia

2006-07-30T15:41:00.001+01:00

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A few days ago, Tadeusz Kotlarz returned to Siberia. His first journey, sixty-five years earlier, was as a political prisoner. This time he travelled as a tourist from England, revisiting the places of his scarred youth.

In February 1940, half a million Polish citizens were ordered out of their homes at gunpoint, conducted to cattle trucks, and transported to distant fringes of the Soviet Union. Mr. Kotlarz’s family ended up in Khristoforovo, near Kotlas, in the Lalsk region of Siberia. He was only fourteen years old at the time.

“I was researching the deportations on a Russian internet site”, said Tadeusz, “when I came across Irina Dubrovina. She is the chairperson of a small organisation that tries to help former inmates of the Kotlas work camps. I just sent her an e-mail and we established contact. Then I revealed my intention of wanting to come for a visit”

We met Tadeusz as he arrived in Kotlas with Irina Dubrovina. He looks much younger than his 80 years. Sprightly, polite, well-dressed - a typical European - we took to him immediately. He had come all the way from Nottingham (England) by airplane via Warsaw and St Petersburg, and then taken a 24-hour train journey to reach Kotlas. All this to revisit the place where he had spent two years of his life. “You have to be of a certain age to understand why he would go to all this trouble”, explained Irina Dubrovina.

We wanted to show Tadeusz the “Makarikha” cemetery where many of the exiles were buried. By coincidence, some other (younger) people from Archangielsk had arrived that day looking for information about the camps, and they joined us.

As we stood before a small commemorative plaque, Irina told us of the thousands of Poles who had perished here. Tadeusz only nodded his head solemnly from time to time in agreement. Sometimes he would add a few words in English, or Polish or Russian.

We took him to a museum in Kotlas to see an exhibition of German contemporary painters. But Tadeusz was more interested in the exhibits about Russian life during the era when he was here.

Next day, we set off by car to Khristoforovo by agonizing, twisted roads. There were no available maps and no road signs to guide us. Several times, we lost our way along the tortured forest roads, and went round and round in circles for hours. The day was coming to an end and we had gotten nowhere.

Finally, by some miracle, we found it! And to Tadeusz’s astonishment, traces of the camp still remained. The wooden hut, which had served as the office (where exiles were allocated work), had survived. It looked just as had 60 years earlier. This was where the deportees had first disembarked from their cattle trucks from Poland. “It was the first thing I saw when I arrived here after three weeks of travel”, explained Tadeusz. “And it’s still here. And just beside the railway line, there used to be two wooden barrack houses (wooden shacks): a big one and a small one. We lived in the small one.” No traces of them remain today.

“Life was hard. We had to work every single day, except Sundays, from early morning to very late at night. Those who worked were given 400 grams of bread and something that looked like soup. Children and old people didn’t get anything and had to rely on their families to support them. Our family had brought some things from Poland with us. My mother sold them to the locals for potatoes when times were bad. Many people didn’t survive the first winter”.

After their release, the Kotlarz family (mother, father and four children) set out on the long road to Chelyabinsk, to find work. During the journey, they were met by Polish soldiers recruiting for the Polish army in Tatischevo (near Saratov). So the family immediately changed direction and made for Saratov, spending the winter labouring on a collective farm.

Tadeusz Kotlarz always wanted to return to Siberia to revisit the places of his memory, the places that still haunt his dreams. Now he has made that journey, and can relive his memories….

In 1940, one and a half million men, women and children from Eastern Poland classified as “undesirable” by the Soviet government, were deported at gunpoint into the forests of Siberia. Many of them perished. Those who survived were destined never to see their homeland again.

Anna Starcheva
Translated and adapted by
Ryszard Antolak.

© Dunskaya Pravda (Kotlas) July 2006

Dark Carousel

2006-07-22T21:01:00.000+01:00

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Sometimes the Future erupts into the Present in such a way that you cannot but take notice, even if you hardly understand what’s going on at the time. It’s almost as if you were being prepared in advance for some traumatic event in your life.

For example, one of the films which distressed me as an adolescent (and even more so also after I got married), was the musical blockbuster “Carousel”. Every time I watched it, I found myself weeping after the first fifteen minutes, something that became embarrassing, (and a great joke in my family). It puzzled me because Carousel radiates positive energy, warm sentiment and many feel-good factors that defy any inclination towards melancholia

For someone who spends many long evenings playing the piano alone, my first presumption was (naturally) that the musical score by Richard Rogers was to blame. Carousel possesses some very delicate and moving numbers: “When you walk through a storm”, “If I loved you”, “My boy Bill”, etc. Easily moved to tears by music, I presumed my emotions were being stirred by the songs. But then I finally bought myself a CD of the music and quickly realized that any emotive elements (for me at least) had to lie in the story.

Once removed from its scaffolding of infectious music, Carousel reveals a more sinister side. Based on the play “Liliom” by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar, it is about people on the fringes of society: outcasts, low-life, carnival characters. Molnar had experienced periods of domestic violence in his relationship with his wife which had eventually contributed to his marital break-up, and it during one of these periodical “flare-ups” that he had written his most famous play.

For those who don’t know it, Carousel is the story of a handsome carnival barker, Billy Bigelow (played by Gordon McCrae) who falls in love with a sweet innocent mill-worker called Julie Jordan (Shirley Jones). Although they both love one another, the marriage is a disaster.

The tragedy of Carousel is that the hero, (Billy Bigolow in the musical, Liliom in the original play) loves his wife but cannot communicate any of those feelings to her. He is an artist without an art; and is “unable” to work because “normal” work is beneath him. Everything he touches he destroys. Not because he wants to. He has to live everything at a distance. He wastes his time gambling, flirting, and making up big (unrealizable) plans. His basic requirements are attention and excitement. Faced with the prospect of a real love (Julie’s) he discovers he does not know what to do with it. He cannot bear her devotion, because beside her, his actions are revealed for the selfish deeds they are. So he vents out all his frustrations on his wife, beating her up periodically with his fists (which is understated in the Hollywood version). Julie, however, loves him in spite of the beatings and the bullying. With a child on the way, Billy agrees to take part in a robbery to obtain money to provide for his growing family. The attempt is bungled: he falls on his own knife and is killed. (In the original play he commits suicide in order to evade his responsibilities as a father, but the story had to be softened for the American market).

Once in Heaven, Billy refuses to admit his love for Julie, and shows no regret whatsoever for his actions.

Sixteen years later (after his death), he is allowed to return to earth for a single day to do some good there. He brings with him a star he has stolen from heaven, which he intends to give to his daughter whom he has never seen. She is now 16 years old, a pretty, but unhappy child who takes after her father. She does not recognize him when he arrives to speak to her. He offers her the Heavenly Star as a gift, but she refuses and asks him to go away. (Too much like her father, she cannot accept anything good). He insists that she take it, and when she continues to refuse, he lashes out at her in his frustration and slaps her (the only way he knows to gain attention).

The girl runs away to tell her mother: she has seen a man who has hit her hard, and yet (somehow) it did not hurt. “Is it possible”, she asks her mother, “for someone to hit you hard, and for it not to hurt at all?” Julie, intuiting what has happened, tells her daughter, “Yes. It is possible for someone to beat you, and beat you, and beat you – and not hurt you at all”. Now invisible, Billy whispers to his wife: "I loved you, Julie. Know that I loved you." And Julie, (somehow), hears him. She joins her daughter and the rest of the townsfolk in singing “You’ll never walk alone”, as Billy heads towards Heaven.

As it stands, the musical Carousel can be said to condone domestic violence. It says that it’s alright to beat up your partner as long as the victim loves you and forgives you continuously.

The ending motto of the play and the film are the same: that there is a violence that doesn’t hurt the victim: that domestic violence can be interpreted as a blind form of love; and that it can be forgiven, both here on earth and also in heaven..( Billy is, after all, redeemed not by any effort of his own, but by the “tear of Love” that comes into Julie’s eye on hearing her daughter’s story.).

Once you knock on the door of your own self, the answer you receive is seldom the one you expect. When I first saw Carousel many years ago, I identified with Billy Bigolow, the flawed hero: he had the best lines I thought, the most seductive songs. But it is Julie Jordan who is the real flawed heroine, putting up with her husband’s behaviour, rationalizing his brutal actions, returning his beatings with a Christian love.

Today I know it possible to love someone who beats and abuses you. I know this because I have done it. But whether this is “right” is a different kind of question.

© Ryszard Antolak

(picture: Bita Vakili)

News of the World

2006-05-01T22:41:00.002+01:00

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Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not...
(Shakespeare: The Tempest)

The sounds of wild geese woke me from my sleep and I rushed out (tangled bedcovers trailing behind me) to see them from the garden. It was barely dawn. Their calling filled the air with a lonely, mournful quality. I watched them for an eternity: elongated chains waving and flowing, breaking and forming, high above my head, over and over. Then, with the momentum of a dream, they passed away into the distance, shedding snatches of their song like petals. Long after they were gone, I was still listening after them; and the silence ached with the hollowness of their absence.

All things (even the apparently inanimate) have their voices. Language is not an exclusive human ability denied to the rest of Nature, but a vast field of meanings and intentions in which we live. Human language grows out of the world of which we are a part. We speak because the world speaks. Everything around us clamors to be heard.

In order to hear them properly it is necessary to give them room. A mental ascesis is required: a preparatory emptying of expectations and preconceptions. To listen (really listen) to another person, is to allow them (for a time) to live and breathe in us. Listening is not really “doing”, but “being”. All true listening is a kind of “loving”.

Our distant ancestors were acutely attentive to the many voices of Nature. But today, we are preoccupied with the voices inside our heads. Whenever natural scientists have attempted to read nature, they have done so in an abstract language whose purpose has been manipulation and control. They have plastered it with labels and conceptual filters which have prevented us from experiencing it directly with the senses unmodulated by reason. Instead of thinking about what we see and hear, we need to expose ourselves to it at first hand, innocently.

To lie in a dark room beside the body of the one you love, listening to the rhythms of her breathing, can be a life-changing experience. We emerge from it enlightened; but the knowledge we gain comes via channels eluding intelligence: through the pores of the skin, or the touch of a warm thigh, or the magic that is tangled in a woman’s hair. It cannot be adequately rationalized or verbally expressed. Medieval Persian philosophers called it “Ilm Hozoum” (“Presential Knowledge”), by which the knower’s soul illuminates the object of its attention, empowering it to reveal its true face. This illumination brings subject and object together in a brief but intense relationship of sympathy. “One reaches perfection only when cognition is lost in the object of cognition” wrote the philosopher Suhrawardi.

To truly meet another person, (or another thing) I must break out of my totality and open out to the unknown. One of the necessities of Love is to give the beloved room to be himself/herself (and not compell him/her to exist like a prisoner within the limits of my personal universe). What is true of persons is also true of objects: my task is to try to meet them on their own terms.

If we are to reclaim the world from abstraction, an aesthetic sensibility is called for. Art can make sense of the world, but only if the object of its attentions is experienced as a real presence and not an abstraction. Aesthesis implies perception of a universe we have not made. Aaesthetic experience is concerned with the indistinct, hazy moments before rational understanding begins, (before verbal revelation occurs), which the poet Keats termed “Negative Capability”:

As we begin to re-learn the intimate, aesthetic ways of listening, we will begin to hear the news from a Living World which canot be found in history (because it has not yet died). We may begin to catch glimpses of a Reality so alive and present that it has not yet had time to accumulate a past, and is for that reason elusive and slippery, unwilling to be named, unpredictable, wild and full of incomparable wonder and bright magic.

Ryszard Antolak

Gdzie nie posieją mnie

2006-03-19T10:46:00.000Z

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.

Gdzie nie posieją mnie - wyrosnę,
Nigdzie mnie niema, jestem wszędzie,
Na białym śniegu sadzę wiosnę
I wciąż śpiewają me łabędzie.

Jedyna prawda ma w kaprysie –
Choć ten sam – zawsze jestem inny,
Kocham me każde widzimisię
I żyję sobie wciąż dziecinny.

Tak długo w wino zmieniam wodę,
Aż mi się urwie ucho dzbanka,
Wtedy pić będę mą pogodę
Ja, uśmiech, traf i niespodzianka.

Kazimierz Wierzyński

February 10th

2006-02-11T07:34:00.001Z

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I am a child of Siberian exiles. Many of my ancestors are buried in the cold soil of that bleak land: all of them exiled against their will by a ruthless totalitarian state. Siberia is in my blood. Its winds blow loudly through my soul.

On this date in 1940, five members of my family, together with almost half a million other men, women and children, were forcibly taken from their homes at gunpoint, packed into cattle trains, and transported to the forced labour camps of northern Siberia and Kazakhstan. Their crime: that they were Polish citizens.

They were given no hint or warning of what was to come. The vast operation, carried out all over eastern Poland on a single night under cover of darkness and snow, had been prepared months in advance. It was first of four mass deportations of the population resulting in the incarceration on Russian soil of almost two million Polish citizens. They were taken away so no trace would ever remain of their language or their culture in the territories occupied in 1939 by the Soviet Union.

You are not likely to have heard any of this at school, or read about it in the mainstream history books. Britain, the US and the Soviet Union colluded together for almost 50 years to cover up, or obfuscate, the details of the crime. Even in (Soviet- dominated) Poland, until as recently as 1989, it was forbidden to refer to any part of this story.

All the arrests on that fateful night, February 10th 1940, followed a basic standard pattern. At four o’clock in the morning, when the whole family were asleep, a loud knock was heard at the door. Three or four soldiers entered, armed with pistols. They herded everyone (including children) into one room and put them up against the wall in their nightclothes. Meanwhile, the house was searched and an inventory made of all the family’s assets. They were then ordered to dress warmly and given fifteen minutes to gather together their belongings and prepare for what they were told was, “a long journey”.

It was snowing heavily outside. The temperature was minus 40 degrees. Two horse-driven sleighs stood waiting to transport them to the railway station. Once there, they were summarily loaded onto cattle wagons (thrust tightly in a standing position, one person next to another) like sardines. It was not uncommon for seventy people to be packed into each wagon, families with children. There was often no room to lie down, or even to sit.

In the centre of each cattle truck stood a small stove, the only source of heat. For ventilation, there was only a tiny window near the ceiling covered in masses of barbed wire. A rough hole in the floor served as a toilet. The doors of the wagon were padlocked loudly and not opened again for three days. Some of the children began to faint from lack of air and water. The men beat loudly against the doors in desperation, but to no avail. Finally, after four days, the train began its passage northwards to the frozen wastes of Siberia, a journey that was to take upwards of four weeks.

Many, however, did not survive to reach their intended destinations. The children were the first to succumb to the intense cold, the lack of air and the scarcity of food and water. Now and again, the train would stop at some abandoned station in the wilderness, and the doors unlocked to allow the passengers to dispose of their dead. The earth was frozen hard, and it was not possible to give them a proper burial. So they merely covered the bodies in a light sprinkling of snow, said a few prayers over them, and continued their journey northwards.
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The story of their exile, the miracle of their eventual release, and the desperate attempts by hundreds of thousands of them to cross Russia to freedom in Iran, is a subject too vast to outline here.

But few of those who managed to escape from Siberia ever saw their homes again. By a cruel twist of fate, their political destiny was sealed in Tehran in 1943. In November of that year, the leaders of Russia, Britain and the USA met in the Iranian capital to decide the fate of Post-war Europe. During their discussions (which were held in secret), the United States and Britain endorsed Stalin’s ethnic cleansing in eastern Poland. They decided to assign Poland to the zone of influence of the Soviet Union after the war. Poland would lose both its independence and its territorial integrity. The eastern part of the country, from which the exiles to Siberia had been originally expelled, would be incorporated wholesale into Stalin’s Soviet Union. The Polish government was not informed of the decision until years later, and felt understandably betrayed. 48,000 Polish soldiers would go on to lose their lives fighting for the freedom of (among others) the very nations whose governments had secretly betrayed them in Tehran, and later (in 1945) at Yalta.

February 10th does not mean anything to most people. But in some households such as mine, this date on the calendar can not be allowed to pass without solemn remembrance and reflection. Siberia is in our blood. Its winds blow coldly through our hearts.

(picture: Nikolai Getman)

Zielono Mam w Głowie

2006-02-06T16:22:00.000Z

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Zielono mam w głowie i fiołki w niej kwitną,
Na klombach mych myśli sadzone za młodu,
Pod słońcem, co dało mi duszę błękitną
I które mi świeci bez trosk i zachodu.

Obnoszę po ludziach mój śmiech i bukiety
Rozdaję wokoło i jestem radosną
Wichurą zachwytu i szczęścia poety,
Co zamiast człowiekiem, powinien być wiosną.

(K. Wierzyński)

Africa and Siberia

2006-02-05T19:10:00.000Z

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Two letters this morning in the post: two letters from opposite ends of the earth. Two places that resonate in me: Africa and Siberia.

I open the Kenyan one first. The handwriting is familiar. It is from an old friend who wants me to come to Nairobi this year to visit him. Once you have been to Africa, he tells me, you always need to return. And for once, he is right. My visit to the Serengeti three years ago changed me irrevocably; and I long to go back.

Imagine a Pacific Ocean of grass that stretches in every direction to the horizon; a landscape innocent of buildings, with no memory, no history, no man-made objects, hardly any trees. Past and Future have no meaning here. Forgetfulness flows in the breeze over waves of liquid grass. Everything is new, fresh, a green page waiting to be written on. The vastness of the sky and the surface of the earth meet one another face to face and cheek to jowl. Here the earth draws out all the airy philosophies of men and demolishes them, levelling and smoothing them to the conformity of the flat unending plain. With nothing to hold onto, no object to focus upon, the mind abandons all hope of redemption through words and disappears like camphor into the midnight air. I have a burning need to return to the Serengeti.

I next turn my attention to the other letter with its array of Russian stamps. It is written in a small, almost illegible hand and begins: “Expensive Ryszard...." I love such deliciously bad English, so I read on. Someone in Siberia has found an article I wrote about the Gulag system and would like some information. The irony does not escape me.

For those of us from Eastern Europe, Siberia is not just a geographical area: it symbolizes the oppression of millions of innocent men and women who died of cold, hunger, exhaustion and sickness in the work-camps of the north. Many of them were sent to their deaths without even a pretence of legal process or trial. Its soil contains the ashes of generations of my own ancestors.

I was brought up on tales about Siberia. My mother was barely fifteen when Russian soldiers broke into her house one night, ordered her downstairs and told her to dress warmly for a long journey. Snow was falling. It was the night of 10th February 1940. They gave her fifteen minutes to gather together her belongings and say goodbye to her childhood. Cattle-trucks were waiting at the railway station to take her (along with her whole family) to the forced labour camps of northern Siberia. The ordeal cast a shadow over her whole life.

Two letters on the same day. Africa and Siberia. Two landscapes that resonate and define the Geography of my heart.

(Picture: Bardia Haddadi)

Wojtek, the Soldier-Bear of Monte Cassino

2006-01-31T20:42:00.002Z

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After the Battle of Monte Cassino, one of the fiercest and bloodiest conflicts of the Second World War, many accounts emerged of the bravery and heroism of the soldiers. But perhaps the strangest story of all was of an Iranian brown bear who served alongside the allied soldiers in the worst heat of the battle. Despite the incessant bombardment and constant gunfire, the bear carried vital supplies of ammunition and food to his fellow-soldiers fighting on the mountainside. Many observers who witnessed his remarkable actions doubted the reality of what they were seeing. But the story was no legend

At the time of his death in 1964, he was the most famous bear in the world, visited by countless celebrities and adored by the international press. Books and articles were written about him, statues and plaques commemorated his actions. To the men of the 22nd Transport Company (Artillery Supply) however, he was merely “Voytek” a remarkable fellow soldier, and their beloved comrade.

He was born in the mountains of Hamadan, in one of the many caves to be found in that dusty mountainous area. At the age of eight weeks his mother was killed by a group of hunters, but he was rescued by a young Iranian boy who thrust him into a hempen sack and set off with him homeward along a narrow dusty path.

Iran at that time was going through one of the unhappier periods of her history. Occupied by the Russians and the British, her relations with the soldiers of those two countries were understandably tense and strained. In April 1942, however, Iran opened its arms to receive hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens (men, women and children) who had been released from the Soviet labour camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan. Having arrived at the port of Pahlevi (now Bandar-e Anzali), they were suffering from various diseases, including malnutrition, and had to be rested in the vast tented city hastily built for them on the shores of the Caspian. When they were well enough to travel, however, they were taken to more substantial military and civilian resettlement camps all over Iran.

Most of the civilians (women and children) were destined to remain as guests of Iran for up to three years. But the able-bodied men were almost immediately sent westwards to join the Polish forces in Lebanon. A long stream of covered trucks left Anzali daily carrying the future soldiers along the narrow twisted roads via Qazvin, Hamadan and Kermanshah to the borders of Iraq and beyond.

It was on one of the narrow mountain roads somewhere between Hamadan and Kangavar, that the trucks were brought to an abrupt halt by the sight of a small Iranian boy carrying a bulky sack. He looked tired and hungry, so the men offered him a billy-can of meat. And as he ate, they gasped in astonishment as the sack beside him began to move and the head of a honey-coloured bear cub emerged sleepily into the sunlight.

Although none of the men could understand Farsi, the boy was able to indicate by his actions that he had found the bear cub whimpering outside one of the caves, its mother having been shot by a hunter. The orphaned cub was in poor condition and it was almost certain he would not survive the day. One of the men, therefore, offered to buy the orphaned cub for a few toumans. Someone else fumbled for a bar of chocolate and a tin of corned beef to give him. Another took from his pocket an army penknife that opened up like a flower. The boy smiled, pocketed the offerings and disappeared forever from their lives.

A feeding bottle was hastily improvised from an empty bottle of vodka into which a handkerchief had been stuffed to serve as a teat. They filled it with condensed milk, diluted it with a little water, and gave it to the little bear to drink. When he had finished it, he crept up close to one of the soldiers for warmth and fell asleep on his chest. The soldier’s name was Piotr (Peter) and he became forever afterward, the bear’s closest and most enduring friend.

The cub clung desperately to his substitute mother all through the tortured journey across Persia, Iraq and Jordan, along vast distances that seemed to loose heart and succumb to the despair of barrenness. Sometimes the man would lock the bear in the warmth of his greatcoat so that it became part of him. In the evenings, as he sat with the other men around the fire telling tales late into the night, the bear cub would be rocked to sleep in the sound of his immense laughter. In time, the orphan lost himself in the lives of these strangers and entangled himself completely in the rhythms and cadences of their speech. From that time onwards he became wholly theirs: body, will and soul.

In this way, Voytek the Iranian brown bear from Hamadan entered the lives of the soldiers of the Second Polish Army Corps, transforming all their destinies.

In the months that followed, he won over the hearts of all who met him. The soldiers, who had all endured the horrors and hardships of Siberia, needed something in their lives to love, and the presence of Voytek was a wonderful tonic for their morale. Despite his brute strength, which grew day by day, he was always an amiable and a gentle giant. The soldiers treated him from the start as one of their own company and never as a pet. They shared their food with him, allowed him to sleep in their tents at night and included him in all their activities. If the unit was ordered to march out, he would march with them on two legs like a soldier. When they were being transported to some distant location, he would ride in the front seat of the jeeps (or transport wagons) to the great amazement of passers-by. More than anything, however, he loved to wrestle with the soldiers, taking on three or four of them at a time. Sometimes he was even gracious enough to allow them the courtesy of winning. Over the next few years, he shared all their fortunes, and went with them wherever they were posted throughout the Middle East. He grew to be almost six feet tall and weighed 500 pounds.

In early 1944, the men of Voytek’s unit were ordered embark for Italy to join the Allied advance on Rome. The British authorities gave strict instructions that no animals were to accompany them. The Poles therefore enrolled Voytek into the army as a rank-and-file member of their company and duly waved the relevant papers in front of the British officers on the dockside at Alexandria. Faced with such impeccable credentials, the British shrugged their shoulders and waved the bear aboard. In this way, Voytek the Iranian bear became an enlisted soldier in the 22nd Transport Division (Artillery Supply) of the Polish 2nd Army Corps.

Monte Cassino was the strategic key to the allied advance on Rome. Three bloody attempts by the British, Americans, Indians, French and New Zealanders to dislodge the enemy from the famous hill-top monastery had failed. In April 1944, the Polish forces were sent in. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Much of the fighting was at close quarters. The shelling, which continued night and day without interval, scarred and cratered the landscape until it resembled the pock-marked surface of the moon.

During the most crucial phase of the battle, when pockets of men were cut off on the mountainside desperately in need of supplies, Voytek, who all this time had been watching his comrades frantically loading heavy boxes of ammunition, came over to the trucks, stood on his hind legs in front of the supervising officer and stretched out his paws toward him. It was as if he was saying: “I can do this. Let me help you”. The officer handed the animal the heavy box and watched in wonder as Voytek loaded it effortlessly onto the truck. Backwards and forwards he continued, time and time again, carrying heavy shells, artillery boxes and food sacks from truck to truck, from one waiting man to another, effortlessly. The deafening noise of the explosions and gunfire did not seem to worry him. Each artillery box held four 23 lbs live shells; some even weighed more than a hundred. He never dropped a single one. And still he went on repeatedly, all day and every day until the monastery was finally taken. One of the soldiers happened to sketch a picture of Voytek carrying a large artillery shell in his arms, and this image became the symbol of the 22nd artillery transport, worn proudly on the sleeves of their uniforms ever afterwards and emblazoned on all the unit’s vehicles.

Now famous, he completed his tour of duty in Italy and when the war was over, he sailed the Polish Army to exile in Scotland. Here, once again, he found himself a celebrity. In Glasgow, people lined the streets in their thousands to catch sight of the famous soldier-bear marching upright in step with his comrades.
Voytek’s last days, however, were steeped in sadness. In 1947, the Polish army in Scotland was demobilized and a home had to be found for him to live out his retirement.

Although he was world-famous, the bear of Monte Cassino was forced to spent his last years behind bars in Edinburgh’s Zoological gardens. Artists came to sketch him and sculptors to make statues of him. Sometimes his old army friends arrived to visit him, leaping over the barriers to wrestle and play with him in the bear enclosure (to the utter horror of all the visitors and zoo officials). But he did not take well to captivity, and as the years passed, he increasingly preferred to stay indoors, refusing to meet anyone.

I was lucky enough to see him just before his death in 1963. He was sitting at the back of his large enclosure, silent and immobile. It was said that he was sulking, angry at being abandoned by those he had loved. Others said he was merely showing the symptoms of old age. None of the shouts from his assembled visitors seemed to catch his attention. But when I called out to him in Polish, something seemed to stir in him at last, and he turned his head towards me as if in recognition.

He died in Edinburgh at the age of 22 on 15th November 1963. A plaque was erected in his memory by the zoo authorities. Statues of him were placed in the Imperial War Museum in London and in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. But although he had entered the pages of military history, the Iranian soldier-bear of Monte Cassino would have preferred to remain in the company of the soldiers with whom he had shared five years of war and countless memories of devoted companionship.

© Ryszard.Antolak
antolak@blueyonder.co.uk

Precz z moich oczu

2006-01-15T20:41:00.009Z

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Order me out of your sight.......and I'll obey at once.
Order me out of your heart...... and the heart will do as you ask.
But order me out of your memory.....No!
Neither my memory, nor yours, will comply.

(Adam Mickiewicz 1823)

translated from the Polish
by Ryszard Antolak

Precz z moich oczu!... posłucham od razu,
Precz z mego serca!... i serce posłucha,
Precz z mej pamięci!... nie tego rozkazu
Moja i twoja pamięć nie posłucha.

Jak cień tym dłuższy, gdy padnie z daleka,
Tym szerzej koło żałobne roztoczy, -
Tak moja postać, im dalej ucieka,
Tym grubszym kirem twą pamięć pomroczy.

Na każdym miejscu i o każdej dobie,
Gdziem z tobą płakał, gdziem się z tobą bawił,
Wszędzie i zawsze będę ja przy tobie,
Bom wszędzie cząstkę mej duszy zostawił.

Czy zadumana w samotnej komorze
Do arfy zbliżysz nieumyślną rękę,
Przypomnisz sobie: właśnie o tej porze
Śpiewałam jemu tę samę piosenkę.

Czy grają w szachy, gdy pierwszymi ściegi
Śmiertelna złowi króla twego matnia,
Pomyślisz sobie: tak stały szeregi,
Gdy się skończyła nasza gra ostatnia.

Czy to na balu w chwilach odpoczynku
Siędziesz, nim muzyk tańce zapowiedział,
Obaczysz próżne miejsce przy kominku,
Pomyślisz sobie: on tam ze mną siedział.

Czy książkę weźmiesz, gdzie smutnym wyrokiem
Stargane ujrzysz kochanków nadzieje,
Złożywszy książkę z westchnieniem głębokiem,
Pomyślisz sobie: ach! to nasze dzieje...

A jeśli autor po zawiłej probie
Parę miłośną na ostatek złączył,
Zagasisz świecę i pomyślisz sobie:
Czemu nasz romans tak się nie zakończył?...

Wtem błyskawica nocna zamigoce:
Sucha w ogrodzie zaszeleszczy grusza
I puszczyk z jękiem w okno zalopoce...
Pomyślisz sobie, że to moja dusza.

Tak w każdym miejscu i o każdej dobie,
Gdziem z tobą płakał, gdziem się z tobą bawił,
Wszędzie i zawsze będę ja przy tobie,
Bom wszędzie cząstkę mej duszy zostawił.

(Note: Chopin used this text for one of his most haunting songs).

Ty przychodzisz jak noc majowa

2006-01-08T21:58:00.000Z

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Ty przychodzisz jak noc majowa...
Biała noc, noc uśpiona w jaśminie...
I jaśminem pachną twe słowa...
I księżycem sen srebrny płynie...
Kocham cię...
*
Nie obiecuję ci wiele...
Bo tyle co prawie nic...
Najwyżej wiosenną zieleń...
I pogodne dni...
Najwyżej uśmiech na twarzy...
I dłoń w potrzebie...
Nie obiecuję ci wiele...
Bo tylko po prostu siebie...
*
Jak powietrze.
Jak dziurę w starym swetrze.
Jak drzewo na polanie...
Po prostu kocham cię... kochanie.
*
Czy pozwolisz, ze ci powiem...
W wielkim skrócie i milczeniu...
Że ci oddam i otworzę...
W ciszy serc, w potoków lśnieniu...
Słowa dwa przez sen porwane...
Przez noc ukryte... przez czas schwytane...
Słowa dwa, co brzmią jak śpiew,
dwa proste słowa....kocham cię.

Boleslaw Lesmian

(Obraz: Reza Haddadi))