From Holocaust Journey (Martin Gilbert, 1997) p281-2, at Majdanek.
DAY 10 LUBLIN-WARSAW 281
10.42 a.m.
We leave Field I and walk slowly towards the administration building. A group of young Poles pass us, laughing and larking. The young men have shaven heads and are wearing braces. The young girls are in short skirts. One is holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in silver foil. One of the young men is in battle fatigue trousers with his braces hanging down. One of the girls is wearing black hot pants.
Ben engages the youngsters in conversation. They are local schoolchildren. The boys are studying structural engineering in the local technical school They are they say, the true ‘skinheads’, not the ‘hooligans’ who give Lublin a bad name. They have come here to visit the Catholic cemetery which has been built on a part of the former camp area. They want to lay the flowers on the grave of one of their gang, who was killed in a gang fight with the ‘hooligans’. Their friend was wearing the Polish eagle symbol which is their badge, and which all the young men are wearing on their T-shirts. Their friend was killed by the ‘hooligans’. He was twenty-seven years old.
Their motto they say, is ‘Poland for the Poles’ Their friend was killed by ‘punks’, by ‘anarchists’. They themselves are the only true skinheads, and their goals are clear. ‘We have problems with Gypsies, Japanese and Roumanians,’ they tell us. ‘Jews aren’t a problem either – there aren’t any. The Jewish cemetery in Markuszow was desecrated recently. That wasn’t us. That was done by the “anarchists”, not by us. We are skinheads.’
Caroline comments: ‘We are lucky that there are no Gypsies in our group.’
They become eloquent in their own defence. ‘Not every skinhead is a Fascist. We went to Auschwitz to pay our respects to the Poles who were killed there, or rather, we wanted to go – it was billed as a Skinhead Festival – but weren’t allowed. But we are Poles. Why should we not be allowed to Auschwitz? Jews are allowed.
‘There are a lot of skinheads here in Lublin. We are generally against the foreigners who come to the city. But we aren’t against the Jews. There are not so many. We are nationalists. We are real skinheads. It is the pseudo-skinheads who are the Fascists. We are against Hitler. We have not painted up any swastikas on the walls.’
They listen attentively, and bemused, as Ben recites a saying he remembers from his childhood days:
Who are you?
I am a little Polish boy
What is your sign?
Ben pauses. Without hesitation, and with a little grin, one of the girls finishes the refrain for him: ‘The White Eagle.’ It is an incredible connection across time.
11.15 a.m.
We board the bus and drive out of the camp and along the main road back into Lublin. From the main road the whole camp is laid out in front of us, below us. The crematorium chimney is a dark finger on the horizon.
11.17 a.m.
We pass on the left the original gatehouse that led into the camp from the west. Just beyond it was the commandant’s house (from which the gas chamber at the entrance to the camp was visible).
11.30 a.m.
We reach the Hotel Unia, at No. 12 Raclawickie Avenue. Here we will rest, have a drink, and prepare for Mike’s walking tour. I buy a detailed street map of Lublin, as well as Andrzej Trzcinski’s extremely informative A Guide to Jewish Lublin and Surroundings, and his book The Traces of Monuments of Jewish Culture in the Lublin Region. The book is good, but it has an odd error: it explains that Jewish boys are circumcised on the first Saturday after their thirteenth birthday. It is in fact on the eighth day after their birth. A curious error, considering that Jews lived in the Lublin district for so many centuries. Caroline raises her eyebrows. It seems that not as much of their culture and ritual seeped through as might have done.
12.12 p.m.
We leave the hotel. Mike’s wife Barbara (Basia) sings a Parczew partisan song. Robin records it on his tape recorder:
In the Parczew forest
Under the pine trees
When the trees are blossoming
A young soldier
Rests in a grave
Far from where his family is
And his native land.
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