Last day

This last day has been an emotional one.

Emma and Lucy at "Coffee Heaven"

We met up with a good friend of Dorit's, Lucy Gold, a Jewish woman from Bialystok who has been very active in preserving and commemorating Jewish culture and life throughout Poland.  To give you some idea of her standing and the importance of her work, she is invited every year to the July 4th celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw (which is where she was, watching fireworks, while Emma and I were eating pizza in Gdansk!).  Lucy has so many good memories of Dorit--and she was so delighted to meet Emma.  She kept breaking into laughter, for example when she remembered Dorit ordering wine, lots of wine, at a restaurant when she visited Poland once . . . One of her more recent projects has been to involve groups of students in restoring the Jewish cemetery in Bialystok.

Our visit to the National Library has been scheduled and re-scheduled several times now, but we have finally made it!  We invited Lucy to come with us, and I'm so glad she did.

The reason for the trip was to see the Codex Suprasliensis, a manuscript from the 11th century in Church Slavonic that is on Unesco's Memory of the World list.  http://www.archiwa.gov.pl/memory/sub_listakrajowa/index.php?va_lang=en&fileid=001  The National Library of Poland considers it the most valuable item in its holdings--it's a national treasure.  

Notice the armed guard in the back.

The Codex has led a checkered past.  In the 19th century, it was divided into 3 parts, with the largest part in Poland. Like so many valuable treasures, it was "acquired" by the Nazis in WWII and somehow it disappeared . . .  In 1967 it surfaced again, and here's where the family connection comes in.  A shady character showed up at Harvard with the MS in tow, wanting to sell it for $20,000.  For various practical and ethical reasons, Harvard declined the offer, but they did ultimately contact Shepard Stone, American journalist, diplomat, and administrator of the Ford Foundation, who put them in touch with Herbert Moeller.  Moeller agreed to purchase the manuscript for the requested price and then turned around and gave the Codex to the Polish government.  I'm told he felt it was the crowning achievement in his life. And Herbert Moeller was Emma's great-grandfather.

Dorit herself had seen the MS, and I know it was a wish of hers that Emma would see it, too.  I'm very grateful that I got to be part of this adventure.

The manuscript itself is written in a strong hand without elaborate decorations, and it's on parchment of middling quality.  It was probably created for everyday use (it contains sermons and saints' lives for the month of March).

We were in a locked room with an armed guard.  The codex came out of a locked metal box.  Only the woman with the white gloves--from the conservation department--was allowed to touch the Codex.

I found it incredible and moving to be looking at something so old and so central to Slavic cultural heritage.  And what's even better ... there are doodles in the margins!  Little scribbllings and pictures that don't mean anything, and one marginal note that basically says "I pray to the Lord that I will learn how to write."  So human.

Much of what I know about the story of the Codex I learned through an article in Harvard Magazine back in the 1990s.  When we were leaving for Poland, Emma's dad gave me a copy of that issue to give to the libary.  The librarians had already acquired a photocopy of the article, but they did not have a copy of the magazine.  They were delighted to get it.

As seen from the Ministry of Magic ... our hotel is the building to the right.

Emma up at the top of the Ministry of ... er, the Palace of Culture.

After visiting the library, Emma, Lucy, and I walked for a while until we found ourselves at the gargantuan Palace of Culture, a generous gift from the Soviet government.  (For some reason, I can't help referring to it as the Ministry of Magic--it's so looming and out of place ...)

After that, Lucy took us to lunch at a restaurant serving Jewish food near the Nozyk Synagogue, which we visited next.  The Synagogue is still in use--we saw the parts of a chuppah that had been set up for a wedding a few days earlier.  (At one point, a man mysteriously walked up to the bimah and put his watch on it.  We were all puzzled.  Lucy chased him down and asked what he was doing.  He said something about compensation ...)  It's a beautiful space, but from up in the balconies where the women must sit during prayers, we could see what looked like trash (e.g. Corona boxes) stashed up behind the Ark.   There's a lot of work to do.

I'm glad Lucy took us there.  Emma and I had walked around this part of Warsaw in our first few days here, but we didn't find the entrance to the Synagogue--and now I know why.  It's completely nondescript.

From Lucy's descriptions and from what I've read, it sounds as though more Jewish people from the U.S., Europe, and Israel are visiting Poland--but very few still live here.  The Jewish restaurant had a few Jewish patrons, but it was mostly people from surrounding office just there for a good lunch.

It's been quite a day.  Emma is now sacked out (once again) and I'm celebrating our wonderful trip to Poland with a half-bottle of very overpriced white wine from the minibar.

(More pictures of Warsaw here.)

The Nozyk Synagogue

Inside the Synagogue:  a machine that dispenses coffee, tea, chocolate ... and chicken soup!