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Friday, September 4, 2020

From London to Poland and Treblinka - in the film Song of Names and What You See

Flag of Poland.

Flag of Yemen.


I saw two great films on Singapore Airlines -  Ten Days Before the Wedding; The Song of Names

In The Song of Names, the hero, some would say anti-hero, is the Jewish musical, violin-playing prodigy.

Plot Spoiler For Song of Names
He comes to London before WWII, loses his family in Treblinka in WWII, fails to turn up to his debut concert in London and goes to live in New York as an Orthodox Jew.

I was brought up in London post-war and am writing from there now.

This post is about how the film inspired my research into Poland and Treblinka. I have not been to Treblinka. I have been to Dachau near Munich in Germany and Auschwitz in Poland.

London
In the old days. Boys freewheeling on bikes. Milk in bottles.

Poland

Treblinka
Just large stones and small museum.
Good if you have ancestors/family who died there or are travelling through Poland north of Warsaw.
A double camp. One area was for workers, the other for instant death on arrival, with the area for those who could walk to their death point, and the area where the invalids were carried to be killed.
Shown in the film Song of Names. Second largest numbers of murdered civilians died in this area.

Auschwitz
Near Krakow
(See later post.

Warsaw
Current Capital.
Jewish Museum.
Lots of Holocaust stories, such as the head of the orphanage who was offered safe passage out when the children were being transported, but chose to accompany them on their final journey and died with them.
(See next post.)

Handy Websites
Wikivoyage has a Holocaust section with a useful summary of major camps and holocaust museums in each country, brief account of what to see and how tourists might feel after visiting, Croatia, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, USA. (Does not mention the places to visit in the UK, including Jewish Museums in London and elsewhere. Incidentally, Anne Frank's father after WWII went to live in Edgware, NW London, where I walked up and down the high street never knowing he lived around the corner.)
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Holocaust_remembrance

https://www.britannica.com/place/Treblinka

Read the reviews on Tripadvisor to gain insights into the place and other people's views of history.
totally different from Auschwitz. Just huge stones. Eerie. Chilling. You see it in the film.

One comment reveals that the entrance to the killing hall at Treblinka was designed not to look like a bathhouse but like a synagogue. As the commentator says, evil.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and Photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

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