I left San Francisco Wednesday afternoon and flew into London’s Heathrow airport. After a brief layover and change of planes I waived goodbye to the UK and flew on to Warsaw. This shot was taken somewhere over Poland. Honestly, I’m not sure what you can see below. Perhaps a native can tell me what I saw from the air.
I may have left San Francisco Wednesday, but I didn’t arrive in Warsaw until Thursday night. Something about a 9 hour time difference and 10+ hours of flying means you get to skip most of a day. The good news (I think it’s good news) is that you gain it when you fly back again. I’ll let you know what I think about that after I battle jet lag. As for jet lag on this end, I’m doing fine today. Hopefully I’ve hit the ground running.
This morning Cathy and I took a stroll from our neighborhood to the Royal Ĺazienki Park. The park is the largest in Warsaw, occupying 76 hectares at the city’s center. It has lovely landscaping, trees, flowers, and even a lake with a bridge! Needless to say there’s not a water shortage in Warsaw like in California.
Then this afternoon we had lunch with Slawomir Grunberg before heading off to Stare Miasto (old town, although rebuilt after the war) to film an interview with Yagna Yass Alston. Yagna is, among many things, an art historian whose specialty is Jewish art collectors from Krakow during the interwar years. Our paths have crossed online a number of times over the last several years and Yagna has helped me in a number of ways, but before today we had never actually met. It was delightful to meet Yagna and sit on a sun drenched park bench to talk about Holocaust era looted art, Polish art history, provenance research, restitution issues, and my quest for my great-grandfather’s lost paintings.
Tonight we are headed to the Polin museum to attend the opening ceremony of the Jewish Motiff’s International Film Festival. On Sunday Slawomir’s, Karski: The Lords of Humanity, is showing in the festival. I have seen an earlier version of the film, so am eager to see the final cut. If you don’t know anything about Karski and can’t get to a showing of the film, Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World by Jan Karski. Karski was part of the Polish underground – he witnessed and reported to Allied officials the first news of genocide. There are episodes of espionage, brutality, and escape. His story is so very important.
Tomorrow- an interview and more Moshe Rynecki paintings held in a private collection.