Arriving in Gdansk, I was terribly eager to process the data from the Jewish Historical Institute. I had no time to update the family tree and translate birth certificates during my stay with Pawel. On my rainy walk from the train station to the hostel, I took note of the beautiful architecture. However, all I could really think about was updating the tree. I told myself that I can work on genealogy until the rain stops, then I must walk around the town. I would do the walking tour the next morning.
I napped upon arrival in the hostel. I would wait for the rain to stop and then walk through the old town on my own. Besides, it would be cooler outside after the rain. I found the old city of Gdansk to be quite beautiful. It lived up to the hype
The next day, I went back to the old city to have a traditional Polish lunch of potato pancakes. The meal was completely satisfying. I was finding Polish food to be reminiscent of home and also incredibly delicious. The recipes tasted eerily familiar and I was considerably confused about all of the years of hating Jewish and liking some of Sabta’s food but not really knowing where it came from. The myth of secret Jewish food was slipping away from my fingertips. I was not trying to grasp for it. I was rather pleased to know that it comes from a real place and that many, many other people enjoy this cuisine. I headed over to the main gate of the old city of Gdansk to choose between the two free walking tours offered that day.
The two tour guides introduced themselves and and explained that one tour would be of the old city and the other would be about the communist era. I figured that because I had seen the entire old city already, it would be a great opportunity to learn about a more recent Poland; one that isn’t all World War II. I think I made a good choice here. The tour educated me about the Solidarity/Solidarnosz movement that was the trigger for the new Polish democracy. Solidarnosz would come up again later in Krakow and Lublin and I’m glad I got to see the shipyard where the big protests took place. I started feeling a bit more connected to Poland at this point. I felt like I understood the post-war struggle for freedom and the frustrations with hunger and deprivation from the Russians. I understood the yearning for true independence. I certainly understood the cuisine.
Later that evening, I was doing more genealogy research and trying to identify my last name in Cyrillic cursive on some old Polish birth certificates I found on JRI. This rather interesting older lady named Susan joined me at the table in the hostel. She told me a little bit about herself. She was a Polish native from Warsaw but had moved to Sweden many years ago. I told her about my genealogy mission. I did not want everything in my Poland experience to be about being Jewish. Talking about Judaism in Poland is a heavy topic. It can also potentially be risky because to me, it is a very sensitive subject. To many others: it’s the past and we are better off focusing on the future. I certainly did not want my mission to be dismissed by anyone. I did not disclose to Susan that I was Jewish. She asked me if I was Jewish maybe a minute later. When Polish people ask me that, I casually respond with the same question. This time, she showed me her Kabbalah bracelet with dangling Stars of David. I said, “Oh wow, you grew up here and you had to leave Warsaw… was that in 1968?” She responded, “We all have a story.” I never did find out exactly why her family left Poland but I don’t think I need much of an imagination.
She helped me translate some Russian documents, including the word for “page”/”stranitza” and “record”/”akta”. She told me she was checking out of the hostel but if I wanted to meet her tomorrow for an old city walking tour guided by her, she would be glad to show me Gdansk. I told her I wanted to see Sopot as well and she got excited and told me she’d be glad to take me there as well and show me around.
Susan and I walked through the old city and she showed some stuff I had already seen. The weather was getting dreary and we started walking our way to the port. She asked me if I had seen the WWII museum and I had not. She also asked me if I would be interested in seeing the Jazz concert with her the next evening and I let her know I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying in Gdansk.
We went to the WWII museum which had free admission that day. It is an architectural masterpiece. It is stark. The colors are dark. The mood is depressing. It is built entirely underground, like a giant bunker. The narrative is fair, in my opinion. The Holocaust section is striking, depressing and graphic. The entire museum layout and storytelling experience is remarkable. The only problem is that it ruins your day and you really feel like you need a hug afterwards. Susan was not the person to be giving hugs. She wanted to rattle off some conspiracy theories about how the war was planned beforehand, I’m sure parts of that are true. She was insistent that I see the Holocaust section, as if I needed to learn more about this… it did not seem that she really understood me and she seemed to be on a mission to educate me about Polish history. She did not hear me that I wanted to learn about today’s Poland. We left the museum in a state of shock. We split up after discussing visiting Sopot together the next day.
We met again, this time I was only 10 minutes late. I accidentally walked passed the entrance to the train station and further underground to the bus station. Oops. The ride to Sopot was simple. She taught me some Polish consonant blends based on the crazy names of the stations we passed. She seemed to start picking up that I was interested in Polish language and started commenting that I was learning quickly. We arrived in Sopot and we noted the ultramodern architecture of the train station. She began complaining that this was an entirely new structure and she really disliked it because it made no effort to fit into the historical architectural style. It had no relation to the city at all, in her mind. As we left the train plaza, I noticed a two-story building off to the side with a whole bunch of menorahs in the second floor window. The building looked like it could have been a synagogue. I was shocked by it, I thought it had better be a Jewish history museum but if it was, why would they put old religious antiques in the window? I figured we would pass on by but then we came across a sign pointing us to the building. The sign advertised the restaurant “Bagazownia” or “baggage” as in “luggage”. It is a luggage-themed restaurant serving Jewish cuisine. The luggage theme is meant to complement the theme of Jewish people moving. Susan and I were reading this sign together. I was in complete shock. I could not fucking believe what I was reading. How could someone think this would be a good idea. She said let’s go see the restaurant. I knew this was not going to be a good idea. There were two waiters outside the restaurant on a cigarette break. There were no customers inside. At the front of the restaurant was a cardboard cutout of a Hassidic man holding a luggage bag that says “Anatevka to Lodz”, referencing the fictional town from Fiddler On The Roof that the family was kicked out of. The face of the Hassidic man was cut out, but the payes and black hat were still on there. You can poke your head through the hole and take a picture, like in an amusement park. In the inside of the restaurant are Hassidic Rabbinical puppets all with black hats and payes perched on the ledges of the various ballustrades of the space. There were random shabbat candles and menorahs as well. I asked Susan to ask the waiters what the fuck this place was. She asked them in Polish. The male waiter responded that the chef is Jewish and it’s his restaurant. I had had enough. There are no Jewish restaurant owners in Sopot. Maybe this chef had some Jewish background but no Jewish person would open a Jewish-themed Applebees and expect to be respected. We walked away from the restaurant and my day was ruined from that point on. We did the touristic things: we tried the magical spring water. We ended up walking along the beach and getting really great seafood for an amazing price. I learned how to say “salmon”/losos. I could not get this fucking stupid restaurant out of my mind.
My first thought was that the restaurant was purposefully antisemitic: fuck the Jews, they are gone. Here’s a funny restaurant making fun of how they were kicked out. Then I decided to look up the reviews on TripAdvisor. It seems that the menu serves Jewish-style food and has wine from the Golan Heights. All of the reviews were from Polish families seemingly on vacation in Sopot. They all commented on the beauty of the decor and the quality of the food. They liked it. Then I realized: Polish people who are making a decision while they are on vacation to go to a Jewish-themed restaurant are not antisemites. They actually probably think they are doing a good thing but supporting something associated with Jews. They probably think they are having some sort of nostaligic or authentic Jewish experience. They are not antisemites. They just do not know any better. There are no Jews really living in Poland (I think the number is at 10,000).
I brought the restaurant topic up at the seafood place by the beach. I told Susan I was really upset by what we saw even though I know that the intention was not hateful, it just seemed so thoughtless. She said that is exactly what it was. It was thoughtless and insensitive and certainly offensive but the intention was just to open a restaurant, plain and simple. Best not to overthink it. I was so upset by this. I felt blind-sided. I went from experiencing all of this love and support from Pawel and his family friends. I remembered the Polish backpackers I had met in Mexico: Agnieszka in Oaxaca and the grandpa in San Cristobal. They helped show me that there were good Polish people who understood Judaism to some extent. This “baggage restaurant” showed me that there are also people who think of Jews as dead. Jews are nostalgia and kitsch. The racist Hassidic elements would never fly in the context of US racism. An ethnic themed restaurant with random trinkets and puppets of blacks or Asians would not go over well. It would cause protests, actually. I accepted that it was not fair to judge Polish racism in the same lens as US racism. They are different places. At the same time, I saw quite clearly how lacking Polish people are in their understanding of what racism and antisemitism are really all about. I knew it was not fair for me to judge my new Polish friends based on this stupid restaurant but of course I wondered: would Pawel go to this restaurant? What would he think?
I left Susan after the seafood. She bought be ice cream and I thanked her and I headed to the train station to then go back to the hostel to get my stuff and then go back to the bus station to get on a bus to Wroclaw. I wanted to get out of Sopot quickly. The baggage restaurant really killed me