Travelogue Part 2

Re-traumatised myself on a Jewish tour.

More joy, less vey?

I have come to what turns out not to be a musical instrument museum, but which has a massive exhibition of one of the national composers of Lithuania.

He dates from the early 20th, century, so this is a project of looking backwards for hope, maybe? I don't know. This isn't my period, but I don't think he's internationally known and all the text is in Lithuanian.

There is however one room playing a recording that sounds quite original and which is very nice.

Čiurlionio is the composer but I can't figure out the name of the orchestral piece. It sounds a bit spectralist. Edit: it might be called Psalmė

[In a bow tie shop. A couple comes in.]

Clerk, to woman: Wow, your glasses, necklace and earrings are amazing.

Me, realising the bow ties are ruinously expensive and leaving: Wow, she's right about your glasses.

Man: You sound like a native anglophone.

Me: Yes.

Man: That's Prue, host of the Great British Bakeoff

Me: What, really?

I don't watch GBBO because its kind of vegan hostile tbh, but I did not share this….

I hope she enjoys having her fame pointed out to others.

[At another Jewish museum]

Instructional sign: Please take a stone to leave at the memorial to murdered Jewish Children.

Me: I might just skip this part.

Why are so many memorials being constructed specifically now, especially in places like the Baltics?

My speculative answers:

1. They reflect the funding priorities of international granting organisations, some of which comes from things like Americans looking back to the stories of their great grandparents and some of which reflects a desire to do something about growing antisemitism. Conventional wisdom is that Holocaust education is an effective way to counter hate.

2. As the survivors die of old age, there is an urgent need to institutionalise their memories.

3. The perpetrators, the majority of whom were not German but local, are safely dead.

4. Germany is a major source of funding for Shoah memorial projects and is also a key military ally of the Baltics. The Baltic states do not have the resources to fight Russia without help and NATO is not currently reliable. This gives Germany a lot of soft power to advance its cultural projects, even if they expose uncomfortable history, especially if the perpetrators are all dead and are not considered to be at all patriotic or heroic.

5. Jewish cultural priorities are often actively trauma-seeking. The reasons for this are various and complex, but also just, like, go read 'Maus'.

At a heaving church for a concert with a koto and girls in traditional Lithuanian dress.

But first a welcome speech from the Japanese ambassador.

It is a concert lecture wherein after the first piece, the shakihatchu player explains the instrument's technical details in Japanese, which is translated sentence by sentence into Lithuanian.

He is showing off timbres and scales.

I have never been to a more crowded concert.

Spouse: I thought you wanted to do the Oy Vey tour.

Me: No, I just want to do Jewish history tours, but they keep being wall to wall trauma.

Spouse: Oh.

Me:

Spouse: Because we are going to be very near Auschwitz in a few days…

Me: No

Skipping the 20 minute pre-recorded audio meditation on contemplating my own eventual decomposition.

Spouse dropped her phone in the toilet (the room, not the bowl) next to the cemetery exhibit. Somebody brought it to the café next door.

Celebratory vegan cake all around.