Day 3 - Reading

Finished Dead Souls and loved the conversation in Part 2 between Chichikov and the General.  'What's he writing a book about?'  'Generals.'  'Generals?  What kind of book about generals?  A general book about generals or a book with portraits of individual generals or a book about the generals of 1812?' 'The generals of 1812.'  In a book shop near the university, we bought Absurdistan and a book of conversations between Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said - I'm now reading the latter.

Day 3 - Random Conversation

This takes place in a travel agency which has the word 'Bialarus' on the window in big white letters.  A woman is sitting at the far end of the darkened interior.
Nick: Do you speak English?
Woman: shakes head.
Kate (in Russian): Do you speak Russian?
Woman: nods head.  Rest of conversation in Russian.
Kate: Do you have any information about Belarus?
Woman: No.  We have no information about Belarus.  [Relenting slightly.] What is it you want to know?
Kate: Do you have a map of Minsk?
Woman: No.  [Pause] Try a map shop.
Kate: Where is such a shop?
Woman: shrugs.

Day 3 - Jewish Warsaw

Today we went to the Nozyk Synagogue (which actually survived the Second World War) and the Zydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute Museum).  The latter had a film showing images of suffering in the ghetto so sickening that it was almost unbearable to watch - in all my time of studying war representation, I haven't seen anything like it.  Not much to say except that, oddly, I found most poignant of all the information that the autumn of 1942 was particularly beautiful.