In fact, there was hardly anyone there. We knew what train we wanted from 'The Baltics & Russia Through the Back Door' and verified this on the schedule. And a good thing, too, since no one spoke English. So we wrote the date, train number, and 'Vilnius->Ryga' down and handed it to the clerk. She asked, 'Dva?' and we said, 'Dva,' pointing to both of us and then making a pillow with our hands and putting our heads on it to gesture 'sleeper' (since the word in Lithuanian in the 'Lonely Planet' guide didn't seem to be understood). And sure enough, we got two sleeper tickets for 51.07 Lt each (US$12.75). This is quite a bit more than the 'Lonely Planet' guide said (though that book didn't list the sleeper price). In general, prices seem to be about four to six times what the latest (March 1994) 'Lonely Planet' guide says: 20 cento versus 4 centai for trolleys, 6 Lt versus 1.5 Lt for a menu item, etc. Things are still cheap compared to home, but certainly not as cheap as India (our last trip). And Scandinavia will probably be more than at home. (It was.)
We then proceeded to the bus station where we discovered we had just missed one bus to Kaunas, and would have to wait fifty minutes for the next. Still, for this wait we got to sit down instead of standing in a queue, so we still came out ahead anyway. It is funny to see the ticket seller getting your ticket consulting a computer terminal, then figuring the ticket cost on an abacus. The cost for the two-hour ride was 4.70 Lt (US$1.20) each.
It turned out to be not a bus but a small van, so the ride actually took less than two hours. The woman next to Evelyn is reading a book from her purse. Mark sounds out the Cyrillic on the cover: 'Earl Stanley Gardner.' The driver has a bunch of stickers on the dashboard, including one blaming gays for AIDS.
The ride was over very good (and almost empty) roads, through countryside that the books describe as 'rolling,' with forests and fields. In the fields we saw horse-drawn machinery as well as people cultivating by hand.
In Kaunas we established what the return times were by writing 'Vilnius ishvykata?' on a piece of paper and passing it to the woman at the information desk. Then we went through our usual drill--we bought trolley tickets, then realized what we needed were autobus tickets (they're the same in Vilnius, but two different companies here), and then we stood at the wrong bus stop before finding the right one. Eventually, however, we got on the correct bus, number 45.
Now, the 'Lonely Planet' guide says, 'Bus no. 45 goes to the Ninth Fort.' Wrong! Bus no. 45 goes as close as any bus, but 'to' is hardly accurate. A better description would be, 'Take bus no. 45 up Zhemaiciu plentas. It will turn left and drive around a large cluster of apartment buildings. Get off on the third side (Baltiu prospektas) and continue in the direction of the bus to the corner of Zhemaiciu (or get off at the first stop back on Zhemaiciu and backtrack). Look up Zhemaiciu away from the bus and you'll see the top of the monument (so find a picture first--the 'Insight' guide has one). Walk towards it along Zhemaiciu, which is at this point a divided highway and cross a cloverleaf with another divided highway to get to it. (This is sort of like saying, 'Cross the New Jersey Turnpike,' except luckily there's very little traffic.) It's about a two-kilometer walk.' Mark's directions are even simpler: 'Take a taxi.'
We left Vilnius at 9:20, got to Kaunas about 11:00, caught the bus about 11:30, and got to the Ninth Fort about 12:30. There were two cars in the entire parking lot; it didn't seem to be drawing a lot of people. Of course, it could be that most people don't look forward to visiting death camps. Not that we do, of course, but it's something we guess we feel we have an obligation to do.
The Ninth Fort was a pre-existing fort that the Nazis turned into a death camp and there killed 80,000 people, including just about everyone in the Jewish Ghetto, as well as Jews from all over Europe. 30,000 Jews at a minimum were murdered here. Mark says he is still a bit confused by what he saw, though Evelyn thinks his conclusions are probably correct. But we will get to that.
There are three structures currently at the Ninth Fort. There is a museum, there is a piece of the original prison, and there is a monument to the dead. (Buying tickets was confusing, since they have tickets for just the museum, for just the fort, for combinations, etc. A combination ticket was 80 cento each.)
First we went through the museum, which is pictures, artifacts, and text about the Holocaust and the Ninth Fort. Because we know little Lithuanian it is hard to tell this for sure. There is nothing visual to indicate that this site had anything to do with Jews. There are prisoners' crosses and rosaries, but not one Star of David to be seen in the whole museum. The pictures are not obviously of any Jews either. There were lots of paintings up about the emotional toll of the camps, often with motifs of crosses. No Stars of David. As far as the museum is concerned the fact that there were Jews here was a minor footnote or perhaps is forgotten.
Then we went into what remains of the prison and in spite of the fact it was a warm and sunny day the inside was like a cave. The floor was wet and the whole place was cold and often bad-smelling. Rows of cold, dark, dank cells with rope cots or wooden-slatted shelves; cold, dark corridors; and the overall oppressive atmosphere add to the general feeling of depression and horror. A tight room under some stairs was called sarcastically 'health resort.' Some rooms had long wooden bunks; some had foul-smelling canvas beds. A particularly wet room was called 'wet cell.' One cell we went into Mark paced and found to be three by twelve feet. We went up to the second floor and suddenly there were three cells filled with the pictures and text that were missing from the museum, even including a jar of ash and charred bones. 'Jews and the Holocaust' was the theme. That whole piece of the museum was segregated out and moved someplace where visitors might or might not see it. Perhaps tours are set up so they can show the Jewish part or not as seems appropriate to the audience. This part did have English, but that may be because newer exhibits everywhere have English translations. The woman who was taking tickets at the prison piece did make sure we went up to the floor where we would see the Jewish part. Perhaps she does that only for certain nationalities of visitors. Americans see that part; perhaps Europeans do not.
Walking out from the Ninth Fort into the warmth and sunshine was a great relief--the contrast was emphasized by the temperature. When you go out to the memorial at the top of the hill it mentions Jews prominently and a wall has plaques that say Jews were lined up at this wall and shot. The monument itself is about a hundred and fifteen feet (thirty-five meters) high, with hands and faces carved in it as if trying to break free. This overlooks the trenches where the Nazis shot and buried their victims.
The gloomy history of the Ninth Fort was certainly in sharp contrast to the children skate-boarding around the monument, or the families sitting on the lawn taking advantage of the nice weather. 'There's something strange about a family outing to a death camp,' Evelyn says, 'or maybe it's just me.'
After walking back to the bus stop and taking the bus to the center of Kaunas, we started to walk to the Vytautas the Great War Museum (a.k.a. Vytauto Didziojo karo muziejus, a.k.a. Vytauto Magnus Military Museum--every book translates all the museum names differently, which makes things *very* confusing). We passed a blue and white building that we assume was the town synagogue on Ozeshkienes. There were people around it in yarmulkes. Mark was a little sorry not to have told them we were American Jews and perhaps see the inside. But some sort of event was going on and we didn't want to interfere. (It's listed as being open to visitors from 20:00 to 21:00, if anyone cares.)
We got a box of orange juice, drank it, then went to the museum, which was 40 cento each.
As Mark describes it, 'The real centerpiece of this museum is based around the Lithuanian heroes Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas. These are the people on the 10-litu note. These people are odd national heroes and--how can I put this?--their choice as national heroes may indicate a certain dearth of more suitable choices. Both of these gentlemen were born in Lithuania. That part is certainly true. Both had emigrated to the United States and were in the United States military at some point. Darius went back to Lithuania and served in their new Air Force, then returned to the United States.'
'Girenas was the son of a poor farmer in Lithuania, orphaned at an early age. He settled in the United States and joined the Army Air Corps, but did not fly. He bought an airplane with a friend and was seriously wounded accidentally crashing it on the maiden flight. It was around this point that Darius met him and suggested that the two should fly non-stop from New York to Kaunas (then the capital of Lithuania). They bought a plane, equipped it for long-distance flying, and prepared to fly to Kaunas. These were to be the Lithuanian Lindberghs in spite of the fact that both had renounced their Lithuanian citizenship and taken United States citizenship. 25,000 people gathered at an airfield in Kaunas to welcome them as Lindbergh was welcomed in Paris. It was Monday, July 17, 1933--a proud day for Lithuania.'
Mark continues, 'And on the second floor of the museum they have the actual pieces of the airplane that the German government picked up in a forest near the town of Soldin. Both pilots were killed, but they certainly made it most of the way and in Lithuania that counts, I guess. 'Almost' counts in hand grenades, horseshoes, and heroism. Brecht said, 'Unhappy the land that needs heroes.' Of course, we need more than Lithuania does. Like many of Brecht's comments, this has a great deal of truth in a very compact form.'
Similar to the museum the previous day, this museum starts with prehistoric artifacts and moves you along in chronological order. The first room shows spear points that have been found and various metal weapons that have long since given over to oxidation and corrosion. You get the general shape on some, but really have to rely on the pictures to tell you what they looked like originally. There was the hub from a shield--the thing that looks like a giant Hershey's kiss but that sits in the middle of a shield. We have never known what that was for and do not know now, partially because we do not read Lithuanian.
(By the way, if you're reading this after traveling to Lithuania, we'd be curious if more English is appearing in museums and such.)
Continuing on, you get to a stairwell that looks like it has three bombs standing there without much explanation of what they are, even if you read Lithuanian. They are certainly out of historical context, but if you have three bombs and they don't seem to go in any of your rooms, hey, a stairwell is as good a place as any to store them, right?
Uh, lady, could you ask your child not to play with the bombs ... uh, lady ... LADY!
Mark writes, 'Nah! I expect they have been disarmed. Up the stairs you see a commanding statue of King Vytautas. This guy looks really majestic and very scary. If this guy was my enemy, I think I'd think real quick about changing any policy he doesn't like. The funny thing is that just the previous day I saw a lithograph of Vytautas and that made him look like he had a few too many cepelinai.'
'Oh, that's a really good digression. I've been looking for a good cepelinas. Wuzzat, you ask. It is a local dish of ground meat surrounded by something like jellied mashed potatoes and having a sour cream sauce. The name means Zeppelin. So what I was saying about Vytautas was that he looked like his weight was a bit off the Graf. Actually, a cepelinas sounds to me a lot like our shepherd's pie, just in a different shape. |
