Bille Jean in Brzeszcze

After Warszawa I planned to accompany my friend to her home town of Brzeszcze, near Oswiecin (Auschwitz). Her dad drove all the way to Warszawa to pick us up as she had brought 3 cinema chairs that needed picking up from Panavision Polska. I lay in the back of the car next to 3 cinema chairs crammed in but it was quite confortable. I wrote my journal until I fell asleep. We arrived in Brzeszcze about 2am. It was a newly built house from scratch by her father. Two years in the making though running out of money, haven’t been able to finish it though they have started living in it.

It’s one of those buildings that looks so much smaller from the outside. But the interior is large and beautiful made. These houses aren’t replicas of the houses next door but of it’s own design. It follows much of the architecture style that is prevailent around here though is not an exact mould of another house. I was surprised at the scale of the furnishing and quality of space. A fireplace with a glass door was something I had only seen in a mansion in a film or brochure.

I took a short visit to the ex concentration camp in Oswiecin which is now a museum. I was reminded of the film Schindler’s List. Original suitcases, glasses, clothes, shoes and other belongings were on display. Possessions of the murdered. In block 11 was the firing wall where they shot thousands of people. To step inside there was almost crippling. I had been to Dachau many years ago but this was something else. To know how many people starved, beaten, tortured, gasses and shot here was difficult for me to be standing in the same spot. The air was freezing and death really hangs in the air.

I know it maybe cliché but I really did sense the death and felt surrounded by the genocide when I was there.

Photography is generally not allowed so I have not one photo of the place. These are places you really have to be to even a little, understand it’s meaning as a human being.


I had a great time otherwise with my friend’s folks. We would sit and drink Vodka and smoke. I taught them some Origami and Chinese and they me some Polish. At some point, I even tried to teach her father how to moonwalk.

Most surprising about Oswiecin was the architecture of houses. Though strangely, bang in the town centre sits a ugly 70's block surrounded by quite nice buildings.

the town centre

- J