Bieganski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison and its Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies will be hosting a talk by me about the Bieganski, Brute Polak Stereotype on Thursday, October 18, 2012, at four p.m., in the Marquee at Union South.

Nowadays, of course, more than ever, I add the postscript: "God willing."

I am personally grateful to the University, to the Mosse/Weinstein Center, and to the very wonderful scholar and mensch James P. Leary, an Irish-American who has contributed greatly to Polonia through his scholarship, for this invitation.

Hope to see you there.

Sexy Nazis in England: "Everyone enjoys it" Jews could "Pretend to be persecuted"

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Please note that the above photos are from three different articles covering three different events at which Englishmen dressed up as Nazis. 

You can access the articles by clicking on the links. 

At three recent events, World War II enthusiasts in England have been criticized for their zeal in the public wearing of authentic Nazi uniforms. According to the Manchester Evening News, "In June, wartime re-enactors in Ramsbottom sparked outrage by dressing up as Nazis and suggesting a Jewish couple put on a Star of David and pretend to be persecuted."

Readers of "Bieganski" will understand the appeal of Sexy Nazis to discussion of stereotypes of Brute Polaks. 

Bieganski in the Jewish Journal: A Polish Jew is Shocked, Shocked! to Discover Stereotyping of Poles

Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault in the 1942 film, Casablanca.
Renault is "shocked, shocked" to discover gambling in Rick's Cafe. In fact, he's known this all along. 

To "reinvent the wheel" is an English expression. 

On July 25^th, 2012, the online Jewish Journal published an article by a self-identified Polish Jew, Klaudia Klimek. Klimek is shocked, shocked to discover negative stereotypes of Poles.

The article states many points with which I partially or wholly agree.

I should rejoice for the article then, no?

No.

It's just more reinvention of the wheel.

It's just more "shocked, shocked."

"To reinvent the wheel" is an English expression. Wikipedia defines it thus, "To reinvent the wheel is to duplicate a basic method that has already previously been created or optimized by others."

"Shocked, shocked" is a phrase from the 1942 Hollywood film "Casablanca." We use the expression to describe moments when someone "discovers" something that has been very obvious for some time.

Poland is stereotyped as the world's worst anti-Semitic nation. Blame for the Holocaust, which properly belongs to Nazism, is placed on Poles and Poland.

This has all been said already. Thousands of times.

It's been said in a prize-winning, scholarly book, "Bieganski."

On this blog, we've argued for action in the face of this stereotype, most specifically in this three-part blog post on the Crisis in Polonian Leadership, Organization, and Vision.

Poles, Polonians, and others who are concerned about the Bieganski, Brute Polak stereotype need to get past the "shocked, shocked" phase. We need to get past the reinvention of the wheel phase.

We need to move on to significant action.

We need to unite, support each other, organize, and act strategically.

More on that, here.

***

Excerpts from Klaudia Klimek's "shocked, shocked" article:

Among Jews, Poland is stereotyped as "the most anti-Semitic country in Europe − the Jewish cemetery, the place of bad memories. That was, unfortunately, the attitude of many conference participants from all over the world. Their negative feelings towards Poland are born out of bad memories of their grandparents or parents. All that, additionally seasoned with a visit to Auschwitz, colored almost every conversation and discussion."

Klimek is incorrect, here. The Bieganski, Brute Polak stereotype predates the Holocaust, and those who deploy it often have no parents or grandparents with bad memories.

"As a Jew from Poland or a Polish woman of Jewish origin (anyway they classify me) I do not have such an attitude towards Poland and the Poles."

"The Poles are, were and will be evil. What is more, characterised by innate stupidity, they would never invent Holocaust. Nevertheless, they are extremely grateful to the Germans that they liberated them from the Jews. And they, of course, helped them willingly! The Pole had to wait over seven hundred years for a charismatic leader in the person of Hitler who would help them murder almost one third of their own citizens."

"Bieganski" makes clear that the dumb Polak stereotype is an inextricable part of the anti-Semitic Polak stereotype. This stereotype is used to rewrite history and to distort the twentieth century's most profound ethical questions. Everyone should care about this stereotype, not just Poles.

Klimek continues, "Heroes like Irena Sendlerowa should be remembered and praised, and the youth should be educated to never forget about them."

Poles and Polonians have not been the first, nor the most effective, in communicating Irena Sendler's value to the world. Others have.

Sendler was more or less forgotten by the world until a group of Kansas students brought her story to wider attention in 1999. Yad Vashem honored Sendler in 1965, long before organized Polish groups honored her.

Only when Poles and Polonians begin to organize will we be able to have any impact on whether or not people remember Irena Sendler. Meanwhile, it's not justifiable for us to complain about others not effectively honoring our heroes and heroines when we don't do it ourselves, and others do it for us, but not to the degree that we demand.

Klimek writes, "I am angry with Poland that She does so little to publicise the good deeds of the Poles, their participation in combat missions, the help during the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto or in Auschwitz. Instead, She stands open to the Jewish trips like a forgotten cemetery. She does not add to their education anything from herself, not changing, thus, the discourse and accepting the current status quo."

Well, yeah. That's what this blog has been saying since day one. Hmm. Hmm. Maybe we should … I don't know … unite? Support each other? Organize? Act strategically?

"The Jew won’t spend the Jewish money in Poland. Full stop. The Pole did not deserve, what is more they still earn much on other tourist visiting the death camps. Camps such as Auschwitz seem to be bonanzas for Poland."

"The problem, however, disappears when the Jew goes to Berlin, Hamburg or Munich. One can relax there well, enjoy civilisation and top level art… How did it happen that the Jew does not burn with hatred towards the Germans?"

Yup. "Bieganski," a book Klimek has never heard of and will probably never read – addresses this matter of Germans being cleared of guilt by the Bieganski stereotype.

The full text of Klimek's article can be found here.

Are We Guilty of Gross Prejudice Towards Poland? by David Jacobson

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The commentary, below, is reprinted with permission.

Commentary: Are We Guilty of Gross Prejudice Towards Poland?

by David Jacobson
August 16, 2012

In the ashes of Auschwitz we lost more than Jewish lives – we lost an integral part of our historical memory. If we truly want to ensure Jewish continuity for tomorrow’s Jews, then we have to reclaim the positive history of Polish Jewry today.

Mention Poland to most Jews and their immediate association is with Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek and the brutal murder of some 6 million Jews. I have recently returned from two weeks in Poland attending the 24th International Nahum Goldmann Fellowship with a group of 40 young Jews from around the globe and I witnessed personally the deep psychological wounds that are still alive today in today’s generation of Jews. Even though these Jews are two or three generations removed from the horror of the Holocaust, members of the group broke down at various stages during the week-long conference, weighed down by the living, haunting memory of their families’ stories. Whenever something went wrong, if a computer crashed or a meal was late, the standing response was: “It’s Poland.” And behind this jocular response lies a real pathology. Poland has assumed a uniquely nefarious status in the collective Jewish psyche – Poland represents death, destruction, hate and unbridled, brutal antisemitism. It is seen as Jewish black hole.

And until my recent visit, that was indeed the image I held in my mind and heart. Although I fully understand its genesis and there is a sane substantiation for it, everything I saw and heard convinced me that Poland has been unfairly portrayed by the global Jewish establishment. This has created dangerous prejudices and stereotypes (generalisations of an entire people); ironically these stereotypes are of the very same ilk that was the thought-generators of the rampant racism that laid the foundation for the genocide that took place during the Shoah. We brand the Polish people as ‘brutes’ and ‘eternal antisemites’ and we send tour after tour of young Jews to the death camps and they march defiantly through Poland, blinkered to the multitude of memorials to Jewish history and Jewish life and legacy that literally litter the streets of Warsaw and Krakow. By doing this, we are not only perpetuating a cruel bigotry, but we are also cheating these young Jews of a remarkable opportunity for Jewish growth and regeneration.

During my two weeks in Poland, I learned about and witnessed another side to this much maligned country – a side that should shine light on the shadow of the valley of death that is the perpetual Jungian mirror for most of us. I heard from Professor Moshe Rosman, an internationally distinguished Professor of Polish Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University, about the great Jewish civilisation in Poland and its legacy that was eradicated in the Holocaust and that has largely been forgotten, even by the descendants of Polish Jews who emigrated before World War II to the United States and Israel. Indeed, the children and grandchildren of those immigrants in the United States know more about the Native Americans than about their Jewish antecedents in Poland. I heard about 1000 years of uninterrupted Jewish history that is arguably unparalleled in the annals of our people – a history that produced the Lublin Yeshivot and Jewish greats like Rabbi Moshe Isserles and Rabbi Yosef Schneersohn, not to mention contemporary Jewish giants like David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin.

I also heard from Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Programme Director at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is being erected in Warsaw, who described with great passion the different historical periods of Polish Jewry and their rich cultural achievements. The historical scope and reach of Polish Jewry was gargantuan and cast an imposing shadow over the rest of the Jewish world.

But the reach of Polish Jewry is not only a matter of history. I had occasion to spend time with Magda Koralewska, the 29 year old co-founder and president of Beit Krakow – a newly created Reform community in a city that once had 64 000 Jews, but was reduced to 3000 in 1945. Her and other young Jews like her are doing remarkable work in recreating Jewish life out of the ashes of the Holocaust and the death-grip of communism. Magda is a “Jew by choice” – a voluntary convert to Judaism.

“Discovering Judaism made me feel Polish for the first time,” Magda explained.” I finally had something to be proud of as a Pole – the contribution of Polish Jews to the history of Poland and the world.” And Magda does not stand alone. There are a slew of young Jewish Poles who are reinventing their community, redefining their Jewishness and reinvigorating the proud legacy of Polish Jewry.

I also witnessed a remarkable attraction and affinity to Jewish culture in Poland. We forget that pre-WWII, one in every three Warsaw residents was Jewish. Thus in many ways, Jewish culture and Polish culture are inextricably linked. At the Krakow Jewish Festival, a festival now in its 22nd year, thousands of non-Jewish Poles stream to listen to Klezmer music and Chazonis, or to attend lectures on Jewish topics or to view art with a Jewish theme. Haunting reverberations of Yiddish songs fill the streets and restaurants.

I visited Kazimierz Dolny during the annual Klezmer festival, and was treated to a burst of Jewish culture unlike anything I have ever encountered in the streets of Cape Town or Johannesburg. The audience was filled with not Jews but ordinary Poles – Poles of all ages and all sizes, drawn to this Jewish culture that they feel is as much theirs as it is ours.

This is not to suggest that there is no antisemitism in Poland. There is. Pop into almost any curio shop in in Krakow or Kazimierz and you will find the ubiquitous “Lucky Jew” in both figurine and poster. This is a caricature of a Hassidic Jew in full garb, with a prominent nose, holding onto a coin. Poles buy them as they believe it will bring them good fortune. It is a somewhat bitter reminder of the deep and dangerous prejudice that still exists within Polish society.

But this ugly stereotyping is hardly unique to Poland. So while we should not disregard it, we should also not dismiss our Polish heritage because of it. For Poland is so much more than merely a Jewish nightmare. Professor David Shneer, an expert in post-Soviet Eastern European Jewish communities, explained: “The most important thing we can do is stop seeing Poland simply as a graveyard of the Holocaust and to start seeing it as a potential new site of Jewish life.”

My intention is in no way to demean the memory of the Shoah or trivialize the real pain of people for whom Poland does signify horror and destruction. The seething distaste for Poland and the deep wounds that exist are part of a collective post-traumatic stress disorder that is a natural and inevitable response to the greatest genocide every committed. And we must continue to teach our youth both the horrific facts of the Holocaust and its universal and eternal lessons, lest we ever forget.

But at the same time, we must be careful not to create an unhealthy cult of death and decay. We need to constantly make the prophetic choice of choosing life.

And I saw Jewish life aplenty in Poland – life that has given me great hope for the regeneration of Jewish culture and Jewish continuity, not only in Europe, but right here in South Africa.

David Jacobson is the executive director of the Cape SA Jewish Board of Deputies and is an advisor to the International Nahum Goldmann Fellowship that operates out of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture in New York. He is also an active member of The Jewish Diplomatic Corps and is passionate about Jewish continuity.

Find this commentary on the web at:
http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/are-we-guilty-of-gross-prejudice-towards-poland/

An Alleged Polish Crypto-Jew; Who Wants Peasant Ancestors? Guest Blog Post by Kasia

Peasants in a Russian Village. Who wants boring ancestors like this? Source.

Adrien Brody in "The Pianist." As Kasia observes,
"Both are narratives of victimhood and suffering,
but while one is degrading, the other is ennobling."

Are your ancestors boring? Were they just a bunch of lumpy grey peasants, sunup to sundown, rooting in the earth, slopping manure, snoring? Never learning to read, relieving themselves outside?

Wouldn't you like more glamorous and exotic ancestors than that? If not Cleopatra or Napoleon, at least a poet or two?

Who hasn't known this frustration?

Luckily, when I was a kid, my mother took me to Czechoslovakia, and I met my peasant ancestors. They were really cool people. I write about one of them, my Aunt Bora, in this essay. I am proud and happy to descend from peasants like my Aunt Bora.

But Eastern European peasants are negatively stereotyped, as described in the book "Bieganski." It's understandable that some would like to trade their Eastern European ancestry for a more glamorous one.

***

Recently Bieganski the Blog featured a post titled A Biological Take on Identity Politics. This blog post addressed some people, who have no evidence of Jewish ancestry, insisting that they are crypto-, or hidden, Jews. One New York Times essayist even went so far as to claim that her hidden Jewish ancestry was lurking in her DNA. Her genes contained memories of persecution and survival. She had been raised Catholic, but her genes' memories told her she was really Jewish.

A blog reader, Kasia, read that blog entry and responded with the fascinating story of a woman she came across on the web. This woman appears to be of strictly Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak, and Hungarian ancestry, but is insisting, without any evidence, that she is a crypto-Jew.

Here's Kasia's description of the woman:

I have come across this person on the internet who is absolutely convinced that she is Jewish. She seems to have researched her roots pretty well, to the extent that she knows most of the birthplaces and names of her relatives and ancestors within the last 100 years or so.

There is a problem though. All the names and places point to a Gentile Polish/Lithuanian and Slovak/Hungarian background. There is no evidence that any of her ancestors converted to Christianity, to the contrary, they all seem to have been dyed in the wool Roman Catholics.

Surprisingly, this absolute lack of evidence of any Jewish roots is to this person proof absolute that all her relatives had, in fact, been Jewish, then converted, and then lived in denial for the rest of their lives. Not some of them, which would have been realistic, but all of them.

The fact that some of them had their names misspelt / transcribed into English on Ellis Island and in subsequent census records is further evidence of their duplicity and eagerness to hide their true identity.

This would have remained, to me, a bizarre and mildly entertaining story found on the internet; but then I read Danusha's blog post on Crypto Jews, as well as the very interesting comments on this post, and I realised that the earnest, blind yearning for Jewish roots I described above might be dictated by something else, or something more, than mere confusion or wishful thinking.

To someone of her background, swapping the "narrative" (haven't liked the word since Literary Theory class at university, but there you are) of poor, uneducated peasant immigrants from Eastern Europe for a story shared by the Jewish diaspora worldwide is probably tempting. Both are narratives of victimhood and suffering, but while one is degrading, the other is ennobling. One condemns you to isolation and rejection, the other gives your individual existence meaning within a greater whole. I would probably never have understood this if I hadn't read Danusha's blog from end to end beforehand.

Just so it's clear - I wish my internet acquaintance all the luck in finding her Jewish relatives. She probably has a few, like many other Eastern Europeans. I just don't think finding them automatically makes her Jewish. The past is a muddle of ethnicities which it would be impossible to untangle today.

***

Regular readers of this blog know what I'm going to say. It is up to us to tell our own story. I cover this ground in the three part blog post on the Crisis in Polonian Leadership, Organization, and Vision. 

You can start by buying, reading, reviewing, and recommending a book by and about Polish peasants and their working class descendants, and getting that book on the syllabi in schools. 

Bieganski on Steroids: Israel Friedlaender's "The Jews of Russia and Poland"

Israel Friedlaender. Source.

My book "Bieganski" argues that it is acceptable in scholarly, popular, and journalistic discourse to disseminate a negative stereotype of Poles and Polish-Americans as stupid, violent, brutes. In this image, Poles are the world's worst anti-Semites. I didn't know about Israel Friedlaender's "The Jews of Russia and Poland" when I was writing "Bieganski," but had I, I would have quoted Friedlaender extensively.

"The Jews of Russia and Poland" is perhaps the most thoroughly anti-Polish legitimate book I've ever read. By "legitimate" book I mean a book that was not published by a hate organization. The anti-Polish stereotyping in this book is all the more remarkable given that the author, Israel Friedlaender, was probably a genuinely heroic and intelligent man. Page after page of this book stunned me because the racism in it was being expressed by someone I'd probably like as a human being. (He would almost certainly not like me, given my parentage.)

"The Jews of Russia and Poland" was published in 1915. Why should anyone care about it today? The book epitomizes the brute Polak stereotype. It was published by GP Putnam's Sons, New York and London, a major, respected, and still existent publishing house. Israel Friedlaender, the book's author, was a "world famous" scholar and activist deeply rooted in Jewish institutions and movements. This was not a lone wolf spouting random gripes. The anti-Polish hate, based on stereotypes, that shouts from every page of the book was canonical, accepted reality for Friedlaender's milieu.

"The Jews of Russia and Poland" is a mere 214 pages long. It attempts to tell the entire history of Polish Jews in its pages. It tells that history for three very important reasons. Friedlaender, a good and dedicated member of his community, wants to improve conditions for his fellow Jews. He is focused on three epoch-making historical events. In 1915, Poland was about to be reborn. After WW I and the Versailles Treaty, Americans, the audience for Friedlaender's book, will have an impact on the constitution of reborn Poland. Second, Jews were returning to Palestine. Friedlaender wants to boost that return. Finally, Jews were flocking to the US as immigrants. Friedlaender wanted the US – including upper class, American Jews of German descent – to embrace its new Ostjuden, or Eastern European, Jewish immigrants.

To fulfill all his goals, Friedlaender makes non-Jewish Poles out to be irredeemably, indeed, racially, bad people. Friedlaender wants the US and the West to exercise a great deal of influence in newly reborn Poland, because, Friedlaender warns, the Poles cannot be trusted to treat their Jewish citizens fairly. Yes, Jewish immigrants to the US are unappealing – even he does not like them (x, 25, 72). But they are unappealing, Friedlaender insists, because they come from Poland, where they have been treated very badly. In America they will improve. And Jews are really noble people, and the Zionist experiment will turn out magnificently.

Following are just some examples of Friedlaender's pronouncements on Poles: Poland was a land of "impenetrable medieval Jew hatred" Poles "deserve no credit" for providing a homeland for Jews expelled from other countries. Slavs torture Jews "at the beginning of the twentieth century" with "all the agonies of the Middle Ages." Poland was typified not by rule but by "misrule." In Poland Jews experienced "uninterrupted and unparalleled persecution." Poles also "hate everything German."

Polish nobles, or szlachta, were "morbid" "hostile" "degenerate" "contemptuous" "indolent" "extravagant" "prodigal" "inconstant" "instable" "obstinate, combative, quarrelsome," "fond of show and externalities," "prefer shadow to substance," "aimless" "reckless" "a seething cauldron of strife and dissension" "a farce" "miserable" "a canker of lawlessness," "lazy," "helpless," "incapable" "their sole ambition in life was pleasure and amusement," "intemperate (i.e. drunk)" "the lack of executive ability" among Poles.

Germans were "made so superior to Poles." Poles had none of the Jews' "ability or energy." Poles "did not hesitate to throttle a Jew by a method cruel and deadly." Polish nobles "would do anything to torture Jewish subjects." The Radziwill family especially committed "unspeakable outrages" and tortured innocent Jewish children and women. "These examples illustrate not only the cruelty of the Polish nobles, but also the aimlessness of their cruelty. It was sheer madness, madness without a particle of method in it, and the Jew had no means whatsoever to guard himself against it…the only way to appease the noble was to crouch and cringe and accept all indignities with a smile." "Polish culture was of little significance."

"The Polish people begrudged the slightest favor shown to the Jews." Poland was "an enemy's land" where the Polish nation conducted "a systematic and organized warfare against Jews. This warfare may be said to constitute the sum and substance of the external history of the Jews in Poland, history not made by Jews, but against them." For the peasants, "Jews serve as the lightning rod of their hatred" they conduct "a slow and grinding struggle in the subterranean regions of economic life. It is essentially a siege war."

The Catholic Church in Poland was a monstrosity. "Orgies of Roman fanaticism," "monstrous forms of intolerance," "kept Poland in darkness," exercised "power over the minds of individuals," with "enormous wealth" the church was "indefatigable in her efforts to destroy Jews and Judaism." "This gospel of hatred" was "the inviolable rule of conduct throughout the whole extent of Polish history." This hatred "breaks out like pus." Priests acted "very much like the gangsters of today." "Consistent hatred typical of the church."

Because of this lousy leadership, Poland is "destitute," where "the only seeds of civilization were planted and cultivated by Germans and Jews." Poland's leaders produce only "lawlessness and misgovernment."

What has this history to do with the rebirth of Poland in the early twentieth century? "No amount of political pledges and diplomatic allurements will save the Poles unless they will bury their past."

In comparison, Jews possess an "extraordinary executive ability and sense of discipline," and "true Jewish sagacity." "The Jews exhibited a remarkable loyalty to Poland." Jewish culture in Poland was "perfect;" again, it reached "perfection;" It was "remarkably advanced." It is characteristic of "Jewish genius," of "the triumph of the few over the many, the weak over the strong, the spirit over the flesh." Jewish culture in Poland "lifted the earth a little nearer to heaven." Jews "displayed their intellectual acumen in their commercial transactions with non-Jews." "Noble living and high thinking characterized the Jews of Poland, and in this ideal atmosphere even their commercialism was robbed of its sordidness. They consecrated their life to God and they were anxious to serve him with all their hearts, their souls, and with all their might." Jewish culture "blossoms forth in its pristine beauty." Polish Jews "were harmonious. They lived and acted in harmony."

***

I thank Otto Gross who purchased this book for me after coming across it in a used bookstore.

A Polish Near Death Experience

Artist's illustration of near death experience. 

Mariusz Zimny Polish Countryside source

Near Death Experiences are experiences reported by a minority of people who have clinically died, or come close to clinical death, and been revived. These experiences typically involve a sense of the spirit leaving the body, the experiencer observing his own body, seeing a radiant and loving light, being drawn toward that light, often through a tunnel, being greeted by deceased relatives, reaching a barrier of some kind, and deciding to return to the physical body.

Dr. Raymond A. Moody, Jr coined the term "near death experience" and he's probably the most famous author to address the topic.

There are many books and websites devoted to near death experiences. Just a few:

Near-Death.com

Near Death Experience Research Foundation

Betty Jean Eadie's Website

***

I've read dozens of these accounts. They all contain some similar features. I read one recently that was quite different from any others I'd ever read. The experiencer didn't see a light, was not greeted by relatives, and did not reach a barrier. Rather, the experiencer's experience was all about … Poland!

Excerpts from this near death experience, below, with a link to the full experience.

***

Mira G.

The NDE happened when I was on the operating table at St. Vincent's Hospital in Lower Manhattan. I remember being put under and asked to count backwards from 100. I know that I counted down to 96 and that the world for me went black. The next thing that I remember is being very happy and very safe. I was in a place that I loved with all of my heart.

I was in my spirit in the Polish countryside and I could almost see the fields during the summer just waiting to be harvested. It was a warm summer day, not hot and humid the way that NYC can be, but warm, sunny and dry. I was above the fields and I admired them but could not focus my eyes completely on them. I wanted to see what kind of crops were growing, but again my eyes could not focus that well. I saw a little mound of brown earth and then behind it I saw a field of wheat. I saw green individual plants in another field, but I could not make out what kind of plant it was, but I did notice that the earth was very rich and could give birth to many good crops. The little green plants seemed to be happy growing in the rich earth and being warmed in the sun.

There was a kind of sunshine that one finds in Northern Europe during the summer. The light is less direct because it is in the north, and it is more at an angle then the sunshine in NYC during the summer. The sun therefore is less harsh and much more warming, then heating. I imagined that I was one of the little green plants and that I was also planted in the earth of my country and warmed in its northern sunshine. I tried to see down the fields if there were houses, but all I saw was a shack that was falling down.

There were no modern houses, so I decided to sit in the shade of the shack for a few minutes. Then I rose above the shack and saw the golden light from the wheat being reflected back to sun. This time, I could see the individual wheat plants in detail and at a distance of three feet. I could not believe that such wonderful colors could be found in a wheat plant and to have that golden yellow reflect the sun was just beautiful to see. I was above the shack and I looked at the wheat field all golden in the sun. One could see for kilometers and all there was blue sky of a summer day. At a distance I saw the blue cloudless sky with birds flying around and chasing each other, I was jealous that the birds could stay home in Poland and enjoy flying around in the sunshine.

I saw some trees that must have the border of the property. The trees were tall and they were full of dark green leaves. Each of them formed a kind of leafy egg shaped green on top of a stem and some were closer to each other, but I noticed the one tree that was away from the others in particular. It was a mature tree, with large green leaves. I looked at that tree and I said to myself how lucky this tree really is, because it got to stay home and never was forced to leave Poland. The tree was never uprooted, and I wondered what it like to be a human being that was never uprooted. I rose further up above the field and saw that the trees were going away from me. I knew that it was time and that something had to stop this experience, I just panicked because I had to go back to where I really was.

After being back in my body I heard the doctors screaming "she has stopped breathing" and something like "we are losing her." There was general panic in the operating room and could feel the stress of the nurses and doctors. They were shaking me and calling my name to wake me up. I did come back fully then and I was back on the operating table in my body at St. Vincent's Hospital in NYC. I was devastated because when I was outside of my body and in the Polish countryside, I was perfectly centered and I knew who I was and what I was capable of doing in life. Nothing could have stopped me from being the kind of human being that I was meant to be, because I was that human being already within myself flying over the July fields of Poland. 

Important note: I have now lived for the past six years on the edge of a Polish village, 45 km west of Warsaw and I get to see the countryside during all the seasons. But during the summer it is the most beautiful. I walk on a dirt road along the fields with my dogs and I sometimes stop to admire the views of the crops that run from end to end of each field.

The full text of Mira's account can be found here.