My Traveler’s Notebook: Four Takeaways

Monday 12 August 2024

Before having worked as a writing and literature professor at West Point, I knew what the Katyn Massacres were.  They were parts of my wife’s family history; I heard the stories many times.  Ania’s maternal great-uncle was Captain Stanisław Mazur who served in the Polish Army and was one of hundreds of thousands WWII prisoners of war captured by the Soviet Red Army and handed off to the Soviet NKVD, the dreaded state security services. 

This family history was important, but I didn’t think back then that I should study or write about it as a literary scholar.  Having been invited for a second-round interview at West Point, I finally had a chance to visit the historic Army post and academy.  I never expected that the urgency to travel to (and to write a book manuscript about) the Katyn Massacres sites would have been ignited simply by stepping foot on the historic Army grounds.  And yet it did. 

As much as other great destinations often surprise you in ways you never expect, my first visit to West Point certainly astonished me because the command to remember Katyn that I heard there on that day would ultimately make me go to the forests of Miednoje and Katyn, the very spots where tens of thousands of Poles—including Captain Mazur—were murdered and buried.       

 “What if?” questions are as bad as saying hindsight is 20/20; however, before I break my own writing rule of not using cliches, I do want to catch myself and say: ‘I wasn’t ready earlier in my life to write a book about Katyn.  The life forces shaping me were preparing me for that eventual June 2007 day when I visited West Point.  I needed to finish my Herman Melville dissertation; I needed to teach my Spring 2006 semester Literature of the Holocaust course; I needed the Polish-American poet and prose writer Czesław Miłosz, for a time, to commandeer my Melville dissertation—I almost wrote a separate dissertation on Miłosz—I needed to teach as a Visiting Professor at The University at Albany; and I needed other transformative experiences in order to lead me in the direction of West Point where I would follow in the footsteps of Tadeusz Kościuszko—the American Revolutionary hero and Polish military and revolutionary leader—who had improved and overseen the construction of the fortifications of West Point.  And it was his command that I obeyed, and thereby Kościuszko sent me to Miednoje and Katyn Forests.’ 

Therefore, I would like to share some lessons I learned from being at West Point:

First: Don’t ignore or put off visiting your town’s or home state’s local treasures.  Visiting them might create unforgettable experiences but also inspire life-changing ones.  By seeing those local places, you might even find an unexpected inspiration that might take you to an overseas destination, one that you never imagined you would ever go to write a book.   

Second: Be open to the experience of visiting a deceptively unassuming or unlikely place.  I would encourage you to revisit a place you’ve been to years, years ago.  Allow yourself to see beyond the obvious.  What was once boring may surprise you.  And I never expected to hear Kościuszko’s ghost talk to me in Polish at West Point, and command me to go to Katyn.

Third: Just go.  Having visited Miednoje twice and Katyn once, I also felt obligated to visit Kharkov, another Katyn Massacres site where Lieutenant Jan Paliwoda—a Paliwoda—was executed and buried.  After conducting research in Poland, I discovered that there was a Paliwoda murdered by the NKVD, too, during the Katyn Massacres.  During my final two years teaching at West Point, I had chances to go to pay my respects to Jan Paliwoda in Kharkov, but, for one stupid reason or another, I didn’t go.  I intensely regret not going.  This eastern province of today’s Ukraine is war-torn.  In fact, several bombs landed in the Polish War Cemetery in Kharkov; many of the grave markers were damaged by the missiles…. Perhaps Jan Paliwoda’s grave marker was destroyed.  Damn it! I should have gone earlier to Kharkov. 

Fourth: Don’t underestimate your family’s history.  Those stories might be the seedbed of creativity.  And if you’re a writer or scholar, you might find your next project while traveling.