Tricks of Memory

Memories can be deceptive.

The plane crash near Smolensk which killed the Polish officials evoked vivid memories of my tour of Russia and Poland. After several days in Moscow, we got on a bus and rode for miles on a wretched two-lane road across Russia, passing Smolensk before crossing the border on the way to Warsaw.

Moscow was depressing. Miles of big, gray apartment buildings had broken balcony railings and windows patched with cardboard and plastic. In the subway I saw women trying to sell their clothes for money to buy food.

We left Moscow on a bleak September day. From the bus window I saw barren fields with occasional patches where elderly men and women stooped to dig among low plants. As they stood up, their shoulders bent under heavy sacks of potatoes. Were these farmers? Or city people come out to the countryside to dig for food to keep from starving during the long Russian winter?

No farm houses as we see in the U.S. Scattered settlements consisted of a few dilapidated houses, all shut up behind rotting, unpainted wooden blinds. If there were any cows or pigs, they must have been penned up in log structures attached to the rear of the one-room houses. I remember no livestock in the fields.

Near Smolensk I had vague memories of some connection with World War II. In September, 1939, Germany attacked Poland and overran the country in a few days. I knew a young woman who as a child escaped from the Germans by fleeing with her mother into Russia. The amazing account of how she came to be working in an office in Chicago in 1953 is a story I’ll tell another time.

When I heard about the plane crash, I remembered Smolensk as being near the border. I also remembered how much better the farms looked in Poland. Fences were mended. Farm houses were old but no sagging roofs, no unpainted walls. The whole country looked as if people still cared for it.

In my mind the contrast between Russia and Poland occurred in one day. Then I picked up the newspaper with an account of the plane crash and a map. My brain had played a trick on me. The map showed clearly: between Russia and Poland lies Belarus, with its capital at Minsk. I had forgotten an entire nation!

As soon as I saw the map, I remembered. The bus ride from Moscow to Warsaw took two days. We spent the night in Minsk.

So much for the accuracy of “eye witness” accounts. However, although I may not remember the details of each trip, I learned to read with skepticism. Seeing with my own eyes helps me to confirm or discount things I’ve read. The Russia I saw in 1994 had not recovered from the devastation of World War II. There never was a real threat from Russia during the Cold War.