Kosice

Koscie
June 15, 2010
I’m sitting in a Laundromat in Krakow, Poland. Saw Kosice, Slovakia for a day basically. It’s the place my father’s mother’s family originated. My great great uncle Josef Goldmann is buried there. He survived Auschwitz and then a communist reprogramming camp in Siberia. He was one of 12,000 Jews from Kosice to be taken by the Nazis in WW2. He was one of the only ones to ever return to Kosice. We went to find his grave, but were unsuccessful. We did find the cemetery though. My aunt and uncle went back today and found it. They left rocks. That’s something Jewish people do to show they were there.
That night, I went to a gay bar called Marselle, which is on one of the main streets. I was very surprised to find this out. It was a really nice place and the drinks were cheap. Had wifi and a comfy couch. I was not seedy. I had to ring a buzzed to get let in, which made me think about my safety a little. I wonder if they do that to keep homophobes out? Anyway, the people who were there were nice. No one really spoke English, so I was kinda on my own. It still felt good to be there.
I’m glad I got to see anther place I came from. Felt like a nice way to pay my respects and go to a gay bar at the same time. How lucky am I?