I love to read travel books - and, in general, any kind of good books. When I was a small and inocent kid, I used to read tones of books about lonely places and far away cultures that I never thought I will be able to see with my own curious eyes. In most part of the case, I was given the chance to visit exotic and unique corners of the world. I hope my adventures will continue.
For documentary and other literary reasons, I spent recently a good hour reading Sir Satcheverell Sitwell's book A Journey to Romania. The book was published in 1938, following one month spent in this country, at the invitation of a local prince. In nice words, he describes carefully the landscape, the various ethnic groups living there - being very impressed, for example, about the freedom enjoyed there by some dissident Russian religious groups. Even though democracy was not the strong point of the country he was visiting, an encounter with the then king calmed down his references from the democratic world where he returned after his paid trip. With one single exception - maximum seven words where he mention an ideal theoretical situation where people are free, in comparison with a practical present where this freedom lacks - you will not find any political or sociological references.
Two times in his account, he inserts his observations about the local Jewish communities met during his trips. At the time of his writing, the Jews from the Romanian territories were facing anti-semitism, attacks and serious restrictions of their freedom to move and speech. But Sitwell, while hurrying up to visit some monasteries, observes disgusted the poor Jews from Bukovina. A couple of pages before, he was a bit unhappy with the high percentage of rich Jews from Bessarabian cities. In both cases, many of the Jews were originary from Podolia and Galicia and most part of them were killed during Shoah.
But, probably, when you hurry up to visit the monasteries, the humanity of the other humans matters less.
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