Częstochowa, home to the Jasna Gora Monastery, is often viewed as Poland’s holiest city and a Catholic pilgrimage site. Just a few miles from the monastery, in the poorest part of the city, stands this marker of the former deportation spot from where the city’s Jews were taken to their deaths. Photo by Mark Baker.
A holocaust memorial in Częstochowa, Poland, marking the former deportation site from where the city’s Jews were taken to their deaths in concentration and extermination camps.
I’m an independent journalist, travel writer and author who’s lived in Central Europe for nearly three decades. I love the history, literature, culture and mystery of this often-overlooked corner of Europe, and I make my living writing articles and guidebooks about the region. Much of what I write eventually finds its way into commercial print or digital outlets, but a lot of it does not.
And that’s my aim with this website: to find a space for stories and experiences that fall outside the publishing mainstream.
In 2021, I published “Čas Proměn” (“Time of Changes”), my first book of historical nonfiction. The book, written in Czech, is a collection of stories about Central and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and early ‘90s, including memories of the thrilling anti-communist revolutions of 1989. The idea for the book and many of the tales I tell there were directly inspired by this blog. Czech readers, find a link to purchase the book here. I hope you enjoy.