{"id":2282,"date":"2026-02-19T14:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/?p=2282"},"modified":"2026-02-19T14:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:58:11","slug":"day-96-snow-and-groceries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/day-96-snow-and-groceries\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 96 – snow and groceries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yet another day of snow…but we needed to get a few things at the store, so we took a nice walk to Aldi. It has gotten a little bit warmer and some of the snow and ice has melted, making it a bit easier to walk. The big, fluffy snow drifts seem to be a little smaller and less fluffy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On our way to the store we were finally able to approach the statue of Witold Pilecki. Every other time it has been either too icy at the base of the statue, or there have been crowds of people in front of it. Today I got close enough to take some photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So who was Witold Pilecki<\/a>? He’s a hero of Polish history who is almost unknown outside of Poland. He got himself put into Auschwitz on purpose, with the goal of gathering intelligence that he could share with the outside world. While he was in the camp, he organized a resistance movement among the prisoners. He escaped the camp and share the information he had gathered with those he hoped could do something about the exterminations taking place – and they did nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, this wasn’t the worst part of the story. He survived the war, only to be arrested and tried as a spy by the Soviet-controlled Polish government. He was convicted and sentenced to death, and was executed on May 25, 1948. It wasn’t until after the collapse of the Soviet Union that his heroism was recognized and now he is considered a hero of Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ever have a chance to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, I really do encourage you to go. It’s two camps, but usually people visit both in the same day as they are very close to each other. I can’t really do justice to the feeling that you get when you visit these places. They are places of suffering and unspeakable cruelty, and they make you consider how evil people can do such things to one another. You can feel the weight of the souls of those who died as you walk in the grounds, through the bunkers and in the gas chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the horror of the camps, there are stories of those who did not give up on their humanity. Pilecki is one of those, Maximilien Kolbe<\/a> is another. He was a missionary in Japan, but returned to Poland after the German occupation. He helped Jews and other refugees by giving them shelter. He was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. When a successful escape happened, the camp commanders announced that 10 prisoners would be put into special cells – too small to lay down comfortably – and they would die of starvation in these cells. One of the ten men chosen for the punishment cried out that he had a family and children, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place. While in the starvation bunker, Kolbe led the other men in prayer. After two weeks, Kolbe was still alive. He was executed by an injection to the heart. He is now considered a saint and a martyr in the Catholic church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the war and the liberation of the camps, the words “NEVER AGAIN” became a rallying cry. And yet, can we say that we have lived up to these words? There have been genocides after the Holocaust, and today we see that the state of Israel itself is perpetrating such a genocide against the people of Palestine. It seems that for so many people, it is too easy to shed humanity for a variety of reasons – hatred, greed, cowardice, fear. We ignore problems until they hit us personally. We fear the price that may need to be paid for standing up for those who are unable to stand up for themselves. Instead of insisting that the standard be “NEVER AGAIN – FOR ANYONE,” we allow the standard to be “NEVER AGAIN, unless it is too difficult to deal with.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will never understand the cruelty of those who do not accept the humanity of those who share the planet with them. I hope I never do understand it – because that would mean that it has become understandable. While there may be rationales or excuses given for such behaviors, they should always be incomprehensible to good people. And yet, we have many who look the other way as their neighbors are taken away or treated inhumanely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may not all be able to live up to the examples of Pilecki and Kolbe. But if we can do something, we should. Whether than means bearing witness to those who are able to make a difference, or quietly helping one another by making it clear that we are there for them, it is our duty as decent human beings to do so. It’s not a religious thing – while Kolbe was obviously religious, Pilecki was not motivated by religion. Human decency should be independent of religious belief – and yet we often see those who claim to be superior due to their religious belief acting in ways that fall far short of the bar that has been set for being a good person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anyway, enough heavy stuff for the day…we did make it to Aldi and got what we needed. One thing that is crazy to me is the price of baked goods. They had donuts for about 40 cents each. The donuts always look perfect, the sprinkles and icing is always exactly just so. They also had little bears, Grace’s favorite cakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We took a different route home, one where the sidewalks had been cleared and there was slightly less ice. Tomorrow is supposed to be no snow or rain, and the next few days should be above freezing. It will be very different if everything melts and we don’t have to worry about ice! Every trip to the store takes about 30-40 minutes to walk less than 2km. If there isn’t any ice, that will go to less than 20 minutes. But then we won’t have the great stories about walking uphill both ways in the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yet another day of snow…but we needed to get a few things at the store, so we took a nice walk to Aldi. It has gotten a little bit warmer and some of the snow and ice has melted, making it a bit easier to walk. The big, fluffy snow drifts seem to be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283,"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions\/2283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchified.com\/france2025\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}