What links the German city of Lübeck, a well-known guidebook and the several of England’s more attractive cities?

Wandering around Lübeck recently I was struck by the way the city has been so comprehensively rebuilt since the end of the war.  As with much of central Europe Lübeck was not spared the ravages of war and indeed received special attention by the RAF bombers. The city had been rich in mainly medieval wooden buildings, constructed during its heyday as a trading port, when goods would pass freely between Lübeck and other cities within the Hanseatic League, a commercial alliance that dominated the Baltic for several centuries.

What marks Lübeck out in wartime history is that it was the first significant city that was bombed primarily for its cultural value, rather than for any military objective.  The city was not well defended when the British bombers arrived on 28th March 1942, and by the time the aircraft had dropped around 400 tonnes  of bombs on the city (including for the first time thousands of incendiary devices) the wooden buildings of Lübeck didn’t stand a chance. One of the city’s most prominent buildings, the Lutheran Marienkirche, received particular punishment and even today you can see signs of the war damage as you walk through the enormous church.

Much of Lübeck was either destroyed or badly damaged and around 300 civilians lost their lives that night. The British would later hone their fire-bombing skills to devastating effect on other German targets.

For the German command the bombing of Lübeck was an outrage and a revenge plan was immediately drawn up to revive flagging morale. If the British had chosen Lübeck because of its pretty buildings, the German would use similar criteria for their attacks. Enter the Baedeker guidebook to Great Britain. The authors of the guide used a star system to categorise the main attractions across the country; the higher the rating the more the destination was a must-see for the adventurous German tourist. The message sent out by the Nazis was that they would go out and “bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide”.

Within a week at the end of April 1942 first Exeter and then Bath, Norwich and York were attacked in night-time bombing raids. The bombs were aimed at cultural rather than military sites and resulted in over 1,000 fatalities, as well as the loss of several old buildings and artefacts. The attacks would later be known as the Baedeker Raids.

Of course, revenge led to further retaliation and in the following rounds of destruction Cologne and Canterbury were hit, before the demands of the war meant that the Germans needed to deploy their limited resources elsewhere and the tit-for-tat attacks diminished.

Visiting York last week it was striking to see the wartime pictures of the city’s Guildhall ablaze during the raids of April 1942. The photos were strikingly reminiscent of the ones I’d seen a few weeks earlier in Lübeck. There was no direct reference in York or Lübeck to the Baedeker Raids and perhaps this is an opportunity lost; after all, the images of historic buildings in both countries being destroyed is one of the most visually powerful symbols of the pointless destruction caused by war.

I’m sure many writers will identify with this. Your story gets published and while you might be pleased with the finished article there’s something that the readers will never know: that what you’ve shared with the reader is only half of the story. Indeed the untold back story to an article is often more illuminating than the article itself.

So it was with my recently published article on the BBC Travel site about Jewish Krakow (pdf here for UK folks). I thought I’d use this blog to share my experiences researching this story in Krakow as the experience taught me a lot about the work that can be involved in securing a commissioned story.

First of all, a bit of background. I had a commission to write a feature on Krakow for the National Geographic Traveller magazine (in the current March 2013 issue). As freelancers will appreciate an overseas journey for one story alone is not the most efficient use of time, so I pitched two other ideas. One was immediately accepted (Microbrewing in Poland – pdf) while my rather vague pitch for an article about Jewish Krakow was pushed back to me; I needed to come up with a more focussed angle and I knew I’d have to find it while I was out in Poland.

I flew out to Krakow for two days. On the first afternoon I rushed around collecting the information I needed for my city guide (thankfully I am already familiar with Krakow so I had an advantage here) and the evening was taken up with the arduous task of touring the city’s ale houses.

I had the entire second day to search for an angle for my Jewish Krakow story. My first port of call was the Oscar Schindler factory – an excellent museum telling the tragic story of Krakow during the war years. I was here for 90 minutes and could have easily spent half a day watching the videos and absorbing the testimonies of those who lived through the city’s darkest period. But I didn’t find a real hook on which to build my story.

I then wandered around the streets of Podgorze, the area of the city the Nazis set aside as the Jewish ghetto – it’s a down-at-heel district of Krakow, with a few haunting memorials to the atrocities that took place here; but still nothing stood out for me in terms of a story.

By lunchtime I was back in Kazimierz, known as the Jewish quarter but on the surface resembling an open-air museum of Jewish heritage.  I had heard of some recent immigrants from Israel who had come here to re-establish a Jewish community in the city; I was keen to meet them and was now convinced that this was my hook.

Finding them proved to be easier said than done. I visited the Jewish Cultural Centre and while the staff were cheery and welcoming they couldn’t shed much light on any recent arrivals. They did point me towards a newly opened restaurant and when I arrived there the waiter did indeed confirm that the owner had recently arrived from Israel. Sadly however he was out of town. Could I return tomorrow? I walked away and tended to my hunger with a plate of pierogi, slowly accepting that my quest might draw a blank.

Re-energised by my hearty lunch I set off and soon cast off my inhibitions about walking into any business that appeared to have a Jewish connection. My task was made harder by the fact that it’s apparently cool to look Jewish in Kazimierz and places with no Jewish links are prone to use a bit of Hebrew writing.

After drawing a few more blanks I finally stumbled into the Galeria Szalom, where the owner’s warm welcome suggested she was happy to have someone relieve the boredom of a quiet Thursday afternoon. I explained my mission and she smiled and immediately called up her friend, a lady Rabbi who came to Krakow from Israel to lead the city’s progressive Jewish community. Rabbi Tanya had only just returned home from a trip away and after a quick chat she kindly offered to put off her unpacking to come to the gallery and speak with me. And so after several hours plodding the streets and many doors pushed with no success, I knew I finally had my story.

The experience taught me several lessons that I have tried to take on board in my efforts at staying afloat as a freelance writer. I learned the value of targeting a pitch so that an editor can see clearly that there’s a good story to be told; I saw the importance of stacking up the commissions for a trip to provide the best return on the time spent away from home; but most importantly I saw that if you keep trying, sheer persistence in hunting for a good story will usually bring its rewards

Taking in the surroundings of Eneko Island it’s easy to conclude you’ve walked into a photograph on a postcard. Part of the Majuro atoll in the Marshall Islands, the private island ticks all the boxes for a popular view of paradise. White sandy beach, clear turquoise water, palm trees leaning gently over the ocean; all the ingredients of a perfect place and not a soul in sight to spoil it.

Yet anyone coming to the Marshall Islands for a slice of paradise is likely to get a bit of a shock. While these islands, isolated in the mid-Pacific more than 2000 miles west of Hawaii and 3000 miles east of Manila, do have their idyllic spots poverty and decay are a far more common backdrop than white sand. The road from the airport to the main town of Majuro is lined with rusty shipping containers and many abandoned cars, left to rot in the tropical sun. You’ll be hard pressed to find more than half a dozen buildings in town that boast any architectural merit, with an abundance of corrugated iron and dull grey concrete blocks used to make the buildings that pass for homes and shops. Whatever Majuro is, it ain’t pretty.

A tourist can hardly be expected to appreciate the extent of any country’s social problems during a short visit and in the case of the Marshall Islands that’s probably just as well. Along with the rest of Micronesia the levels of child abuse here are very high and while it doesn’t make good pre-holiday reading this Micronesian Seminar article provides a shocking insight into the scale and causes of these problems. If you read this before you go I can guarantee you’ll be reminded of it when you see a group of children playing in the back streets of Majuro.

The Marshall Islands were never meant to sustain a large population. While fish has always been plentiful the tiny amount of available land is hardly sufficient to feed the current proportion. Perhaps this explains in part the dominance of instant noodles and spam in the local diet (obesity is a major problem).

And if shortage of liveable space was an issue before, continued American military presence has compounded this to an astonishing extent. Having established Bikini Atoll as their favoured site for nuclear testing in 1945, several dozen nukes made not only Bikini uninhabitable for future generations but also neighbouring islands, which received radiation levels so high that even now they are not considered safe for resettlement.

Then there’s the US massive military base at Kwajalein Atoll, which has led many Marshallese to work at the site. Many have been forced to live on the nearby island of Ebeye, where thousands have also been relocated as a long-lasting legacy of the nuclear testing programme. With a population of 15,000 crammed into a mere 80 acres, Ebeye is one of the most densely populated places in the world. With alarming rates of poverty and disease it has earned the unwanted label of the Ghetto of the Pacific.

If you have any doubt about the horrific consequences that the American nuclear tests had on the Marshallese population I would urge you to watch the film Nuclear Savage, made by American film-maker Adam Horowitz. The official site is here (contains a short trailer) and I’ve found the full 80 minute moviehere on Vimeo (it’s in English but with Spanish subtitles). A very difficult film to watch and having watched the full movie while in our Majuro hotel I defy anyone to sit through it and not get extremely angry.

So why on earth, given my descriptions above, would anyone want to go to the Marshall Islands? They’re so far from anywhere, with poor flight connections each involving multiple stops in places that perhaps have far more to offer. A few divers come here to explore some of the most accessible and impressive wrecks in the world. We met a group of surfers on our first day – they were passing through, heading out onto a live-aboard boat for the next two weeks.

Yet I would say those who do make it out to the Marshall Islands will probably list it as one of their most memorable travel experiences. Highlights listed by the Visitors Authority are certainly low-key – they include a visit to a copra (coconut meat) processing factory and a canoe-building workshop (more on that in this article). But wherever we stopped by we were met with curiosity, warm smiles and willingness to show us whatever we wanted to see. We were even invited to a quiz night in one of Majuro’s few restaurants by an ex-pat we met on our wanders around the town.

By day five we were being greeted by toots of the horn and waves of recognition as we walked along the only road in town. We’d met several islanders who had opened up and shared with us their family history on Majuro and the neighbouring atolls and helped give us an appreciation of both the good parts and the problems of island life.

While we may not have seen any single sight that made Majuro unforgettable for us, we left with many happy memories of a time well spent. Beyond the grubby exterior of Majuro there was more than enough to make us glad we came.