Hi everyone! Thanks so much for tuning into the latest post on Saving the Shtetlach, my blog about my travels through Eastern Europe learning about Jewish history and culture.  Last week, my ten day adventure in Poland came to an end and now that I am back in the USA, I have resumed my internship at the Jewish Museum of Maryland working as their Education and Programming intern.

As I sit here at my campus Starbucks prepared to write about the entire second half of my trip, I realize that there is too much information and stories to tell for just one blog post.  The last six days of my trip were amazing and inspiring.  What I saw truly changed my life. Thus, because of the importance of all these events, I’m going to divide writing about my second half of the trip into three parts – a “trilogy” as I like to call it.  It’s going to be like the Lord of the Rings or Batman trilogy (or any other big fat trilogy movie series) but, well,  Eastern European – Jewish style!

On a more serious note though, I am going to pick up where I left off, the night before I went to Auschwitz concentration camp (I needed to throw in some movie humor to lighten up this one).  After a great visit to Warsaw and a few days of travelling through the Polish countryside, I had made it to my hotel in the city of Krakow.  As I lay in my bed, trying to mentally prepare myself for the day to come, I simply couldn’t.  I just sat in my bed and closed my eyes, breathing in and out, something my grandpa always tells me to do when I am stressed.  I was going to Auschwitz – the camp that killed over a million Jews. I didn’t know what to think so I didn’t want to think anything at all.  I wanted my mind to be clear and rested, ready for highly emotional day to come. I breathed in and out and then listened to some music, resting my mind and enabling myself to go to bed.

In the morning the ride from Krakow to Auschwitz was about an hour long.  Our first stop before going to see the concentration camp was a visit to the Jewish Museum in Oświęcim (pronounced in English like: Auschviechim) the town where Auschwitz was located.  Small note: when the Germans invaded Oświęcim they renamed the town Auschwitz because that sounded more German.  They did this to nearly all of the cities they conquered in Poland. Our group had the chance to walk through this small museum which detailed the years of Jewish life in Oświęcim.  The small town used to be the home to 8,200 Jews, which made up 60% of the population. 

When Oświęcim was invaded by the Germans in October 1939, many people in the town were forced to move because the Nazis wanted to create a 40 square kilometer buffer zone between Polish citizens and the concentration camp. Jews who lived in Oświęcim were immediately removed from the town and sent off to various camps. We learned that after the war, just 200 Jews came back  to Oświęcim, but as of this year there are no Jews left.  Only one Jew stayed in Oświęcim permanently after the war ended (he never told anyone why) but he passed away last year.

When we left Oświęcim and drove to the Auschwitz concentration camp (only a 15 minute drive away), I was shocked by how full the parking lot was.  It was the middle of the day on a Friday and the place was packed.  When we walked through the gates with our tour guide, I was taken aback by the sheer number of people standing at the entrance gates.  I learned that thousands of people visit Auschwitz each day. I was standing amongst hundreds waiting to enter through the black gates.  As I looked at the black gates, I recognized it as the one that we’ve all seen in the pictures, the black gates that read Arbeit Macht Frei – Work Brings Freedom.  Right, I thought to myself, that was just one of the first lies people were told as they entered this awful place.  Work brings freedom? Tell that to the 1.4 million people who were murdered her.  Tell that to the 1.3 million Jews.  I immediately felt small as I entered this place. I felt angry, sad, and just plain discomforted.  

The things I saw while visiting Auschwitz were so tragic that it’s hard to describe them in words.  It’s really like a museum now.  Our tour guide lead us through several buildings, each dedicated to a different function in the camp.  The functions all lead to the same thing though – death. I saw a room full of hair cut off the heads of prisoners.  I saw a room full of shoes taken off of their feet.  I saw a big vault full of eye glasses – the Nazis even took away the prisoner’s sight.  My father is an eye doctor so this exhibit particularly affected me.

I saw the pictures of thousands of dead bodies. There were pictures of this everywhere you looked. Murder after murder, the numbers just started to feel insurmountable. It was incomprehensible.  It was impossible yet overtly necessary to believe that this happened.

I saw a 3-D diagram of how the gas chambers worked.  The gas chambers killed 2,400 people a day.  The camp was used for five years. Just do the math.

That’s not even all though.  The most painful thing for me about Auschwitz was learning about how successful the perpetrators were at doing what they wanted.  The Nazis were so methodical.  They were so precise.  They managed to round people out and give them numbers.  The people in the camps didn’t even have names.  

I have studied the Holocaust for so long and I always wondered what would happen when I saw Auschwitz with my own eyes.  I wondered how I would feel when the time came. Would I cry? Would I give up my faith? Would I reach some realization that everything I was doing in Eastern Europe was just a waste? Was learning about Jewish life pointless? How could I visit a place where something like this could happen?

As our group walked through the camp, several of the girls began to cry.  The pain was just too much.  We were all there for each other, doing our best to comfort the ones who were outwardly struggling.  Everyone struggled as we walked through the camp.  I wondered to myself, why wasn’t I crying? I began to get angry at myself.  Why wasn’t I more emotional? Shouldn’t I be?  I wanted to cry. I wanted the tears to come. Was I heartless? Did I understand the tragedy? But, instead, my facial expression felt rather stoic.  Calm, but very serious.  As I walked through the camp/museum, my eyes were solemn, my voice very quiet, but my heart beating very fast.  That’s the only way to describe it. I was thinking so much, but I said very little.  No one in our group really talked as we finished our tour. I felt so much sadness and I couldn’t even express it. No one could.

When we left Auschwitz, our tour guide came with us to our next destination, Birkenau.  Birkenau was opened in October 1941 and it was built to be both a labor and extermination camp.  The biggest thing to know: Birkenau is twenty times the size of Auschwitz.  It is enormous. 

As our group walked through Birkenau we learned about the horrid acts of injustice that occurred there.  By 1943, the camp had four crematoria killing people in the mass. That’s how most people died at Birkenau.  The ones who weren’t sent to the gas chambers weren’t much luckier.  They had to work as slaves all day and, like chickens in a slaughter house, cram together in bunkers at night.  Prisoners were given five seconds to use the toilet at the beginning and end of each day.  Sickness spread like wildfire.  Prisoners froze to death.  As we walked through, there was too much sadness to indulge, and the pain surged through my veins as I walked through this factory of death.

As I sat by the Jewish memorial at Birkenau, looking out at the train tracks that were used to ship people into this place, I breathed a solemn breath.  I thanked God that the war was over.  I thanked God that as a Jew, I could stand here to see this place.  As a human being, I could stand here and realize how terrible the Nazi Party and SS soldiers were; how terrible genocide is. What I’ve learned is that war brings out the worst in people and it also brings out the best.  I was standing here looking at what was made by the worst of people.  I was lucky that later that evening and over the next few days, I would see things that were made by the best. 

As our group left Auschwitz-Birkenau and drove back to Krakow, I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief that the visit was over.  I had visited the place that for so long had only met me in my nightmares. I no longer had to keep my head down.  I no longer had to feel a pit in my stomach and surges of anger and upset, although the remnants of the day still felt like a sore in my throat. I wondered why I didn’t cry.  Was I affected? I sure felt affected. I felt so sad… but I also felt so many other feelings and I didn’t know how to wrap my mind around it.  All I knew for sure was that I would remember.  As Elie Wiesel once said, “To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice.”

When we got back to Krakow, our group had the chance to clean ourselves up and get ready for Shabbat.  We were going to walk over to the Krakow JCC (Jewish Community Center) and celebrate Shabbat there with a short service and dinner with locals.  I showered and threw on a blue dress – it felt so good to change and in a way, put the day away.  I needed to get the soil of Auschwitz off of my body.  I needed to wash away the pain.  But sadly, after the shower, much of it was still there.

What brought me out of my slump was singing at Shabbat services that evening.  I love Jewish religous services – so much that I even lead Reform Community Services at school.  It was incredibly therapeutic to sing the songs with my group that mean so much to me and so much to my religion.  We had some Polish guests come to Shabbat services with us, including an older woman who looked like she was my grandmother’s age.  She by far sang the loudest of us and since I sat next to her, I glanced over at her and noticed the sincerity and passion in her eyes as she sang each tune.  I would later learn that this woman, Zosca, was a Holocaust survivor herself, and she stayed in Krakow after the war.  She was quite an amazing woman who clearly had a love for Shabbat as large as my own. 

After services, our group had a lovely dinner at the JCC Krakow.  At the dinner, I had the chance to sit with and get to know several young Jewish community members in Krakow.  Each of them had such interesting stories.  Most of these young people there were in their mid twenties found out only a few years ago that they were Jewish.  I’ll talk more about this later, but it was amazing to meet young people who not so long ago found out that they had Jewish ancestry and embraced their heritage.  These young people were so happy to be Jewish. They were so proud of it and committed to building their Polish Jewish community.  It was very inspiring.  I loved talking to them and hearing their stories.

After my evening at the JCC, I went back to my hotel feeling a larger sense of relief than I had going into the evening.  Celebrating Shabbat right after visiting Auschwitz was the perfect way to end the day.  It put me in perspective. It showed me something important – something EXTREMELY important.  That is the fact that the Nazis weren’t successful. They didn’t win.  They might have killed so many of us.  They might have tried to wipe out the Jews.  But they failed.  The Jews are still here and they are alive.  They are living right in the places where they were once herded out.  They still have their humanity. They are alive and still say the prayers on Friday nights.  That day I was proud to be among my peers.  I was proud to be Jewish and I was proud to be in Krakow.  I felt so blessed and I didn’t feel like it was pointless.  For the first time in a long time I felt – there is no place I’d rather be than here.

In addition, for all those who were lost in the tragedy, I want their lives and their memories to live in us.  Any Jew and human being today in my mind is a witness.  We are still here.  We have the power to keep these stories and these historical truths like the Holocaust alive. As living people we must carry the memories and the lives of the dead with us.  We must make sure they are remembered.  Just like my favorite scene in the Lion King when Rafiki shows Simba his father’s reflection in the seeing pool.  As Simba looks into the water and sees his father, Rafiki says, “You see, he lives in you.”

Like Simba, we carry the memories of those we love and those we’ve lost in our hearts.  We honor them by never forgetting.  We honor them by cherishing their memory and leading lives that promote a better day. You see, they live in us.

So that’s it for the first part of my second-half-of-Poland-trip-trilogy.  I hope you enjoyed it.  In my next post, I’m going to discuss my experiences in the amazing city of Krakow, learning about its Jewish community both past and present, and exploring Shtetlach of all sorts.  I also have two surprises that I’m not going to say here, but they will surely show readers how “Righteous” some people are in the world.  Surely, the Second World War wasn’t only filled with perpetrators.

As always, thanks so much for reading and for embracing this message. It means a lot to me, but I think it means a lot to humanity too.

Until next time,

Arielle

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for tuning into the latest post of Saving the Shtetlach, my blog dedicated to my travels through Jewish Eastern Europe.  I am thrilled to be back writing because today I witnessed something so beautiful that I hope I can do it justice by putting it into worlds.  It was a moment that I’ll always remember.

First, let me catch you up quickly on what I’ve been up to for the past two days.  Yesterday, after driving out of Warsaw, our group visited two smaller cities Kazimierz and Lublin.  In Kazimierz, our group first visited a Jewish graveyard which housed a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.  As you can see in the pictures, this memorial is unique because it is a wall made out of stones – but not just any kind of stones – former Jewish gravestones.  Small fact: when the Nazis invaded Eastern Europe some of the first locations destroyed were the Jewish Cemeteries.  The Nazis would literally dig Jewish gravestones out of the ground and transport them to nearby towns to use as pavement.  Could you imagine?

Well today, several of those gravestones have been plucked back out of the pavement and returned to the cememtery.  To commemorate the Holocaust, the community of Kazimierz set up a memorial wall, built out of Jewish gravestones, meant to look like the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.  I found the memorial to be quite powerful.  At the wall our group discussed the meaning of Poland, or as called in Hebrew: “Polin.” It is legend that when the Jews arrived in Poland during the middle ages, as they walked through the pine wooded forests they could hear a voice from the Heavens saying “Polin” – “Po” meaning here and “Lin” meaning you shall dwell.  For over 1,000 years Jewish people made their homes in Poland, each generation living and dying and memories being past down.  The memorial stood for this Jewish memory, the wall of the graves, even after WWII, still standing. 

Afterwards, our group visited the small Jewish museum in Kazimierz which used to house the community’s synagogue.  I particularly loved the pictures displayed of Jewish shtetl life in Kazimierz which helped give me a good sense of what daily life was like. Next on our itinerary was our stop at the city of Lublin where we saw some awesome sites like the “No Name” Theater and Museum which houses thousands of documents about Jewish history in Lublin.  We also had the chance to see the Lublin Yeshiva right in the heart of the city.  Back in Eastern European days, Yeshivas were special places where only the most learned of young men were invited to study.  It was a house of superb education and religious study. I particularly love learning about Yeshivas and all of the other houses of education from Eastern European Jewish life because I’m a student myself.  This yeshiva was enormous and amazingly still stands today.  Although Jewish students don’t study there now, it was thrilling to walk through its halls knowing that less than one hundred years ago, some of the world’s most learned Jewish scholars studied in that Yeshiva.   It was quite a special place to be. 

Now the next part of my blog post is my favorite part to tell because it was such an amazing moment to witness and share in. I honestly feel so special that I got to see it.  Today, after our group visited the cute city of Zamosc and learned about its Sepharidic and Ashkenazi combined synagogue and culture, we drove to the small town of Lezajsk.  Our purpose in visiting Lezajsk was to learn more about its Hassidic roots, particularly about one of its very famous Rabbis, Elimelech of Lizhensk. Standing in a small wooded corner of Lezajsk today is a little cemetery housing the mausoleum for the great Rabbi.  Our group gathered inside the mausoleum and looked at the grave standing before us.  Initially, I didn’t feel that much.  It was the grave for a man I didn’t know and hardly knew anything about.  It wasn’t until I learned the back story that it all started to click.

Next to the grave, our group sat down and one of our leaders Rabbi Josh helped explain to us what Hassidim was and what it meant to be a good Hassidic Tsadek (head Rabbi).  He explained to us that Hassidism was a Jewish religious movement which found its roots in Poland in the eighteenth century. The movement is a sect of the Orthodox religious custom and emphasizes passion, mysticism, and full devotion to your community’s Tsadek or Head Rabbi.  The Tsadek was the man to look to with any problem because it was said that he acted in a way as a liason to God – as though only he could understand and articulate God’s true wishes. To help us better understand this movement, Josh told us two stories about Hassidism and we discussed the different traits we’d want in a Hassidic leader.

I mentioned in the discussion that I would want my Hassidic Tsadek to be kind and to have humility.  If he were a good leader he wouldn’t have to overstate his power. He should never be crookedly condescending towards his people and should be happy to provide support and advice. Moreover, we discussed how his character should reflect the character of God and he should try to relate amongst the people, leading by example and not by command.

Anyways, after we finished this talk, the eldest member of our group added something to our discussion that brought it to a much higher emotional level and for me, opened my eyes to the influence of a religious leader.  It helped convey the meaning of someone’s life even after they have died.  It showed me the meaning of family and how so much love and respect can be passed down through the generations.

M (who has requested his name be kept private)is the oldest member of our group and he is a professor at Towson university.  I didn’t know this until today, but M is a Holocaust survivor.  He was born during the Second World War in a small town in Romania, where his parent’s lived in the Jewish ghetto.  M had two Jewish parents and when his father was sent to a slave labor camp in Russia, M was still a baby.  His mother tried to flee Romania with him and go across to Russia in order to meet back up with his father.  Luckily, he and his mother safely crossed the border, his mother missing incoming gun shots by bending down to help her son bandage his feet.

With even more luck, M and his mother were able to meet his father again, now out of the slave labor camp.  They made their way to America and M lived the rest of his childhood years in the Bronx – a boy so close to being taken by death, now safely living in the Big Apple.

But that wasn’t all the news M had for us.  There was something more he wanted to share.  It turns out that he knew all about the great Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk.  It turns out M knew all of the details we used to describe what we wanted in a Tsadek were true in this great religious leader.  Why did M know this? Well, because M is a descendent of Rabbi Elimelech.  M is the Tsadek’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-Grandson. They are eight generations apart and his ancestor’s story has been passed down from generation to generation.

M told us all about his great-great-…..-great grandfather. He was an amazing man – smart, humble, and righteous. M told us that this was the third time he had come back to Eastern Europe to visit his ancestor’s grave. It is true that on every anniversary of this Tsadek’s death over 10,000 Hassidic Jews from around the world travel to this very gravesite.  M has joined them twice and he says he can’t help but get emotional when he sees the impact that someone in his own family had on the world.  Rabbi Elimelech was a greatly revered leader, admired by both Jews and Christians in Lezajsk.  Even our tour guide in Lezajsk told M today that she prays to Rabbi Elimelech every morning – and she’s not even Jewish! It is all so amazing to me.

M and I have gotten to talk several times on this trip and we share several common interests including Yiddish language and culture, as M was raised speaking Yiddish with his family.  We also happened to run into the oldest living Holocaust survivor from Lublin while we visited that city and the three of us spoke together in Yiddish – it was all so special.

It touched me to watch M connect with an ancestor that means so much to him, his family, and the Jewish people.  I’ve learned a lot about Hasidism on this trip and I think I have a greater appreciation for it now after learning about M'’s own ancestor the great Tsadek Elimelech.

Today I know will be another powerful day as I will be visiting the Concentration Camp I have learned about my whole life, Auschwitz.  I hope I am mentally prepared – I’m sure it will be an emotional visit – but I am also looking forward to Shabbat tomorrow evening, where I’ll be celebrating with Jewish residents in Krakow at their beautiful JCC.

As always, thanks so much for reading.

Until next time,

Arielle

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for tuning into my latest post on Saving the Shtetlach, my travel blog detailing my travels in Eastern Europe exploring its Jewish past, present, and future.  It’s so exciting to be writing again as I am now in Poland learning so much about its rich Jewish heritage.

I never imagined after last summer ending that I would come back to Eastern Europe so quickly.  I knew that after traveling and getting a glimpse of the world last summer, I’d want to travel again, but I never thought that going back to Poland would be my next destination.  Spending my spring break in Vienna certainly influenced my choice to return to Poland this summer and I am so thrilled that I made the choice to come back.

Let me clear the air though – the places I saw in Poland last summer are not the same places that I am exploring over these next eight days.  Last summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Poland for two days with the Helix Project and we visited the regions of Bialystock and Suvalki which line the northeastern tip of Poland near Belarus and Lithuania.  On this trip that I am on now, we are exploring the central region of Poland, some stops including Warsaw (Poland’s capital city), Krakow, Lublin, and the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

I have only been on this trip for two days and so far it has been so jam packed and busy that for the past two nights I’ve come back so tired I can hardly move, let alone.  It seems that on a trip like this one has to choose two of the three things to do: sleeping, exploring, and blogging – so tonight I’m choosing blogging, let’s hope I can sleep on the bus tomorrow! (I know deep down the blog is worth it – I’m a writer and we have to make these choices!)

So I’m going to do my best to go in order from the start to finish of my first two and a half days in Poland.  We have literally done so much in these past few days that if I were to write all of it down it would either drag on until you till you stopped reading (even thought the writing is definitely grade A!) or defeat me in the process because the writing would never end.  That’s how much we’ve seen! I have so many thoughts swirling in my head right now that if I didn’t write it down I don’t know how I would be able to handle this trip.

Anyways, I’m going to start on this past Sunday, the day I travelled to Poland because that was when it hit me.  This trip was real. I was going to Poland – the land of my people, the land of my ancestors.

Now you’re probably wondering why a teenage girl like me would want to spend her summer vacation travelling in Poland rather than in some snazzy place like Tahiti or Barcelona.  Now, while Tahiti and Barcelona are surely fun places and rich in their own histories, I wanted to come Poland because when I came back from Eastern Europe last summer, I returned with more questions than answers.  These questions digged at me the entire school year yet it never crossed my mind that returning to Eastern Europe would be a good idea.  It wasn’t until my roommate and close friend Emily Rodgers over a late-night chat suggested that maybe my journey in Eastern Europe wasn’t done yet.  Maybe there were still some more chapters left to be written.  Our conversation left me puzzled but then I thought – what if she was right?

When my Vienna group leader Sam told me that he was organizing another Hillel sponsored trip to Poland to learn about Jewish life and wanted me to go, at first I was hesitant.  But then I realized how right he was – I needed to go on this trip.  I owed it to my questions and I owed it to myself. Let me also say how thankful I am to the Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate research program for funding me to go on this ten day journey and explore my research question on how Jewish life has resurged in a post-Holocaust world. It means a lot to me that my university believes in my goals as much as I do and it’s always helpful to receive some support monetarily! I don’t know where I’d be without Johns Hopkins or my research mentorship at school.  For all those who believed in me, I’m so appreciative for all your support as I go on this trip!

Now exploring Poland, even if it’s only been for two and a half days, has been a real adventure.  On Monday our group arrived in Warsaw and was met by our Polish tour assistant Patrick and our tour guide for the week, Helise Liberman, Director of the Taube Center (a Jewish Cultural and Educational organization in Poland).  Even on our first introduction, I knew that Helise and I were kindred spirits, cut from the same loaf of bread.  Helise is a knowledgable, vivacious, and extremely funny woman from the United States who has lived in Warsaw for the past twenty years.  She studied at Brandeis and worked in the United States for a bit, but later made the decision with her husband to move to Europe – more specifically to Eastern Europe – Poland.  Her mission was to help rebuild Poland’s Jewish community which was devastated during the Second World War.  Through her efforts and the people she’s lead, the Jewish community has grown its presence in the city of Warsaw and is changing how people see Jewry in Poland. 

When I told her about myself, she grabbed my hand and said, “You have an Eastern European heart, like me.” Since then we have talked all about our mutual knowledge about Yiddish culture and literature (especially the Yiddish Warsaw-rooted writer Y.L. Peretz), Jewish life pre-Holocaust, and our infinite other common interests.  On our first day, she took us on a private tour of the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews.  The museum, which will be fully finished later this year, narrates the tale of 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland.  As we walked through the museum, I found it refreshing because it didn’t feel like just a Holocaust Museum.  This museum tells a full story – a story of Jewish life and death in Poland– also discussing the fight for recovery that Poland and its Jewry are still facing today. I was happy to see exhibits on Poland’s Yiddish culture, its active press, its youth groups and its life which I feel are often unmentioned in Poland’s Jewish story.  The museum felt balanced and it was powerful to tribute to more than 1,000 years of Polish Jewish history. I can’t wait to watch it succeed as a museum educating its millions of visitors about the amazing story of Poland’s Jews.

At the end of our visit to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, our group leaders sat us down for a discussion regarding our aims for the coming week’s trip.  We all shared our views on how we wanted to learn more about Poland and its Jews, we wanted to discover more about our Jewish identity, we wanted to better understand and grasp the Holocaust, etc. What left me the most interested after this conversation was something that one of our group leaders Rabbi Josh said.  He suggested that everyone on this trip over the next week take a moment to look through the eyes of someone else, whether it be a German, a Pole, a Soviet, or even a peer.  I didn’t realize this when he said it, but it turns out that for the past two days, seeing through another’s eyes seems to be all that I can do.  It seems that the eyes that I’m learning about are slowly transforming the views from my own.

Our first dinner in Poland consisted with a meeting with Mr. Sebastian Rejak, a representative of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  We had a very nice meal with him and discussed with him how Poland has changed since the Second World War.  We discussed how the Holocaust was educated to young Polish citizens and what it means to be Polish in today’s world.  One major highlight of this dinner was my newly acquired understanding of how Polish life was affected by Soviet communism after the Second World War.  It seems to me that the Holocaust and the Communist occupation by the Soviets served as back to back traumas for many Eastern European people. Only in the past few months have I started to understand the drastic changes in the Eastern Europe between when the Soviets had power and when they lost it in the nineties.  When the Soviets ruled over Poland after the Holocaust, expressing individuality and religion was severely dissuaded against.  It was said that if you wanted to actively be Jewish in Poland in post-Holocaust years, you had to leave because the Soviets demanded “sameness” – equality in the idea that everyone had to act the same.  No one should stand out. Being Jewish, aka being different, was not welcomed and that went the same for all religions.

Only in the nineties when the Soviet regime fell did people start turning again to religion, especially Jews.  It was in the nineties when many middle aged people found out from their parents that they were actually Jewish and they just weren't told to be protected.  It was in the nineties when dialogue began to occur about Poland’s not so perfect past, when questions about the Holocaust and Polish responsibility came up.  The fall of the Berlin wall, and the fall of Soviet Communism changed everything – it was almost as if Polish society was reborn. 

Now, today a big issue in Poland is how their population will be educated about the second world war.  How is the genocide going to be talked about and taught? Is Poland merely just a mass grave or can it grow to be something more - can we learn something? I agreed with Rejak in his views that we need to educate young Poles about the Jewish presence in Poland and how it was systematically destroyed by the Nazis through genocide.  Unfortunately, there aren’t enough Jews left in Poland to teach this history – that’s why we need teachers and mandated school curriculums to help reinforce this lesson. We need to teach young Poles about the perpetrators that worked in their country, but we also need to educate them about the heroes – about the righteous who saved Jews.  To me, Holocaust education is about finding a balance, and it is particularly tricky in locations like Eastern Europe where the students’ grandparents might have indeed been perpetrators or those who stood by while the Nazis demolished the Jewish population. 

In trying to see through their eyes, I would never want a young Polish boy or girl to feel guilty about something their grandparent did or did not do.  It is not this generation’s fault.  However, I believe it is important that these lessons are learned and discussed to prevent further atrocities from happening.  I believe this principal is true for any country or citizen population. Genocide education is important because as Confucius said, “Study the past if you would define the future.” History can always repeat itself.  Holocaust education shouldn’t be focused on promoting guilt; rather it should be for the purpose of education and improving the welfare of society.

On Tuesday morning, our group stood together at the top of the Polish Palace of Culture, a thirty story building that gave us a bird’s eyes view of the whole city.  The view from the top floor was incredible and as I looked out at the city it was impossible to imagine how less than a century ago, nearly the entire city was destroyed by war.  Literally when looking at pictures of post-Holocaust Warsaw to what it is today the difference is incredible.  The first picture has almost no buildings; the second picture has a ton of them!

  Our tour guide Helise made a very interesting comment, saying that Warsaw is like a Phoenix bird.  In history it Warsaw burned, sometimes completely to the ground, but always, out of the ashes arises a new and stronger city.  Just like the magical bird made famous by Harry Potter, like a Phoenix, Warsaw has proven resilient to even the most tragic of histories.  It has come back as a capital city and and rebuilt itself as a center of culture in Eastern Europe.

 After this visit to the tower, our group toured what was the former Warsaw ghetto and Jewish neighborhood.  We learned a bit about its vibrant Jewish life – over one third of Warsaw was Jewish – and its struggle to maintain itself when the war began.  Warsaw was the only city in Eastern Europe which housed a violent Jewish uprising against the Nazis, famously called the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  It occurred between April 19, 1943 and May 16, 1943 and was a final act of Jewish resistance against the Nazis who had planned to deport the remaining members of the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.  We visited the monuments to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the victims of the Holocaust.  I was particularly touched when I was asked to read a poem by Polish/Jewish poet Władysław Szlengel, called “Window to the Other Side” – a powerful narration of what it was like for Jews living in the Warsaw ghetto to watch life be lived on the other side of the ghetto wall.  It was heartbreaking as it was eye opening. 

The poem goes as follows:

My window faces the other
side, shameless and brash Jewish window,
below, Krasinski Park’s beauty,
where autumn’s dead leaves still linger…
Through all of this grey-lilac evening
the branches bow their grave greeting,
and Aryan trees from the garden
are in my Jewish window peeking…
For me it’s forbidden to look through
(this by-law has obvious rightness),
these Israelite moles… this vermin…
quite properly should be sightless,
should sit in their holes and squalor,
for work keep their eyes and fingers,
their eyes never, never straying
outside their Jewish windows…
But I rush, when night has fallen,
so all can be smoothed, forgotten,
in darkness I rush to this window,
and stare… and stare like a glutton.
and greedily steal quenched Warsaw,
the hum and the distant whistle,
the outline of streets and buildings,
the crippled towers’ stumps bristling…
I steal the City Hall’s outline,
lies at my feet the Grand Theater,
(the lunar camp guard permitting
some sentimental night barter…)
My eyes are greedily piercing
these shadows (like knives well-sharpened),
this silent evening in Warsaw,
this city of mine all darkened…
And when I have hoarded much for
tomorrow, and longer even,
farewell I the silent city,
and raise magic hands to heaven…
I close my eyes and whisper
to Warsaw: Speak now… I am hoping…

All the pianos in town at that moment,
all the pianos their silent lids open…
their lids at my bidding fly open,
raised up with sadness and weakness,
and floats from a hundred pianos
Chopin’s Polonaise in the blackness…
The keyboards call me, with pity
and anguish of silence swollen,
from death-white piano keys calling…
The end now… and I drop my hands,
the polonaise shrinks back inside
its boxes. It’s not good to have
a window to this other side.

It is easy to feel overcome by sadness and mourning when visiting a city like Warsaw which is still just recovering from the tragedy of WWII.  It is easy to feel a sense of helplessness and pain to walk through streets which were once housed by so many of your own people.  It is easy to feel alone. You wonder how can people move on and still live life here? But while these may be concerns – they are not rooted from the truth as far as I've come by it.

The truth is something that I have to keep reminding myself.  The truth is something that has charged me and will keep me charged for the rest of this extremely emotional trip.  The truth is that people DO care. The Holocaust is remembered. And as Jewish people and as Non-Jewish people – as people in general – we need to continue to have hope. Hope is the key.  We need to learn, we need to educate, and we need to have faith that future generations will learn from the mistakes of our past.  Hope is my fuel as my faith is my comfort.  I know that the Jewish people are still alive. The Jewish people are here and we will continue to make sure the past is remembered. Life goes on, but the past is never forgotten. For my own sake, I need to have hope in this idea.

In coming back to Poland, you can see, I still have many questions.  I want to learn more about my family’s history.  I want to challenge and build on my beliefs and gain knowledge that will make me wiser and more rounded.  I want to see through as many people’s eyes as possible and I want to understand what it truly means to be Jewish today and how I must live my life to preserve the memory of my people’s precious history. There’s still a lot to be figured out but I have hope that this will all see itself through.

As I learned by visiting the Warsaw Uprising museum today, a museum that documents the city of Warsaw’s four month long defense against the Germans from August 1, 1944 to October 2, 1944, I saw today that everyone is a victim of history.  Everyone living in Poland during WWII was a victim of loss, death, and collapse. Nearly the entire city of Warsaw was destroyed by the Nazis.  Over 200,000 Poles died in the fight for Warsaw. Of the 5,000 Polish people that tried to escape through the sewers by 1944, only 800 could make their way to safety.  

I myself climbed into a make-shift sewer exhibit today and felt a sense of claustrophobia that is indescribable.  For the first time I could feel the fear that any person would feel, trying to escape their home in the darkness, wondering if they’d ever see the light of day again.  This sensation made me realize Jews were victims of World War II but so were Poles, who fought for their city both against the Nazis and the Soviets.  Although they eventually lost to the Nazis in battle, those who died in the Warsaw city uprising fought for freedom and fought for their community, something that both Polish Jews and Polish non-Jews had in common.  Poland was a city of two uprsisings - the uprising of the Jews in the ghetto in 1943 and the Poles in Warsaw in 1944. I learned that seeing through another’s eyes is the key to understanding, or even beginning to understand, three of the largest lessons of the second world war: tolerance, resistance, and resilience.

I came back to Poland to learn more about its Jewish story, but I think it helps to learn its history in the wider scope.  It’s about seeing through another person’s eyes. It’s about seeing a story from all angles and feeling empathy towards all.  The words of Helise and the “Phoenix city” still stick out in my mind.  Warsaw is truly a great city because of its ability to rebuild itself, even out of the ashes.  I hope that one day Jews can come back to Warsaw and feel less pain, although the horrid memory of the past will always be there. I hope that one day we can feel more admiration for a city that even in just 25 years of recovery from Communism and Nazism, is still trying to face its past and re-erect for a better and more hopeful day.

As always, thanks so much for reading.  Next time I’ll be writing about my day in the towns of Kazimierz and Lublin, two incredible places to visit.  Once again, it feels great to be back in the blogosphere and its readers like you who make it worthwhile. Thanks so much.

Until next time,

Arielle