Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for tuning in again to Saving the Shtetlach, my blog that details my travels through Europe learning about modern Jewish life and history. In my last post, I told you all about my time spent in Krakow, Poland researching its modern Jewish community.  In this post, I will update you about my time spent living in Berlin. I have lived in Germany for four weeks now, participating in the Leo Baeck Summer University in Jewish Studies at Humbolt Universität and let me tell you, it’s been quite the ride.

 My time in Berlin has been a very interesting experience, both challenging and fun. The program I am participating in is as superb as it is intense, and every day I leave class with my brain flooded with thoughts, ideas, and an overload of information. We are studying a very interesting topic: Jewish history in Germany and modern German-Jewish relations. My program is divided into two modules, the first one focused on Jewish life in Germany before and during World War II and the second one focused on German-Jewish life post-World War II. 


The first three-week module ended last week and overall it was a very interesting class. We studied Jewish history in Germany from 1800 through 1945 and I learned a great deal. I had never realized how long Jews had lived in Germany. I had never before learned in detail what their life was like. The narrative I had always been told was that all Jews living in Germany before World War II were well-off and assimilated. I had always believed that German Jews hardly connected with their Jewish identity. Rather, I had always been told that Jews living in Germany considered themselves to be Germans first. As usual, my preconceptions proved to be misconceptions and I found that Jewish history in Germany before World War II was much more complex than I had expected.

First you must know that not all Jews in Germany were rich and living in fancy houses. This is what I thought and oh boy was I wrong. Most Jews belonged to the middle class, in fact, many lived even quite close to poverty. Jewish religiosity was complex in its definition and rather could be better thought of as a spectrum of observance. One could not simply place all German Jews into the category of being secular. By the midpoint of the 19th century, the Reform Jewish movement had begun in Germany and assimilation was common amongst Jews living in industrialized cities. Still there were many Jews who still lived in rural towns and made their livings in small scale professions like cattle trading.  In 1871, 66% of all German Jews lived in small villages in the country side. By 1933, 66% of German Jews lived in urban areas.

We learned about relations between German Jews and Gentiles before World War II and how these relations were quite complicated in nature. It is important to note that Jews and Gentiles needed each other in Germany, particularly in business. Yet issues of trust and antisemitism often came into play and sometimes fractured their dealings. Jews in Germany certainly had more freedoms than Jewish people living in other parts of the world, particularly compared to the Pale of Settlement which was in also place during the 19th century. The Jewish Emancipation that took place in Germany in 1871 made Jews citizens of Germany with rights, and this made their situation special and often better than the situation of Russian-Jewish or Polish-Jewish people of that time. By the start of the 20th century, Jewish people had the ability to rise through the societal ranks and often become more educated. Many Jews took this opportunity and made nice lives for themselves and their families, finding jobs in medicine, law, and business. When World War I began, 85,000 of Jewish men fought for Germany and defended the “father land,” in fact, many became decorated war heroes. But despite having near equal rights, Jews faced severe discrimination in many spheres of their life in Germany. For instance, it was very tough for a Jew to be admitted to a German University. Even in the 1900s, it was still very hard for a Jew to rise up in court houses or in military. Rumors and stereotypes about the Jewish people would spread like wildfire throughout the country and Jews faced persecution and humiliation often in the public sphere. When Germany lost the First World War and its economy completely crashed, the young Nazi party used anti-Semitic rhetoric as its way to slither up through the ranks.

Interestingly, we learned that it was not so easy for the Nazis to turn everyone in their country against the Jews. While antisemitism certainly existed in Germany before the Nazis rose to power and being Jewish in Germany certainly wasn’t easy, in order to truly manifest their ideology in the heart of the German nation, the Nazis had to push a several year-long campaign promoting antisemitism before the German people eventually conceded to this way of thinking. It was hard for many German citizens to be turned against their Jewish friends and neighbors. Economically, the Jews were very important as merchants and traders and many people, particularly German farmers, initially did not want to give up these relationships in spite of the Nazi propaganda. The Nazi regime was as terrible as they were genius in their way indoctrinating a country in a disgusting ideology. The Nazis declared that the German Aryan race was the supreme race and all Jews were considered sub-human. The Nuremburg Laws of 1935 declared that Jewish people now enemies of the German state. In the years following, Jews were ostracized and persecuted. The Nazis highly promoted, but also made it very hard, for Jewish people to emigrate. In 1933, over 500,000 Jewish people lived in Germany. By 1938, only 250,000 Jewish people remained. Refuge abroad was much sought after and the Jews left in Germany often remained because they simply could not afford to leave. Jewish people in Germany had little to no rights and the government no longer protected them. Forced to wear yellow Stars of David as identifiers, the Jews could be attacked in public at any time since the Nazis promoted antisemitic violence, like the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht/Night of Broken Glass) in 1938 that lead to 30,000 Jewish men being sent to concentration camps and thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues and schools being destroyed. Over 90 Jewish people were killed during the Pogrom.

Now to come back to my personal reaction, I’ll tell you that we spent one week of the program focusing on the Holocaust and by far that was the hardest week of the summer for me. Before this summer, I had never thought that one day I would ever become “Holocausted Out.” I never thought the subject would be too painful that I’d have to put my book down and not want to pick it back up. I never thought I’d become so saddened that I could feel it in my bones whenever I flipped a page. Over that week, our group visited the Holocaust Memorial and Information Center in Berlin and later we visited the Wannsee House where the Nazis planned the “Final Solution” to murder all of Europe’s Jews. We looked at pictures, watched films, visited memorials and read books all about the terrible genocide and I could feel it in my heart that it was becoming too much. The emotional wall that I can usually keep up within me when studying hard subjects like the Holocaust was crumbling. On Friday, we visited Sachsenhausen concentration camp and I thought my heart was finally going to be broken for good.

By the start of the weekend, several people in my program complained that they were having Holocaust nightmares. All of us were so emotionally exhausted that we did not know what to do.

At one point I asked myself a question that might sounds silly at first, but when I asked it I was completely serious. I asked myself: Why do I study the Holocaust?

I started to wonder what my life would have been like if I never knew about it. What would my world be like if I had never learned about the Nazis or the murder of six million Jewish people. What if Hitler was a person who never came up in conversation? What if I had never seen or a read a book or watched a movie made about the Shoah? What would that life be like if I never knew about the Holocaust? What if I could have simply lived in ignorance of this topic?

I thought about this for a while and to be honest, I think this question is one that will return to me throughout the rest of my life. Sometimes this history can be so sad that I ask myself why I put this burden of history on my shoulders? Why do I need to take on this task of remembering?

But then I thought, if I didn’t study the Holocaust – who else would?  If I do not take on this responsibility, how can I expect others to do the same? You see, Holocaust education and studying Jewish history has become such a large part of my life, in the end: I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t study it.

I can still remember when I learned about the Holocaust for the first time, looking at the Torah in my synagogue reading the words “Never Forget” and wondering what could be so bad that we all had to remember it. I still recall reading the book Night in 8th grade and then being given a writing assignment to write a story from a victim’s perspective. I still remember talking to my grandma every night, writing this story, and discovering the power of storytelling and the power that resided within my own voice. I still remember meeting Dr. Buchanan, my Holocaust-Genocide teacher in High school who showed me that with passion, dedication, and the strength necessary to take the journey, I could pave a path for myself in Holocaust studies and be the writer I wanted to be. I still remember meeting Dr. Caplan, my Yiddish teacher and how I began taking Yiddish classes and learning about Jewish life pre-World War II. My studies of Yiddish lead to my travels to Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania, and through these travels I learned much about Jewish culture pre-World War II and the stories of my ancestors. As a particpant of the Helix Project and as a student at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, I was introduced to a community of people all interested in the same thing as me. Afterwards, these experiences lead me to travel to Austria, Poland again, and the Czech Republic, in a quest to learn about modern day Jewish life. Now I am in Germany studying Jewish history and contemporary German-Jewish culture. Soon I will be in Paris doing the same thing.

So you see, I chose this path but in many ways, I also think this path chose me. Without learning about the Holocaust, I would not be here doing what I’m doing today. I would not be writing this now. I don’t even know if I’d have wanted to be a writer. I don’t know what Arielle I would be – but certainly it would not be me. 

So not only is the Holocaust important because it put me on my life path. In fact, that is probably LEAST important reason why I study it. Rather, I have come to the conclusion that I study the Holocaust because every time I read about it, I feel like I am honoring the dead by keeping their lives in my memory. When I learn about the Holocaust and share its lessons with others, I feel like my life has purpose. By telling the story of the Holocaust and learning about the details of the genocide, I know I can pass lessons of tolerance and resistance down to future generations. I have found that while ignorance may be blissful, it certainly is not helpful. If I had the choice to have either learned about the Holocaust or to have never been told about it – I one thousand times over would have chosen to learn about it.

I learn about the Holocaust because as people of the world, we NEED to realize the great the evil we can do to one another if we do not stand up for justice. I do this to preserve the memory of those who fell victim in this awful period of history. I learn about the Holocaust so that no act of intolerance or racial prejudice ever grows to be so large or so destructive again. 

So there you have it. I will be sure to blog again soon regarding more details on my time spent in Germany. I hope you enjoyed this post. I truly get great pleasure and comfort out of writing this blog. Living in Germany, I find myself often completely surrounded by history. It can leave me with a lot of thoughts in my head and this blog is a great outlet for me to express my feelings and views on what I am experiencing. For me, while living here, the learning is taking place both inside and outside the classroom. In fact, I find myself learning even as I write to you. I hope that in reading, you get something out of this story too. I hope that I can spread some of the lessons that I have been so fortunate enough to learn. Feel free to leave comments in the box below – I love to hear thoughts from readers. Sending many warm wishes from the city of Berlin and as always, thanks so much for reading.

Until next time,

Arielle

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for tuning in again to Saving the Shtetlach, my blog that details my travels through Europe learning about Jewish history and modern Jewish life. Sorry for the wait – I realize it has been way too long since my last post, but I am back again and ready to fill you in on the story of my summer that every day grows deeper and more meaningful to me.

The last time I wrote, I had just summed up my time spent in Warsaw, the first city of my journey this summer. Since then, I have explored Krakow, Berlin, and Prague – three cities that are as diverse in narrative as they are rich in the stories they have to tell.

To start with my time in Krakow, it’s hard to find a place to begin. If I were to pick a word to describe Krakow for me, it would be a Yiddish word: heymish – “like home.” I came to Krakow this summer knowing one person. Within the expanse of five days, I grew to know an entire community. The story of Krakow, particularly the story of its Jewish community, is one of the greatest stories ever to be told. The city and its people stand as a testament to time saying that while history must be remembered, and certainly not repeated, one cannot live in it – one can and must find a way to move forward.

The Jewish Community of Krakow is so amazing because after being nearly decimated in the Holocaust, the community has risen from the ashes and become one again. Within 25 years since the fall of Communism, Jewish people in Poland have decided to go back to their roots and embrace their Jewish identities once again. During my time in Krakow, I had the chance to interview many people who for most of their lives, did not know they were Jewish. Whether they found out from family members or ancestral research of their own – the people I met were faced with a choice. After discovering the truth behind their ancestries, they had to decide whether they would embrace their family’s past and the opportunity to have a Jewish identity or if they would they ignore it. Judaism wasn’t something they could take for granted – being Jewish was an act of choice. Taking on a religion is a big decision to make, and at such a young age, it could change the course of your life. Today, it seems that hundreds of people in Poland, young and old, are making this choice to claim the heritage that was always in them. 

The stories I heard while I was in Krakow were extremely deep and very complex. Questions of what makes a person Jewish and am I “Jewish” enough were always mentioned in interviews. Similarly, for Polish-Jewish teenagers, they feel like they have to constantly answer the question: why do I live in Poland? Interestingly, they are not asking themselves this question. They are sure of themselves and know why they live in Poland – it is their home. But it seems that others, particularly Jews from the United States and Israel, cannot see why a Jew would want to live in their country. Many people look at Poland and only see the Holocaust. They only see Auschwitz and the gas chambers. But this is such a narrow point of view because if one truly studies Jewish history in Poland – they would see so much more than that. The fact that Polish Jews have to constantly defend why they live in Poland greatly disturbs me. To me, this is an example of the post-Holocaust trauma that is felt by Jewish people around the world, but particularly in the United States and Israel. After doing the travel and research I’ve done, I am here to adamantly defend the fact that Jews can and must be able to live anywhere in the world that they want to. Jewish life needs to exist in Poland because if Jews are not there, who will be there to make sure that the rich history and tradition of Jewish life in Poland continues? If it doesn't continue than the Holocaust won. My theory is that the only way the Jewish people can move forward after such a travesty is to make an effort to support and rebuild what was lost. The Jewish people's past in Poland spans over 1,000 years. It is as rich with life as it is with tragedy. Today, it is the home to several hundred – potentially thousands of Jews and we need to support them in their quest to rebuild their community. This is what will create hope – this is what will create a brighter future.

As Jewish people, I feel that no matter we come from, no matter what biases we might hold, we need to help each other and support one another in our endeavors. We are one people, one international community, and if we don’t step up and support each other in our efforts to make a home– who will?  It is time to start changing the dialogue and it is time to start reaching out. I am convinced it will make the world – and not just the Jewish world – a much better place.

Now before I move on, I have to thank all the people I met in Krakow for an incredibly beautiful extremely eye opening week. Whether it was interviewing Krakow residents, attending events at the Jewish cultural festival, or just simply exploring the city - it was one of the best weeks of my life and I am so indebted to the people I met who took me in. Kris, Olga, Sara, Serhii, Marcjanna, and the students of the Krakow Jewish Students Club – thanks so much for your friendship and kindness. I was a stranger and you all made me feel like I was home. I felt like Charlie in Perks of Being a Wallflower – when Sam says, “You see things, you understand. You’re a wallflower.” Not that my goal here is to be a silent observer, but for me to go to Krakow and listen to all of your stories – it was an incredible experience for me. You all befriended me, no questions asked, and made me feel like I was a “Krakower” (this is a term I just made up – it’s like Berliner – but for Krakow, and I think I like it). You all are incredible people and I cannot wait to see you all again one day.

To Agnieszka, thank you so much for you sweetness and willingness to help with whatever I needed. It was so wonderful to interview you. Thank you for helping my parents when they came to Krakow a week after me, they love you as well! To Marek Tuszewicki, Ruth Ellen Gruber, Monika Elliot, thank you all so much for your time and your willingness to answer my questions. I learned so much and it was so great to speak with you all. Lastly, to Jonathan Ornstein, thank you so much for your time. Your work as director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow is incredible – you are a true leader of the Jewish people and the international Jewish community is indebted to your passion and efforts in building Jewish life in Krakow. You are truly one of a kind.

My dream is to return to Krakow one day. I hope that it is in the near future. I cannot wait to watch and see where the Jewish community goes from here. As I see it, the only way the Jewish people can recover from the horrors of the past is in helping each other to build a better future. I hope that the work I do in my life will help in this. As Spock says, I wish that we will all live long, and prosper.

Now as I write to you, I am sitting in a busy, happening café in Berlin sipping an Earl Grey tea (it’s actually quite cold in Germany). I have lived in Berlin for nearly one month now and it’s been quite an interesting experience that I look forward to writing about. There is so much to say about each of the places I’ve been to on my summer journey. Surely, this blog is just the start. Thanks so much for tuning in again and I promise to write again soon!

Sending much love from Rosenthaler Straße & the vibrant capital of Germany.

Until next time,

Arielle

Hi everyone!
Thanks so much for tuning into the latest post about my journey. I’ve spent the past 8 days in Berlin, beginning my studies at the Leo Baeck Institute for Jewish Studies at Humboldt Universität.  This week has brought both highlights and challenges, but it’s also given me plenty of time to reflect over the eight days spent before I came to Berlin – the first leg of my journey – which was spent in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland.

My eight days in Poland truly changed my life. I’ve reflected on those days with both warmth and reminiscence as it was such a positive week for me. I’ve relived moments in my head that I know I will remember forever as some of the most inspiring moments in my life.

Before coming on this trip, I had never travelled alone before. This sensation of planning out my own journey was completely new to me and I did not know if I would like it. As I wrote about in my last post, I thought I would be lonely during my time spent in Poland. I didn’t think I would make friends or get close to the people I met. Luckily, I was completely wrong.

My experience in Poland was first made positive truly by the kindness of strangers. I met a lot of random people on this trip, travelers like myself who were on their own journeys, whether it be for work, school, or vacation. Over this trip, I’ve come to realize that every person I meet has a story, and if I take the time to listen to it, it can impact the story of my own. After conversing with new people, they no longer are strangers, but now they are friends and I made quite a few during my week in Poland.

For instance, after a lonely first night in Warsaw, I went to the hotel breakfast the next morning expecting to talk to nobody. As I finished my meal, I looked over at an old man sitting a few feet away from me, drinking coffee and reading the New York Times. American? I thought to myself. The man caught me looking at him and smiled. “You read the Times also?” I said.

“Well, how’d we do here,” he said. “An American!”

There was a certain sense of immediate solidarity I felt with this old man, both of us sitting along in a breakfast café in Warsaw. We were both American and that was enough to unite us. “Come sit over here!” he said, waving me to come over. I picked up my half finished tea and carried my large back pack over.

“Where you from?” he asked.

“New Jersey,” I said. “A small town called Randolph.”

“New Jersey!” he said. “I think I’ve heard of it! I’m from Montana.” He stuck out his hand to me, and I grabbed it. “I’m George,” he said. “It’s mighty nice to meet you, Miss…”

“Arielle,” I said. “My names Arielle.”

George and I chatted for a while, exchanging travel stories. I explained how this was my first day in Warsaw, but that I had been to Poland twice before. He was so impressed that I was travelling alone and when I told him about the research I was doing he leaned back in his chair and cooed, “What a smart and fine young lady we got here! You know you’re doing something real good, kid. Believe me, I know. I travelled Europe for many years of my life, doing jobs in 30 different countries, and when I hear a story like yours I know it’s important. You’re on a journey, and that’s great.”

I told him how I hoped this journey would be good. I wasn’t sure how much research I’d be able to do or how many people I’d be able to meet. I was lacking confidence, and I think it showed. George smiled told me to keep positive; he said that I had luck on my side. “You’re on an adventure.” he said to me. “Keep on it. You’ll see, it’ll be good.”

George and I talked for about forty five minutes, he told me about his wife and his family. George had come to Poland with his wife and his nephew. They were not at breakfast because they were on a walking tour of Jewish Warsaw. “I’m Catholic and my wife is Jewish,” he explained. “We never had any kids of our own, but whenever a niece or nephew of ours turns fourteen, we take  them on a trip to both Warsaw and Rome, to explore their religious ancestry. We also let them pick one more place to visit, so my nephew picked England and we just came from London to Warsaw.”

I was taken aback by George’s reason for coming to Warsaw. I thought it was such a beautiful idea, to take his nephew on a religious pilgrimage, exploring both his Jewish and Catholic roots. It sounded like an incredible trip and it was so kind of George and his wife to do this for every niece and nephew.

George and I talked some more. He talked to me about his love for the Jewish people, about how even though he was Catholic; when he was young, he only enjoyed dating Jewish girls. I laughed as he told me some stories from his younger days. He felt that through his wife, he had a Jewish identity as well – he felt that the story of the Catholics and the Jews were so intertwined – it was impossible not to feel love for both religions. I completely agreed. I find Catholicism fascinating and would love to travel to Rome one day myself. I’ve always felt that all religions were in some way connected, and that I couldn’t be a good Jew if I didn’t explore and embrace other religions as well.

After a while, I said goodbye to George as I had planned to spend the morning exploring the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews. “It’s excellent!” he said. He said how it was one of the best museums he’d ever seen.  I gave him one last glance and waved goodbye and he wished me luck on my journey. I never learned George’s last name, and I never asked for his email, so I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again, but I wished he could have known how much his kind words meant to me that morning. He had no idea how lonely I was coming into breakfast, or how much I had dreaded travelling on my own. He had no idea how that one conversation could mean so much. Or perhaps, come to think of it – maybe he did. Maybe that’s why he invited me over – he was an experienced traveler too.  He might’ve known that travel is always better with a bit of social interaction. I’ve always been told that when travelling it’s not the places you go, but it’s the people you meet that make the experience I really believe that that is true. I wanted to give George a huge hug and thank him for his kindness – his words gave me confidence and meant much more than I could say.

Over the span of the rest of my trip in Poland, I met many more people who had started out as strangers and soon enough became friends.  I met a Pastor and his family from Arizona in the elevator of my hotel. When I told the Pastor I was travelling alone doing research, he was at first shocked and said, “Wow, you’re really brave.” A few days later, he came up to me, just before I left my hotel and said, “Hi, I just wanted to tell you that my wife and I have talked about you a lot since we met, and we are both so proud of you and amazed by what you are doing.” I thanked the Pastor and was touched by his words. I was glad he didn’t think I was too crazy for doing this trip, rather – he was proud.

The person who by far proved to me that sometimes complete strangers can become the kindest of friends was a young man named Kamil, who is a graduate student at the University of Warsaw, who offered to take me around Warsaw for a day and show me the city through his eyes.

I had never met Kamil Ch before coming on the trip. I did not even know who he was. But on the first day of my trip, I received an email from him saying that his Professor, who is friends with my Professor, recommended that he meet me. Before I left for my trip, my research mentor Professor Sundquist contacted his friend, Professor Ewa Luczak and asked if she had any students who would be willing to meet me. Kamil kindly offered himself and soon enough I received an email from then a stranger, asking if I would want to meet up the following day.

I gladly agreed to meet Kamil, and on the third day of my trip, after my meeting with the staff at the Jewish Historical Institute, I met Kamil outside the building and we walked around Warsaw. Spending time with Kamil was very fun and proved to be a highlight of the trip for me. He showed me the campus of the University of Warsaw. We explored its library and he laughed as I tried to practice my Polish with strangers (my pronunciation of please and thank you could still use some work). We took a walking tour of Warsaw’s former Jewish quarter and Kamil showed me the way to the Jewish Community Center in Warsaw where I had an interview lined up. I had no plans for the evening, so Kamil offered to take me to Warsaw’s Old Town and eat dinner there. In the Old Town we saw a beautiful light show and the dinner afterwards was delicious. To me, the evening was cultural exchange at its best.  Afterwards, I told Kamil he was an honorary American since he knew just as much about American pop culture as I did. He has watched every episode of Jon Stewart and has seen more US TV than me! I also learned a lot about Polish culture from Kamil. It was so interesting to hear about Poland from someone who is from there. It turns out that I had visited Kamil's hometown, Bialystock, two years ago and we certainly had a lot to talk about! Currently, Kamil studies at the University of Warsaw where he's writing his dissertation on African-American literature. We talked about our shared interest in Ralph Ellison (I had just taken an entire course about him and Invisible Man is now one of my favorite books!).

My evening with Kamil was very fun and since I was leaving for Krakow the very next day, he offered to wake up early and drive me to the train station, which I graciously accepted since I get lost in train stations very easily. Kamil met me the next morning and took me to the train, he even walked onto the train, helped me with my suitcase, and helped me find my cart and seat. I gave Kamil a hug and thanked him for everything. I nearly choked up because I was so thankful to have met such  a kind person.  As my train pulled out of the Warsaw station and started chugging its way towards Krakow, I leaned back and hoped to myself that I would meet the same kind of people in Krakow as I met in Warsaw. As my sister likes to say, I was feeling the “good vibes” and I was so happy that my first few days of solo travel were much more fun than I had anticipated.

I was also really proud of the research I had done in Warsaw. I had three incredible interviews – the first with the Chief Rabbi of Warsaw, Rabbi Michael Schudrich. The second interview was with Agata Rakowiecka, the director of the new Jewish Community Center in Warsaw. My final interview was with Marta Saracyn, the programming coordinator at the JCC Warsaw. All of the interviews were great and I learned a lot. Each interviewee told me a bit about their life story. I learned about their relationship with Judaism and their thoughts on what its like to live in Europe today and be Jewish. As each interview happened, I was reminded more and more about why I came on this trip. The worries that I had once felt the month leading up to this trip had been overturned. I was so happy I came and felt that the interviews I conducted can and will be very educational for those who hear the story. I’m still figuring out how exactly I will communicate what I learned from the interviews to the wider public. There are so many stories and ideas to share. However, I believe that what I have learned is important, and most probably I will share what I have learned in the form of a book – whether it be a memoir or some other form – I want to write down what I have heard.

The next blog post will be about my time in Krakow. I lived in Krakow for five days and my time there was incredible and just as moving as my time spent in Warsaw. I have so many people to thank for this – particularly the staff at the JCC Krakow and the people I met there – but that will be for the next post.

Thanks so much again for reading. Every day of this journey, I write down my thoughts and remember how lucky I am to be able to go on a trip like this. I feel like my life keeps changing and no matter what destination it leads to, the journey has been incredibly fun. Sending you all much love from Berlin.

Until next time,

Arielle

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for tuning into the latest post of my travel blog, Saving the Shtetlach which details my travels through Europe researching Jewish life and history. I’m so happy to be writing again – it’s been nearly one year since my last post. A lot has happened since then – I completed my Junior year of college, I moved into an apartment, and I decided that was going to spend the summer before my senior year travelling Europe, researching the topic I care about the most.

The decision to do this though was not an easy one. Junior year was tough for many reasons. I like to tell people that turning 21 hit me like a pile of bricks. This year more than any other year I felt I had to grow in order to fulfill all of things I wanted to do. I had to become more independent and more brave.

I think that if there was one emotion I felt the most predominantly this year it was fear.  There were so many big decisions I had to make this past year, it was impossible to predict where my life was going. I remember I was talking to my grandmother on the phone one night, frustrated over a tough day and she said to me, “Arielle, you’re letting fear dictate your life. You cannot live like that.”

Those words – like turning 21 – hit me like another pile of bricks. She was right.  My grandmother, along with my parents, my professors, my mentors, and my friends – they saw something in me that I couldn’t see. They had faith in me, but at that point, I had started to lose faith in myself.

After coming back from Poland last June and spending the rest of the summer working in Baltimore, I knew in my heart that the summer before my senior year I wanted to go to Europe and learn more about its Jewish life. When the war broke out in Israel last summer and talk of anti-Semitism began to rise, more and more did I feel it to be my own duty to go back to Europe and judge the situation for myself. I was so inspired by what I had seen in Poland last summer, I could not accept the headlines that dictated why the Jews should leave Europe. In my mind, I was on a mission. This mission was big, so I had to plan it. And that’s what I did in my spare time throughout my junior year.

Planning out this journey was as tough as it was fun. It was as challenging as it was rewarding for me. I knew that if I wanted to go to Europe to study Jewish life, I needed to apply for funding. I needed to be on top of my game and be able to pitch an idea to the grant committees of Johns Hopkins University that would be both feasible and original. I have been privileged and honored to be a Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research fellow these past two years at Hopkins, but I knew that if I wanted to go everywhere I was interested in going this upcoming summer, I would need to apply for more grant funding – thus I’d have to apply for many more research scholarships.

During my winter vacation, I went on a trip to Israel that was so healthy for me, its hard to put it into words. I’m so grateful that I was able to go on a Birthright-Taglit trip with students from the Johns Hopkins and Towson University Hillel. It was a remarkable ten day trip, filled with laughter, good food, great conversation, and lots of snow (we even built a snow man in Jerusalem). I made many great friends on that  trip that I still keep in touch with and the trip helped me reconnect with Zionism and the Jewish state. I had not visited Israel in four years and it was so wonderful to revisit the land that took my heart the first time I came. The trip helped me to forget pressures that were building on me at home and the whole experience put me in a better, more relaxed state.

When my spring semester began, I got right back down to business and started applying for research grants to fund a summer spent researching in Europe. I was accepted to study Jewish-German life and history at the Leo Baeck Summer University for Jewish Studies at Humboldt Universität in Berlin. I had never been to Germany and I haad just started taking German language this year, so I was very excited for this opportunity.

Then, I needed to figure out where else I was going to go. I knew I had interest in Paris because of the Charlie Hebdo attacks and Paris’s prominent space in the media as the city with the highest growing rate of anti-Semitism. I wanted to better understand this phenomenon and also see its Jewish community for myself. I wanted to know why Jews lived in France and why it was that some were choosing to move out. I wanted to see if the media was portraying French Jewry and society fairly or if some facts were being over or under exaggerated.

Lastly, I decided that I wanted to go back to Poland because after last summer, I felt a very deep connection with the country and its Jewish people. I was so amazed by the Jewish life I saw there, being a witness to its growing and thriving post-Holocaust Jewish community. I had questioned whether I wanted to use research funding to explore a new city instead, perhaps, Prague or Budapest, but rightly so, my research advisor Professor Sundquist suggested that I go back to Poland to research its Jewish community more. Poland as a country has defied the odds. Its Jewish community is back, and in a world that seems to be providing only negative news for Jewish people, the story of Jews in post-Holocaust, post-Communist Poland is a shining light.

With that, I applied to many different research scholarships and was lucky to receive three of them. Using the funding received from the John Koren Scholarship for Holocaust Research and Education of the Johns Hopkins University Jewish Studies Department, the Max Kade Scholarship for Summer Travel of the Johns Hopkins University German Studies Department, the Johns Hopkins Dean’s Undergraduate Research Award, and my remaining funds from the Woodrow Wilson program, I now had enough funding to take the trip of a lifetime and research what mattered the most to me. I was so excited. In my heart, I felt that my research had the possibility to do something – to change people’s perspectives. I still have that feeling, that’s why I’m still here and writing.

Soon enough, it came time to really plan my research project. Junior year came to a close, and after a dramatic end of the year with the Baltimore Riots and pending graduation decisions, I came back to New Jersey as exhausted as I was excited to be back home with my family. As soon as I got home though, I went back to work again as now I had an entire summer of research to plan. I had to buy plane tickets, book hotels, plan itineraries, and write about 1,000 emails to Jewish leaders all over Europe asking them to meet with me and help me recruit research participants. Although about 1 percent of those emails received responses from European Jewish leaders, I received enough feedback to apply and receive support from my university’s Internal Review Board (IRB), whose application process to be a certified “Johns Hopkins researcher” was as strenuous and tedious as applications can be. (Although, the IRB office itself at JHU was very kind to me and answered all of my questions – thanks John Black!)

In end, I received IRB certification and was set to go on that front, but I had another problem – I had no interviews set up. And that was where I was just four days before flying to Warsaw, the first leg of my trip, before the Chief Rabbi of Warsaw Michael Schudrich emailed me back saying he’d be willing to meet with me. So I had one interview set up before I left for Europe. It was better than zero, but my hopes weren’t high.

I’ve always been the kind of girl that likes to have everything planned. I’ve grown up adhering to an order and I always like knowing exactly what was going to come next. This trip to Europe was going to be the craziest thing I ever did because I had NO IDEA what was coming next. I didn’t even know if I was going to have research participants. Here I was, 21 years old about to leave for another continent for two months, and I felt like I had no idea what I was doing.

The weekend before I left for Europe was the same weekend as my younger sister Chelsea’s Bat Mitzvah. The celebration came at just the right time for everyone in my family. It was a beautiful service and my family will have the most wonderful memories from that weekend. Chelsea did the most beautiful job at her service and I couldn't have been a prouder sister. 

The night before I left, I was sitting in the lobby of my grandparent’s hotel with my Nana, my Aunt Judy and my cousin Suzy. I was so overwhelmed that night that I simply couldn’t talk. Before I knew it, I had begun to cry. “Perhaps,” she my cousin Suzy said trying to cheer me up. “Perhaps you are about to have your own adult Bat-Mitzvah. You’re growing up now, Arielle. To take this trip, it’s honestly like you’re becoming a Jewish adult all over again.”

And that’s when it hit me: she was totally right! I was becoming an adult. My Nana liked to remind me of this fact whenever we spoke on the phone, but it took Suzy to say it that made it sink in. Growing up, I’ll tell you, is not for the weak of heart. It takes a lot of guts; a lot of strength. But we all must go through it. And as I sat there at the hotel the night before I left for my first solo-trekking-European-adventure, I knew that the next day would be the start of my two month adult Bat-Mitzvah – and it would be just the start of a lifelong personal journey.

With that, I kissed my family goodnight and prepared to get on the plane for Europe the very next morning. Before I left for my gate at Newark International Airport, my Mom, who had driven me to the airport, pulled me into her arms and told me that I was like Cheryl Strayed, the writer of the book Wild. She said that this adventure I was about to take would be an amazing one. I nearly started crying again as I gave her one last hug but I pushed away the tears as I made my way toward security and waited there for two hours to board the plane.

The plane took off more than a half an hour late. To say I began to panic is an understatement. I thought that with less than a one hour layover in Germany, I would surely miss my connecting flight to Warsaw. I thought I’d be stuck in Germany. I thought I’d miss the one interview I had managed to plan out. I thought this whole trip was going down the drain. And I hadn’t even made it to Europe yet.

Luckily, with a speedy pilot and a fast-paced airport jog, I made my connecting flight. I got to my hotel, took a nap and prepared for my interview with the Rabbi which luckily went well. I found my way to the Warsaw Nożyk Synagogue and interviewed Rabbi Michael Schudrich who was very kind to give his time. It was an interesting interview that I will write about in a later post, and as the interview ended he looked at me and smiled, saying, “Now go get some sleep!”

I got back to my hotel and cradled myself in my bed unsure of what to do next. I needed dinner. I didn’t know Warsaw at all. There were no places to eat in my immediate neighborhood besides a bakery that sold Greek Salads. I eventually found a restaurant and actually had a nice meal, although the taste of the Polish food was diluted by my sadness of not having anyone to speak to about this journey. Before, I had always had at least one companion when traveling abroad. I had always travelled with a group and things had always been planned out by someone else. I never had to look up directions. I never got to pick anything. This feeling of autonomous travel was completely new to me.

The first night spent in Europe on this trip was by far the hardest. I called my parents on Facetime at 2 am Polish time (in America it was 8 pm) telling them how lonely I was and about I couldn’t fall asleep. I cried and expressed my looming fear about what if this trip didn’t go well. What if all the work I had done prepping before hand was for nothing. My parents calmed me down a bit and suggested I watch some TV, trying to get my mind off of the trip. I took their advice and it worked for a little, but every time I turned out the light and tried falling asleep, I started crying again.

It was at that moment when I decided that I needed to write. I took out my writer’s diary and penned my thoughts. I wrote about my fears and my concerns, my doubts and my lack of hope. I wanted this summer to go well, but I had hit such a low and I didn’t know how to get back up. I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and I probably listed about 1,000 forms of fear that I had felt throughout the entire day. One of my favorite singers Sia released an album this year called “1,000 Forms of Fear” and sadly, I felt like I was living it.

For me, whenever I hit lows, one thing I do to make it better is listen to the Lion King soundtrack. One of the most famous quotations from the Lion King is when Mufasa says to Simba, “Remember Who You Are.” I thought about that line as laid in my Warsaw hotel room listening to my iPod at 4 in the morning. Arielle, I thought, you must remember who you are.

With that, I took out my diary again and wrote down all the reasons why I came on this trip. I wrote down all of my hopes. I wrote down my dreams for what I would find. I wrote down why I was qualified to take this trip and why I had the experience necessary to be able to handle the journey. I wrote and I felt better. It was time. I could finally relax.

NOW - after seven days spent travelling alone in Poland, I can honestly say that many emotions have taken over my mind.  This has been one of the most emotional and greatest trips of my life. But of all the emotions that have taken over me, I am proud to say that fear – ever since that first night – has not been one of them. I promised myself that I would not let fear dictate this trip.

Now obviously I recognize that anxiety and insecurity are natural human instincts when it comes to solo travel. It’s good to be self-aware, but as Mia Thermopolis’s father says in the Princess Diaries, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on you'll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey." 

So if there’s one thing I avoid now, more than anything else, its fear itself. I can't let it interfere with my journey. Just like Franklin Roosevelt once said: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. 

This trip has been quite the remarkable one thus far. I can't believe how fast one week has gone by. I am leaving tomorrow for Berlin feeling inspired and enlightened by my eight days spent in Poland. In the following posts I’ll describe to you how that all came to be - there are so many great stories. I’ve met many incredible people on this trip and I’ve conducted many great interviews that have opened my eyes to the power of identity and the beauty of a growing Jewish community. Just like my Dad told me before I left, this trip has truly become the trip of a lifetime. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity and am indebted to everyone who has shown me kindness along the way.

So now let’s just say that fear is a word of the past. No matter how many forms fear shows itself, I’m choosing to remember who I am and what I want to do. This will give me the strength to pull through the next 7 weeks of this journey. In fact, I'm really looking forward to it. As always, thanks so much for reading.

Until next time,

Arielle