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

Hi everyone!

It’s great to be back again writing on this blog.  When I came back home from this past summer’s trip, I never expected to keep writing on Saving the Shtetlach. After two crazy months of travelling through Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania, I thought the journey was over.  I was ready to stay in America for good. But... I guess my itch to stay in the USA didn’t last too long. 

I recently returned from most amazing spring break trip to Vienna, Austria.  I went on the trip with nine students from Baltimore Hillel and the trip was very special.  The focus of the trip was to introduce students to Jewish culture in Vienna; exposing us to Vienna’s past, present, and future as a center for Jewish life.

Now before I start explaining my own experience, you’re probably wondering why my group’s leader Sam chose to lead a Jewish trip in Vienna.  To most, Vienna doesn't appear as the most “Jewish” city  – with a current Jewish population of only 8,000 it makes sense.  But trust me when I say that Vienna was the perfect place to pick for this trip.  The amount of Jewish history in Vienna is incredible.  Just think – Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Mahler, Viktor Frankl – just a few names of famous Jews from Vienna. Not just that, but the Jewish population that lives there today is very active and despite their numbers, they make themselves very important to the city. I learned so much when I was in Vienna and couldn’t imagine spending my break in any other place. 

Our group stayed in Vienna for ten days.  The location of our hotel, which was right in the second district of Vienna, stands in what is considered the Jewish neighborhood of Vienna.  Before the Holocaust, over 200,000 Jewish people lived in Vienna – making up nearly 10 percent of the city’s population.  Most of these Jews lived in the neighborhood of the second district; in Yiddish they called their home “Leopoldstadt.”  Vienna was regarded a progressive city in the nineteenth and twentieth century; it was part of the former Habsburg Empire. Jews flocked over from the Russian Pale of Settlement in the second half of the 1800s, moving westward to cities like Vienna.  Many people called this Jewish neighborhood “Mazzesinsel” - The Island of Matzot (get it, Passover reference!).

During the destruction of Kristallnacht in November 1938, most of the Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were destroyed in Vienna.  The Jews in the city suffered greatly during the Second World War.  Over 50,000 Viennese Jews were killed in the Holocaust.  Very few were able to escape this dark fate as Hitler spread his anti-Semetic rhetoric all over the country. 

Learning about this history as I walked through the second district was very eye opening.  Our group took a tour of the district with a guide from the organization “Stone’s of Remembrance.” As we walked, the guide pointed out little plaques on the pavement serving as memorials for Jewish people who were killed in the war.  The stones were placed right in front the homes where Jewish people used to live, making the memorial even more powerful.

Today, Leopoldstadt is still considered a Jewish neighborhood, with several kosher restaurants, shops, and even a kosher butcher.  Our group visited the Kosher butcher and although I eat meat, after seeing it before it was cooked, I can see why most of my family has gone vegetarian. It wasn’t the prettiest site.

Our trip in Vienna began on Friday, which in the Jewish calendar is the start of Shabbat.  A little disclaimer, I believe everyone on our trip grew to appreciate Shabbat a lot more when we were in Vienna.  Now that we’re back in America, we all text each other reminding how many days left are till Shabbos. It’s our favorite day of the week.

Anyways, Shabbat was a very special holiday on our trip and we were lucky enough to spend TWO Shabbats in Vienna.

On Friday evening, our group walked over the Danube Canal to the first district Vienna which now houses the only Synagogue that survived the Second World War.  When I walked inside the synagogue I immediately felt like I was in a special place. The synagogue is called Stadttempel  “City Temple” and it is absolutely gorgeous. The prayer chapel was stunning with an arched, light blue ceiling adorned with golden stars. Since it was an orthodox shul, the women sat on the top floor and the men sat on the ground level.  There were golden pillars that connected the two floors and I always remember sitting at the service which was like sitting at a concert.  I loved looking downwards at the choir of young men singing on the Bema, the cantor leading them, and the Rabbi watching poised from the side.  The Rabbi of the Stadttempel is Paul Chaim Eisenberg who is also the Chief Rabbi of Vienna.  We had a few chances to speak with him and he was very nice to us, wishing us a good stay in the city.

Highlights for me were the several Shabbat dinners and lunches we went to, hosted by different Jewish families in the community.  I dined at three different family’s houses over my trip and each one was a unique experience.  All of the couples practiced an Orthodox style of Judaism, and I had interesting conversations with them.  I learned about their Jewish customs and in the process, explained to them some of my own.  As a Jewish woman who is on the border between identifying as a Reform and Conservative Jew, I learned that one of the best ways to learn about your Jewish identity is by discussing it. I discussed my beliefs with the men and women who hosted me and through interesting conversations, I felt like I gained a deeper understanding of myself and what I, as a Jewish person, stand for.  It was fascinating to hear so many different opinions and beliefs about Judaism.

On another note, our group celebrated the Jewish holiday Purim while we were in Vienna.  We realized that Viennese Jews certainly know how to party; we were even able to attend a few of them!  I got the chance to meet up with my friend Nino during one of our Purim parties.  I became friends Nino this past summer while we were both students at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute in Lithuania.  When program ended, I never thought I would have the chance to see him again because he was a student in Vienna and I studied in Baltimore.  Luckily, this trip happened and I was able to see my good friend again.  Catching up with Nino was certainly a highlight of the trip for me.  It reminded me of how special international friendships are; it makes travelling all the more fun. I felt like I learned a lot from Nino by visiting him in his own city. We talked all about his daily life in Vienna, his opinions on the city and its politics, and we discussed our shared interest in its Jewish history.  He even gave me a city tour one morning which was very fun.

Now next comes, for me, one of the greatest highlights on the trip.  This moment that I’m about to explain was special to me for several reasons.  First was that I had the opportunity to utilize my Yiddish language training.  Second, but even more significant, was that I was able to help connect distant relatives, relatives that didn’t even know they were family!

In the middle of our weeklong stay in Vienna, after finishing our tour at the amazing Jewish Museum of Vienna, my friend Noah asked me if I’d help him find the address of a shoe store in Vienna.  Before coming on the trip, Noah received an the news that he had a distant cousin named Andre who lived in Vienna. Noah received his cousin’s business address and was determined to find the store.  I was happy to come along for the ride; Noah knew I had interest in Jewish history and genealogy, plus my Yiddish skills would come in handy (Yiddish is very similar sounding to German!).  Thus, together we set out to find Andre’s shoe store.

Luckily, without getting very lost, we found the store.  It was a very trendy shoe shop, with English music playing, and when we walked inside the ladies at the front desk asked us if we needed any help.  We told them we were looking for the owner of the store, a man named Andre, and they gave us a weird look.  They said to us that Andre was in Munich at the time and not around to speak to us.  “Oh," Noah said. “We’re family.”

After that, to our surprise, the ladies walked us to the back of the store into a tiny room.  Sitting at desk was a little, old man who looked up at us, wondering why we were in his office.  His workers explained to him that Noah was a cousin of Andre’s and the man smiled.  “I am Andre’s uncle!” he said.

It was a really a special moment to watch as Noah and his cousin, who we learned was named Milo, connected for the very first time.  Part of the way through the conversation, Milo paused because he was having a very hard time explaining something to Noah in English.  He had mentioned earlier that he was from Poland, so I asked him if he spoke Yiddish.

When I said this to Milo, his eyes lit up, “Of course I speak Yiddish!” he said. From then on he spoke to me in Yiddish and I did my best to translate his words to English for Noah.  I’m sure Milo never expected to meet some twenty year old American girl who was learning Yiddish, and I was so happy to help him communicate in a language he was comfortable speaking.  Moments like that remind why I study Yiddish and all the fulfilling things in my life that have come from it.

We chatted with Milo for a bit and he told us that Andre would be back later in the week so we would get to meet him.  We returned to the shoe store one more time to meet Andre and we went out to coffee with him which was also very nice.  It was awesome to watch family connect.  Noah was so thrilled to find relatives in Vienna, and I was happy because I could help in the process. 

Being in Vienna, we were constantly reminded of the history of the Jews that lived there in years past.  A day that reminded of how fortunate we are to be alive was the day our group visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp.   Our trip to Mauthausen was extremely powerful.  It was a two hour drive to the concentration camp, located just outside a small town in Austria.  When we walked out of our bus and began the tour, the rain started to pour down and the wind whipped our faces.  The tour guide explained to us all of the different ways people were forced to suffer at this camp, from brutal labor to the crematories.  The weather set the mood for our visit and we were definitely all affected.

It's really hard for me to explain this visit to the concentration camp. I will say that this visit only went to further prove how inhumane genocide is; how inhumane forced human suffering is. I felt a heavy sense of sadness as I walked through the camp.  I had the comforting support of my group members.  We stuck together as we explored the place that tried to exterminate so many of our people.

At the end of our tour of Mauthausen, our group lit a candle and placed it next to the Jewish memorial.  We recited the Mourners Kadish and each of us placed a stone on the memorial to honor the memory of those who perished.

Visiting Mauthausen was tough but it was important for all of us on the trip to see.  Afterwards, our group had dinner back in Vienna and enjoyed a night singing Karaoke at a local bar. I discovered that singing in public isn’t so scary – especially when you have an awesome duet partner like my friend Ben who I became friends with on the trip.  We sang songs like “Ho Hey” and “I’m Yours” and it was super fun.

Now, I apologize for the extremely long length of this blog post, I know that most of my previous blogs are shorter than this.  It’s hard to explain everything I’ve learned in one blog entry, I still feel like I’m leaving out some of the awesome things we did. But overall this trip was extremely fun and eye-opening.

First off, I never realized the wonders one can find in a city like Vienna.  I had the opportunity to visit some beautiful palaces and museums over this trip.  Literally every street in Vienna was gorgeous, with its Baroque architecture and unique styles. I had a blast trying new foods like Bratwurst and Viennese cake.  I saw the most stunning national library, a beautiful Opera House, and several gorgeous parks.  I got to meet Holocaust survivors, famous journalists, and government workers like Hannah Lessing who to me is such a role model (be sure to look her up!). Lastly, I ate the best Friday night and Saturday morning meals I’ll ever eat in my whole life and experienced Judaism in a way I never knew.

I feel very lucky that I was able to go on this trip to Vienna.  I got to make new friends that I hope to keep in touch with and look forward to seeing around campus and at Hillel. Even more, I saw Vienna through a lens that is very close to my heart – the Jewish lens, and seeing it through that perspective made it all the more powerful.

For perspective travelers, Vienna is the place to be (it’s ranked the safest city in the world!) and I promise the experience one has there is unforgettable.  It’s one of my favorite cities now and I hope to return one day.

As always, thank you so much for reading.  I hope you enjoyed Saving the Shtetlach in its new revamped state.  I’m not going to give everything away, but I don’t believe that this will be my last post on this blog. Who knows? There may be some more adventures to come. 

As we say in Yiddish, “Ah dank oon zayt gezunt” – Thank you and be well.

Until next time,

Arielle

Hi everyone,
 
Thank you so much for tuning into the latest post about my adventure this summer in Eastern Europe. After 4 full weeks of intensive Yiddish study, tomorrow, I will be attending my final classes at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute – and following classes tomorrow, I will graduate from the program.  These past four weeks have flown by before my eyes, and I cannot even begin to explain how much I have learned.  My life has been forever impacted by this program and this summer, and I’m still digesting the idea that I will be returning to the USA on Saturday (Don’t worry Mom and Dad – I’m
excited to see you!).

 At the institute, I have made great friends that I hope I will keep in touch with after the program.  My group of friends called ourselves the “Lunch Bunch” because every day after classes we’d have lunch together.  I spent so much time with this group of people and I want to thank each of them individually for shaping this program and this trip for me.  I will miss them all when I return to the US, but I know that these memories we have had together will last far beyond the conclusion of this program.

This week has had several highlights for me – but in this post I am going to share two of them with you.  And to begin, I would like to say that without the guidance and leadership of Fania Brantsovsky, former Vilna ghetto prisoner and partisan fighter in the Rūdninkai forest– and the woman now serving as the librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, none of these experiences would have happened.  This amazing lady has touched my life permanently and the moments that I have shared with her have inspired me to pursue things that I only used to dream about. In this post,  I will go into further detail about Fania’s life, both in the forest and in the ghetto – a life story that is so important, I am determined for people to know about it.

This past Sunday, Fania took our group from the Vilnius Yiddish Institute to three places: the great Jewish cemetery right outside of Vilnius, the Ponarai forest and shooting site, and lastly, her former partisan base in the Rūdninkai forest. It was an amazing day.

I really enjoyed walking through cemetery.  As bleak and depressing as walking through a cemetery sounds, over this trip I’ve discovered how peaceful I find it to walk through a Jewish cemetery
and see the names of people who used to be alive.  What I find special about cemeteries, especially Jewish ones in Eastern Europe, is that most of the people buried in these areas died of natural
causes.  In visiting a place like Vilna, where over 70,000 were killed by brutal murder and never a given a proper burial, I really enjoyed walking with Fania through the Jewish cemetery,
celebrating the lives of those who were spared the struggle.

Next, our group was driven to the Ponarai (in Yiddish, Ponar) forest in Lithuania.  In this forest, Fania lead us on the path that thousands of Jewish people followed, forcibly pushed by the Nazis to muddy pits – pits where they were shot, killed, and burned.  I probably could not have visited this site without Fania.  Nearly all of Fania’s family was killed in this location, but she remained neither distraught nor depressed while showing it to us.  She led us in a discussion about Ponar and held herself together with dignity and grace.  Looking at the pits and imagining how many people were once killed there was very painful.  For a moment, I felt my heart filling with hate and anger – how could the Nazis do this? Where was the humanity?  But Fania answered that question easily
–there was none.  Fania’s ability to continually lead groups through the Ponar killing site is just one small example of how brave she is.  Last week, she led President Shimon Peres of Israel and President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania through this forest, where both leaders put of reefs on the
memorial, commemorating the tragic loss.  Fania stood with them, as she is one of the last living survivors of the Vilna ghetto still able to stand on her own two feet.

After our trip to the Ponarai forest, our bus drove us most of the way to our next destination: Fania’s partisan fort in the Rūdninkai forest. As our bus entered the forest, nearly 5 minutes afterwards, our bus had to stop due to a giant fallen tree that hand landed in the middle of the road –blocking all possible traffic.  The bus driver refused to drive any further so our group had to decide, would we walk the rest of the way to the partisan base, or should we turn around.  Well, let me say, the 92 year old Holocaust survivor quickly made that decision for us: we would walk.  I doubt she even considered any other options.

 First of all, let me tell you that this walk (more like a hike) for the average athletic person, I’d say is tough. Nearly every 20 yards, there was a fallen tree on the road – sometimes more than one tree in a large pile – and we climbed over/under each and every one.  Watching Fania hike through this terrain was unreal.  There were points where she would crawl on all fours under a tree just to
pass.  There were two moments when she actually fell over on this walk (I nearly had a heart attack watching), and she got right back up and kept going.  She didn’t even take a break.   I cannot even begin to explain my amazement at this.  I was not in the presence of any ordinary 92 year old in this hike – I was in the presence of a fighter.

One of the most thrilling moments of this experience was when we reached the partisan base in the forest.  After nearly an hour of intense  walking/climbing/crawling, I was at the head of the group scanning our surroundings, looking for any sign of a partisan base. Suddenly, to my left, I
saw it.  I sprinted through the forest and jumped for joy (literally) as I had found the bunkers where Fania and her partisan comrades lived. I had found the wooden fortresses where they sheltered themselves and survived. I shouted over to the rest of the group telling them that we had made it. We had made it to the base.

Seeing the partisan bunkers was amazing.  For an hour at the base, Fania explained to our group her experience serving as a Red Army Jewish partisan in the forest.  In the forest, Fania’s life and story of survival was by no means easy – every day was a battle.  The leader of her partisan battalion was a brave man named Abba Kovner.  A leader in the Vilna FPO (United Partisan Resistance – Fania was also a member of this underground organization), Abba was able to lead his group of both Jewish and non-Jewish fighters in missions against the Nazis while surviving life in the forest.  This unit was extremely successful in Nazi resistance - blowing up German railways, cutting down phonelines, and ambushing Nazi travel units. Every day, this combat unit returned to their established home in the
Rūdninkai forest and most survived until the end of the war.  Fania, a member of this combat unit, among others in the Partisans had to go live through extreme malnutrition, hunger, cold, and the constant threat of catching a virus or tick infection.  The partisans were smart about keeping themselves clean and sanitized – and the stories of how these fighters made it to the forest (some escaped through the ghetto sewers!), and how they survived are individually and
collectively amazing.  

While living in the forest, Fania –at that point an orphan without any surviving family – met her future husband.  It must have been an extraordinary love story as both of them survived  the war and made a wonderful life together in Vilnius.  Although I believe her husband has passed away, Fania now has 2 children, several grandchildren, and even great grand children – a beautiful
legacy.

Standing next to the base, together with Fania and the rest of our group from the institute, we sang the song of the Partisans together.  The song is titled "Zog Nit Keynmol" ("Never Say") and it is extraordinarily beautiful.   Here are the lyrics:

Never say that this is the end of the road.
Wherever a drop of our blood fell, there our courage will grow anew.
This song, written in blood, was sung by a people fighting
for life and freedom. 
Our triumph will come and our resounding footsteps will
proclaim "We are  here!" 

From land of palm-trees to the far-off land of snow. 
We shall be coming with our torment, with our woe;
And everywhere our blood
has sunk into the earth
Shall our bravery, or vigor blossom forth. 
 
We'll have the morning sun to set our day aglow;
Our evil yesterdays shall vanish with the foe.
But if the time is long before
the sun appears, then let this song go
like a signal through the years. 
 
This song was written with our blood, and not with lead; 
It's not a song that summer birds sing overhead;
It was a people, amidst
burning barricades,
That sang this song of ours with pistols and grenades. 
 
So never say you now go on your last way,
Through  darkened skies may now conceal the blue of day,
Because the hour for which  we've hungered is so near,
Beneath our feet the earth shall thunder,
"We are here!"

Singing this song with Fania is a memory I will always  have.  Her eyes told the story – her voice, along with the voice of my Yiddish speaking peers, stitched it into  my heart.

Now, the next part of this story is just as amazing, but  I will keep it brief, because I know extremely long blog posts are never fun.  Today, for three hours, Fania showed our group the former Jewish ghettos in Vilna and in the following collage of pictures – I will explain what I saw.

Now, I know I will always be indebted to Fania for her kindness in sharing her story with me. 
I consider her to be a hero of the Holocaust –someone who survived – someone who keeps its memory and the memory of those who were lost alive. But when I told Fania this, she didn’t react in the way I expected.  She didn’t want to be called a hero.  

Rather, Fania just wants to be thought of as a person who lived.  She feels she is just a  person doing her duty as a human being to share her story.  It was hard for me to grapple with this because to me, Fania is amazing – she is extraordinary.  How can we honor Fania if she doesn’t she want to accept this credit?  But then I realized something – Fania doesn’t do anything in order to “take credit” – she tells her story it because she feels she has to. 

Fania has reminded me of the way society looks at heroes, and the way heroes often look at themselves.  It made me realize that over the span of her life, Fania was just doing what she thought was right. Maybe if all can try to follow in her footsteps, if we do what we think is good - maybe we can all be “heroes.”And maybe we can honor Fania in that way.

I think that this is her ultimate goal with sharing her story with others.  Fania shares her story in order to spread goodness in the world.  With every person she touches, she is creating a chain reaction of positivity – a chain reaction of resilience.  After having met her, I am now determined to share this goodness with others, and that is how I plan to celebrate the survival of this amazing human being, and even more, the history of this stunning Jewish culture.  Fania’s lessons will be my fighting light in the dark parts of life that try beat us. 

Now, although I could probably write on for ages, I am  going to stop here and call it a night (its 3 am – eeh!) I hope you enjoyed learning about Fania and about my time in Vilnius – in my next post I will discuss my coming graduation and homecoming to the grand USA.  I hope you all have good week and always – thank you for reading.

All the best,
Arielle

Hi everyone! Thanks for tuning into the latest post about my summer adventure in Eastern Europe. 
Sorry for the long space in time between this and my last post.  Things have been so crazy here in
Vilnius, it’s been tough finding the time to write! Everyday has been jam packed – it’s been a lot of fun!

 I just completed my third week of study at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.  Over the course of this time, I feel that my Yiddish abilities have significantly improved.  I used to be shy about speaking Yiddish to others because I did not trust my abilities. Now, I feel that I can hold a semi-steady conversation in Yiddish with other students without feeling embarrassed. I’ve read many new Yiddish stories, I’ve
learned many Yiddish songs, and every day feels like a new language adventure. 
 
A highlight of these past three weeks for me was last  weekend when my Mom and Dad visited me in Vilnius.  After finishing a wonderful six-day vacation in Paris, my parents flew all the way from Paris to Vilnius to spend 3 days with me.  We had a great time together exploring Vilnius, celebrating Shabbat, and visiting the nearby town of Trakai where we saw the Former Grand Duke of
Lithuania’s Castle Fortress.  Last week, I joined the choir of the Yiddish Institute, and I was so happy that my parents were able to come to our concert last Friday night. They were able to hear the Yiddish music that I have grown to love and it is now something we can share. At the end of their stay, on Saturday night, my parents took Ella and I out to dinner in Vilnius, and all together we had a great time eating classic Lithuanian food and drinking white wine (I’m legally allowed to drink in Europe!)  The weekend with my parents went by so quickly, but I know I will always remember it. I love them both so much and am so happy they came.

Another highlight of this program for me has been the relationship I’ve made with a 91 year old woman from Vilnius named Fania.  

Fania Brantovskaya has lived in Vilnius (Vilna, in yiddish) her whole life.  Fania was  teenager during the years of the second world war and with her own eyes she saw  the annihilation of Jewish population that used to be her community.  Before WWII, Vilna used to be considered the Jerusalem of Eastern Europe.   Jews from all over the world (musicians, artists, intellectuals, scientists,etc) would travel to Vilna see the vibrant, intellectual Jewish culture that made Vilna the hub that it was.
Before WWII, Vilna was the best place a Jewish person could live.  

When the Nazis arrived, everything changed as Jewish people were dehumanized.  Immediately, they were forced to leave their homes, move into one of two ghettos, and day by day face the danger of being deported to a concentration camp or taken to be shot in the nearby forests – which unfortunately was the fate of most.  Vilna once had a population of 40,000 Jewish people, but after the war, there were only a few hundred survivors. 

I first met Fania when she spoke to my Helix group when we came to Vilnius at the end of our trip.  Over pizza and coffee, she told us her story – we learned about her childhood in Vilnius, about her life in the ghetto, and she explained to us her story her of survival, achieved by joining the
anti-Nazi resistance and serving as a partisan in the nearby Lithuanian forest.  Fania is one of the liveliest women I’ve ever met.  She is warm, spunky, very intelligent – and she is probably one of the
toughest people alive.  What she lived through in the ghetto and in the forest is something I hope nobody will ever have to experience.  Fania lost her entire family in the Holocaust. The way
that she can tell her story to strangers and be so positive while recalling  these painful memories is amazing.

When Helix ended and the VYI began, I was so excited to hear that my relationship with Fania would not end there.  Fania also serves as the librarian of the Yiddish library at the institute. Whenever I did my homework at the library, Fania would sit next to me, organizing the Yiddish books, always with a smile on her face.  I’d tell her “Shalom-Aleichem” and she smile back, responding  “Aleichem-Shalom!” Fania has loaned me several books from the library and I really don’t know what the institute would do without her!

 Lucky enough, my parents were able to meet Fania when  they came to visit because as we were standing outside the Holocaust museum in Vilnius (it had unfortunately just closed when we got there) out of the museum comes Fania who had just led a tour.  In Yiddish, I introduced my parents to Fania and acted as translator for them, it was beyond cool.  She was so happy to meet my parents and my parents were even more thrilled to meet her – a living partisan! My folks may not have been able to see the Holocaust museum in Vilnius, but they met someone who lived through it, so I’d say it's all good.

For a long time I had known that I wanted to interview Fania about her partisan experience, but I knew I needed to build my Yiddish speaking abilities first.  After the third week of the program I felt ready and I planned with a new friend of mine and yiddish speaker, Dr. Jolanta Mickute, an interview with Fania.  I prepared questions all in Yiddish to ask Fania and prayed all week that the interview would run smoothly.  Yesterday, I interviewed Fania for three hours and it went wonderfully.  Fania was thrilled to speak to us and told us her story from beginning to end.  While I didn’t understand all that she was saying because she answered every question in Yiddish (she does not speak English), I was able to follow the main storyline and learned a ton.  During the interview I couldn’t help but think: now, this is why I take Yiddish, for moments like these when I can speak to Holocaust survivors in their native language and remember the culture that for them brings back such fond
memories.  Yiddish was the language of Fania’s family, of her city – it was the language of her people. 

Today, very few people speak Yiddish. Most of the Yiddish speakers perished in the Holocaust and the language itself is diminishing slowly due to lack of use.  Programs like the Vilnius Yiddish Institute are so vital to the existence of the language because it is the young people who learn it who will carry its memory into the next generation.  I am proud to be one of those young people.  I’m
thrilled to keep this amazing language alive.  Speaking to Fania in Yiddish, no matter how difficult it was for me, is a memory I’ll always have because of the smile on her face when speaking the language of her childhood.

 Fania’s story has inspired me in so many ways. Fania’s will to survive, her bravery as a resistance fighter, and her pride to be Jewish has left a hand print on me.  We share the same morals and I hope that one day, (under different circumstances of course), I can be as resilient and strong as she is.  I hope to use her story as inspiration for my own story I hope to write which will be about the partisan resistance and the Jewish culture in Eastern Europe.  I can’t wait to further educate myself about the Jews of Vilna and the resistance that proved they wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

During the Holocaust, Jewish people resisted in all sorts of ways – by saving historical and literary documents, burying torahs underground, writing anti-Nazi pamphlets, running spiritual events, and fighting in the forests.  I look up to all of these people who refused to obey the Nazi law, even in the face of death.  

As living people today, I think the memory of the Holocaust resistance should be reminder that as human beings it is our  responsibility to not simply ignore evil when it is happening – we must stand
against it.  We must defy it. We must remember the Holocaust in order to make sure that something like it never happens again and we must look to the lessons of the Holocaust resistance as
models for our own behavior.  
 
Tomorrow, with Fania as my guide, I will be visiting the Ponary forest in Lithuania where tens of thousands of Jewish people from Vilna were shot by the Nazis (Fania escorted the President of Israel to this historic site last week during his visit to Lithuania). Afterwards, Fania will be taking my group to her former partisan bunker in the forest and I will see where she lived, fought, and  survived –keeping her language and culture alive with her. I am looking forward to this experience and I will be sure to write about it in my next post. I hope you all have nice weekends and again, thanks so much for reading.

 All the best,

 Arielle

Hi everyone! Thanks for tuning into the latest post of my summer blog detailing my adventures in Eastern Europe.  I’ve had such an exciting week and I can’t wait to relay some of the coolest things I’ve been up to while living here in Vilnius, Lithuania.  Last Monday was my first day as a student at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.  For those of you may not know, the VYI (Vilnius Yiddish Institute) is a four week program for students of all ages that offers classes in beginner, intermediate, and  advanced Yiddish.  The program is held at the University of Vilnius.  The VYI also offers an additional cultural program where nearly every day after classes they offer some sort of Yiddish lecture, film, class or trip that is relevant to the Yiddish history and culture we’re studying.  I've seen some really interesting lectures so far, I have visited multiple museums, and even went to an old Jewish shtetl this past weekend.  This week, I've been practicing in a music workshop every day where we are learning yiddish songs and we will be perfoming them on Friday!

On weekdays, I have three hours of Yiddish class in the morning.  From 9:30-11, I have intermediate Yiddish class with Professor Anna Verschik.  Beyond being brilliant (she is fluent in 9 languages… still counting), Anna is funny, gracious, and an excellent teacher. Traveling from Estonia to be with us, Anna has been teaching at the VYI since 1998.   In her class, beyond learning grammar, we have read several Yiddish stories that  are fun and comedic – a reflection of the Jewish culture we’re studying. 

After our first morning class, the students get a mini-coffee break where Ella and I sit with some of our new friends and enjoy coffee, tea, and baked goodies for half an hour.  It has been really fun to constantly be meeting new people - everyone is really nice. After this coffee break, I go into my
second class from 11:30-1 with Professor Velvl Chernin.  Velvl is originally from Russia, but in 1990 he immigrated to Israel and is currently a Yiddish professor there at Ariel University.  Velvl is an excellent professor; his warmth, funny stories, and passion for Yiddish culture is evident in every class I have with him. He reminds me of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof – he is quite the character.  In his class, every day we learn a Yiddish song. He writes it on the board and we scribble it down
in our notebooks and together we sing it – it’s really fun.  He makes us speak in Yiddish for the class which has been both challenging and rewarding because on one hand, I’m nervous to make speech mistakes… but then as time goes, I make less of them! Even over the span of one week, I
feel that my Yiddish speaking abilities have improved.

Not only does the VYI attract professors from around the world – but it also attracts a vast  number of international students! In our program, I have met students from Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Ireland, France, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Germany, and the United States. I have made several new friends and I am loving this opportunity to not just understand what life is like in Vilnius, but to also learn what life is like for my friends from these different countries.

One of my closest new friends on the program is named Barbara. Barbara is a PhD student from Berlin, Germany.  The focus of her PhD thesis is Holocaust Literature.  With very similar interests, Barbara and I always have a ton to talk about. She has introduced me to new Jewish writers that I never heard of and I plan to read.  Additionally, Barbara has been a great touring companion. 
Yesterday for instance, after the program we explored different parts of Vilnius together.  We visited very famous churches and Barbara, who was raised Catholic, was able to explain to me a lot
about the sites we were visiting. Barbara also toured with me around my first  castle in Trakai, Lithuania which was very fun – I had never seen one before! 

Living with Ella in Vilnius has also been a blessing in itself. Ella is the sweetest roommate and a
fabulous travel companion.  Ella has been so kind to me and without her, I don’t know if I could’ve
gotten through these crazy 2 months of traveling.  Ella always knows  when I need a hug or motivation and I’m thankful every day that I’m doing this  program with her. Between Helix and the VYI, Ella and I will have had lots of adventures together by the end of the summer and I’m so happy to share these memories with her and continue our time together at Johns Hopkins.

 Unfortunately last week, I was struggling with something that is very common amongst world travelers: homesickness.  Now, please do not think that I was by any means not  enjoying Vilnius or my time at the institute, because I was.  I think I felt homesick at first because Vilnius was a place I had never been to before. I missed my parents because I’m used to them always knowing the way – but here, I had to figure the way out myself.  I think I let the pressure of this boil over me, and also I was extremely physically and emotionally tired after Helix.  While the VYI was fun, I missed my life at home and didn’t think I could get through another intensive four week  program.

But now, enough with the depressing stuff because my approach to last week was all wrong - and its time to set things straight.

First, I have to  thank my Mom because every day last week she spoke to me on the phone (regardless of how much it cost!) and told me that it was okay – it was okay to miss home, and it was okay to be uncomfortable at first in this new place.  She told me she loved me and that she believed in me - words I desperately needed to hear.
  
A turning point of the week, though, was when I received an email from my  dad – an email that put me in perspective and showed me how happy I should be. Taking an excerpt from his note, my Dad wrote: “This is such a special experience for you. Someday you will look back on this summer and shake your head in disbelief that you had such an exciting and unusual adventure.” His words reminded me of something: this adventure is unusual.  
 
His words reminded me of the strength I have in myself to explore a new land and appreciate it.  It
reminded me of my ability to take this summer as an opportunity to do something few people have the chance to do and use it in a meaningful way.  This note put me in perspective. I’ll always be grateful for my very wise Dad. I’m so excited to  see him this Friday in Vilnius when he and my mom come to visit after their  trip to Paris. (They finally took a European vacation!) 
 
So, in short,  Vilnius is wonderful and all I could've hoped for. It’s beautiful, it’s historical, and it’s rich in culture and life.  I’m loving my time here.  In many ways Lithuania is like the United States – it’s fun, it’s lively, and everything has a story - stories I want to learn and write about one day. I know these upcoming three weeks will go by quickly so  I plan to absorb this experience like a sponge. My brown journal I brought with me is half way full with notes I’ve taken from this trip– I hope to fill it by the end of my time here!

 Stay tuned for more, and again, thanks for reading.  The supportive response from my readers has made writing this blog all the more special for me.  Thanks for helping me create this lasting
memory.

All the best,
Arielle

Hi everyone! 
Thanks for tuning in again to my summer blog about my experiences travelling through Eastern Europe this summer.  I am writing from my dorm room in Vilnius, Lithuania as I have just begun my four week program at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. Reflecting on the trip I just completed with the Helix project – I leave the program with fantastic memories and amazing friends.
 
The people I met on this trip were warm, vibrant, caring, and extremely intelligent.  The amount of vocabulary words I picked up over the past three weeks would blow you away.  Above all of those things –  I think what attracted me most to the Helix group was the passion that each member of our group had for studying Eastern European Jewish culture. I plan to keep in touch with all members of the group and I’m sure I will be seeing some of them in the future.  Each member of the group was special, driven by an individual interest and a passion for knowledge.

This trip has taken me all over Eastern Europe – to Belarus, to Poland, to Lithuania. 
It showed me places that most Americans, even more, most people just don’t see.  I walked through tiny  rural towns in Belarus, I visited crumbling buildings and deserted cemeteries in Poland, I spoke to a living former Partisan in Lithuania, and let me tell you – I learned so much and was inspired to take this new knowledge and do something. 

From these experiences with Helix and my future experiences living Vilnius, I hope to write a historical fiction novel within the next few years about a teenager that is trying to survive the Holocaust without losing herself or her Jewish identity.  It will be a dramatic narrative taking
readers through the timeline of Jewish life in Eastern Europe during a period where it was not safe to be who you really were.   I hope that this story will allow young readers to see the harsh truths of the Holocaust, while promoting cultural and religious tolerance – emphasizing the purpose of hope for future  generations.
 
Anyways, now that I’ve shared my “reflections” on Helix with you, I’d also like to share one discovery I made on this trip.   For me, this discovery made this trip significantly bigger on an emotional level. Here’s the story:

Several days ago, the Helix group drove into Lithuania, ready for the last leg of our 2 week adventure. One of our first stops was in the city of Kaunas (the former capital of Lithuania) which used to have a very  significant Jewish population before WWII. To this day, Kaunas (“Kovno” in
Yiddish) houses one of the largest (and only) surviving synagogues from before the second world war as the Nazis burned down most Jewish houses of worship.

As I was walking through this grand synagogue, I stumbled upon a  plaque that read:

If you don’t understand Yiddish, what is written in gold is pronounced Kay-den-sky (does Kay-den sound familiar?) 

What this plaque says is that the Kadensky family donated the furnace to this synagogue. I guess it was such a big deal that a plaque was  made about it.  Super cool right? I called my group leader over and told him about this find and he said casually  – “Oh yea, the Kadenskys? They must’ve been from Kėdainiai (pronounced:  Kay-dey-ney) – it’s a major town in Lithuania.” Right then my jaw dropped.   

Here’s a little back story. 

Supposedly, when my great-great-grandfather on my Dad’s side came to  America, he came with the last name of “Kadensky” – except that when he got to  the immigrant center in the USA, they chopped off the “sky” and his last name  became just “Kaden.”  Thus, my last name was formed.  
 
However, while my family really does not know where my  great-great-grandpa came from, it seems that Kėdainiai fits.  I know this because when most people back in Eastern Europe lived in a  town, let’s use Kėdainiai for example, they took the name of their town, added a  “sky” and used it as their last name when they moved to a new place. So if my  great-great-grandfather lived in Kėdainiai, when he moved somewhere else, let’s  say America, he would’ve taken the last name Kadensky. 
Thus, I have a hunch that my family may have roots in this known Lithuanian town. 

Even if we are  not from this place and its all a coincidence, I think it’s pretty darn awesome
to go to a country not expecting much and then to find a town with your last name in it! I always felt thatmy last name was generic, boring, and not special. Now, things are different.  Every time I tell
people here that my last name is Kaden, they say, “oh, like Kėdainiai?” and I just shrug and smile. I mean, we even have roads and pancakes named after us. It’s pretty cool. 

This new discovery has given me inspiration to research more into my family history and figure out where my family comes from.  I came into this trip thinking my family was just from Poland, Russia, and Hungary – but who knew that back when my family left Russia, the empire was composed of Lithuania, parts of Poland, Ukraine and other countries too! I mean, I could really be from ANYWHERE. It’s time for me to find out! When I get home, the search begins.  In the mean
time, I think I’d like to visit Kėdainiai!

 Anyways, thanks so much for reading.  In my next post, I will explain more about what I am up to in
Vilnius and about my studies at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.  I will be studying here for a month, and after just three days, I have already learned so much.  I can’t wait to see what comes next.
 
All the best,

Arielle 

Thanks for tuning into the latest post of my summer blog about my adventures in Eastern Europe!

One of the hardest aspects of traveling through Eastern Europe this summer has been the language barrier.  While the core of our group's studies have been in Yiddish literature and language, in the places we’ve traveled to (Belarus, Poland, and Lithuania), we have had to pick up parts of each  country's spoken language.  Over the past 2 weeks I’ve had to learn some Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian just to get by. Not knowing the language of the people in the country one's traveling in has been both overwhelming and difficult.

A very special moment for me on this trip was when I was able to have communication with people without spoken dialogue.  This past Thursday, our group travelled to Suvalki, Poland to study the works of Yiddish poet Morris Rosenfeld.  Suvalki used to be the home of this great poet, and our group sat out beside the small lake that Rosenfeld himself used to write by.  After reading his poetry, most of the group swimming in the gorgeous lake – it was a beautiful day.  I was part of a small group that didn’t go swimming (I lost my bathing suit, go figure… I ended up finding it later).  But I think it was some part of fate that I lost the bathing suit because something amazing happened.  Out of NO WHERE, our small group heard a little band of young girls singing.  They sounded like angels – their pitches were perfect, their harmonies spot on.  I looked over and saw this group of 4 girls, sisters of different ages, walking through the tall grass, singing together.

Josh, a member of our group, couldn’t resist walking over to the girls and speaking to them.  He brought the girls over to us, and since we hardly spoke Polish, and they hardly spoke English, it was very hard to communicate.  I said to them “Your song - beautiful”; and that much, they understood.  They seemed to have read my mind and they sang it again for us.  The only way I can describe my feelings is that my heart melted.  They were perfect. I was stunned.

In the nick of time, the rest of the helix group got out of the lake and walked over to us.  As a full ensemble, we sang to the girls one of our Yiddish songs that we had been taught on the trip.  They were amazed, they had probably never even heard of Yiddish – they even clapped for us.  The girls’ mother walked over, as did our translator, and the family invited our group to their small home in the countryside, where they would put on a small concert for us.  Let me say that when a group of small musical prodigies invite you to their home to play more music… there is only one way to respond.

At their small house, I heard some of the most beautiful music ever played live.  These sisters, none of them older than 16, played the violin, piano, clarinet, and other instruments so beautifully; I was amazed.  The family is from Warsaw, Poland and every summer they come to Suvalki to relax, swim, and play music together.  The family has a mom, dad, and seven daughters – each of whom play an instrument. They are basically the Von Trapps, but real people. The family was so kind to us; they were constantly laughing and smiling.

I may not have understood a word of what the little girls said to me, but when two of the sisters played an Ave Maria duet on the violins and we sang back to them in Yiddish, we were speaking in an even more beautiful – universal – language. I thought, “Wow, this is it. Music is what connects us.”

Music has played such a large role in my life and up till now, I never realized how much it connects me not just to feelings within myself, but to other people.  I will always remember the family we met in Suvalki – complete strangers that we shared such a beautiful moment with, and for that, we have music to thank.

Hi every one! Thanks for tuning in again to my summer blog about my adventures in Eastern Europe! The past two days have been both exciting and action packed so I will try to get down the main highlights in this post. 

After spending six days in Belarus, our group arrived in Poland ready to explore new lands and cities.  On Wednesday, our group spent the whole day exploring and learning about the city of Bialystok.  I had a great experience visiting this city. I learned so many stories about the town, the old Jewish community, and different individuals who did what they could to help the Jews before and during WWII. 

I learned about the Bialystok ghetto uprising against the Nazis, which in itself was extremely impressive. I was also told that many of the people who lead this charge were women which made the connection even deeper and prouder.  Our group visited the old Jewish ghetto in Bialystok, the Jewish graveyard, and several memorials for people and places that used to be there.  Bialystok was so rich in history and memory and it was really a sight to see.

Our group’s tour guide was amazing person to be with the whole day.  Our guide’s name was Tomek Wisniewski. He is a commonly heard name around Bialystok, and to the rest of the Jewish scholarly world he is quite famous for his research in the history of the Jews of Bialystok and his activism in promoting its remembrance.  I LOVED Tomek.  Tomek was funny, engaging, and extremely passionate about Poland and its connection to the Jewish people.  Tomek is not Jewish, but I remember him saying, “I am from Poland, thus I am Jewish.  We are all Jewish. We are all connected.”  Tomek promoted the idea that no one in Poland is just Polish.  Poland is a country of many ethnicities – immigrants came to Poland from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, etc, thus it is very multi-cultural.  As a Polish citizen, you don’t just embrace your identity, you embrace the cultures of your country men as well.

When someone in  our group asked why it’s been said that Poland is an anti-semetic country (a very hard question to ask a Polish tour guide), Tomek said that one has to be careful with this answer because no one can deny the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jews that happened in Poland. Tomek is ashamed of this history and has dedicated his life to educating others about it. His response to the question though was interesting. He said that the Jews have a 200 year history in Poland.  They raised families there. They educated themselves there.  They stayed in Poland.  They wanted to be there. Anti-semetism was found everywhere in the world – so something was keeping the Jews there, something was keeping the Jews wanting to stay in Poland. Why did the Jews stay? Something must’ve been going right. I found Tomek and his ideas very interesting.  Later that day, Tomek invited our group to his home where we were given drinks and toasted to life and joy for the Jewish people and Poland.  It was so sweet for Tomek to invite a group of 15 strangers to his home to share this moment, and I had a great time.  His home (which he built himself!) was in the beautiful Polish country side which was really a site to see.

Afterwards, our group went to the interactive museum that Tomek designed himself about Jewish history in Poland and we watched two interesting videos that sparked different opinions but important discussion. We watched a video that Tomek made where he interviewed residents of a small town in Poland who were all in their nineties.  These seniors were asked to recall their experience witnessing Jewish murder and harrasment during the Second World War.   The people interviewed in the video were ordinary people with morals and feelings.  They felt for the Jews but also knew the horrifying price one had to pay if caught helping a Jew: death to one and their entire family.   Seeing the guilt in their speeches, and the pain in their eyes, helped me to understand that the Jews were not the only victims in the Holocaust.  I never took the time to view the genocide from the eyes of a bystander.  But I can imagine that to watch genocide and not do anything can be traumatizing, scarring, and leave a guilt that haunts for life.  This video impacted me greatly because it taught me a lesson about forgiveness, and how important it is to look at situations from all angles.  It taught me to not judge people for their actions in the past because suffering can remain and be passed on, even if one is not necessarily considered a “target of the Genocide.”  The Polish non-Jews may not have been targets during the Holocaust, but they were also victims.  This video was proof.

I really enjoyed my day with Tomek – I felt like I learned a lot from him.  His kindness and passion for studying Jewish history, culture, life, and the Holocaust resonated with me because I share this passion with him – that is the reason I’m here.

Thank you all so much for reading.  In my next post, I’m going to discuss another encounter with strangers that somehow lead to a musical celebration.  I also have a special surprise that I must say, is pretty darn cool, but you’ll have to wait and see what it is!  Stay tuned and have a great weekend.

All the best,

Arielle