Saturday, October 24 - The World That Was

Shabbat shalom from Warsaw!  What a blessing it is to be celebrating Shabbat in a place where Judaism was supposed to have been wiped out.  There was a power to waking up to Shabbat, putting on my Kippah and heading to our first activity of the day.

We began with a little Shabbes.  We walked into a room at the hotel with chairs arranged in a circle.  As we all sat down I carefully took out my Tallit, folded it as nearly as I could and said the prayer to myself.  I have never felt this prayer the way I did this morning.  As I was holding onto my Tallit I remembered walking through Auschwitz 1 and seeing the Tallitot that were stolen from the victims of the Nazis.  I remembered looking at each one and wondering who it belonged to, how meaningful it must have been for that person to stand and say the same blessing I was saying, to kiss both ends out of a deep love and respect for our tradition and to feel the warmth of God wrapped around me like a blanket on a cold night.  This is what I was thinking of as I wrapped myself in my Tallit, wrapping myself in the representation of the laws that are designed to make our world a better place.    

For me, wearing a Tallit is forever transformed because of Auschwitz.  Those victims who remain nameless will always be a blessing for me as I remember them each time I celebrate my freedom to wear a Tallit.  And to wrap myself in that warmth in Warsaw, in Poland, in the place where Judaism was supposed to be absent, was more powerful than words could ever express.  Maybe when you wear a Tallit you will hear these victims calling to you like I am hearing them calling to me...

Feeling the warmth of my Tallit we began our service.  We sang a little and then focused on one piece of liturgy from our Shabbat morning service, the Nisim B'chol Yom, the miracles we experience every day.  We chanted these prayers and then we discussed the miracles we were experiencing on our trip to Poland.  There was so much love and gratitude in that room.  So much appreciation for one another and for where we were.  For me, the biggest miracle was the discovery of a living Judaism in Poland.  It is small, but it is strong.  Judaism in Poland is like a small pebble in a large field that used to be covered with boulders.  Even though the boulders are gone, that pebble is strong and permanent.  We are part of the process of adding new rocks to join this pebble.  And what an honor it is to do so.

After a really meaningful time in prayer we boarded our bus to tour Warsaw.  Our first stop was a memorial for the prisoners in the Warsaw Ghetto who managed to escape through the sewer system.  It was a powerful memorial.

As we approached we were surprised to see the following beneath the glass.

And even more surprised to see the hands reaching on the back, as if the sewer were swallowing up so many, representing those who did not get out of the ghetto.  It reminds us that there are so many layers to this story, to our story, to the story of humanity.

We then boarded our bus again and drove through parks with beautiful gardens, huge palaces and beautiful architecture.  We went to one park where we saw a statue of Chopin, the most famous Polish composer.  We were able to notice all of the birds and the colors of the leaves surrounding the statue.  It was a beautiful and peaceful place, a place where they often have concerts.  How wonderful to be able to hear music in a setting like this.

It was here that we decided to take our first group picture of the trip.  We were in a place that was not representing death, but rather a beautiful and alive place.  

We drove by the American Embassy...

And Marcelina explained how this part of Warsaw, totally destroyed during the war, was rebuilt to look exactly like it did before the war.  It was beautiful and breathtaking.

And as we drove there was a lightness in our bus, laughing and joking.  People talking about the beauty of this place and how much they loved Poland.  I remember feeling how much I would love to bring my girls here, how they would love to stroll and shop in the market square and see the beautiful surroundings.  

And then we got off the bus for our next stop.

And the weight of the Holocaust smacked us in the face again.

It is amazing how quickly we became comfortable, how quickly we settled in and placed the enormity of what happened further into our memories that it was almost like we forgot.  As we learned where we were standing, there would be no more forgetting.  It is another lesson that Poland is teaching us...  We have to be careful how comfortable we get.

We were standing in the Umschlagplatz, the location of the deportation of the Warsaw Jewish Comminity to Treblinka.  We learned that 300,000 Jews were loaded onto trains here and sent to their deaths.  On the floor of the memorial you can see red bricks, outlining the wall that surrounded the Ghetto.

We learned of some of the horrors in the ghetto.  We learned that on average each person in the ghetto was forced to live on 184 caleries per day.  That's about 9 peanuts, or less than the cappuccino I am enjoying as I type this.  Unthinkable.  We learned that 100,000 people died within the ghetto during the war.  

On the memorial is a list of first names.  As many Jewish and Polish first names that could be thought of.  The truth is we do not have a list of names of all of the victims.  The Nazis tried to take away our names, our identity.  This memorial tries to restore those names to the nameless victims. 

I tried to read each name on the wall.  I was not expecting to see my own name listed there among the victims, and my daughter's Hebrew name above mine.

Is your name there too?  Or maybe someone you love?  The truth is, we were all at Auschwitz, we were all in the ghetto at Warsaw, just like we were all at Sinai.  This history belongs to all of us.  So look for your name, because it is there.  

The memorial is really powerful.  Standing on the inside you feel locked in, like living in the Warsaw Ghetto must have felt.  The top of the surrounding wall looks like tomb stones, like the walls of the ghetto we saw in Kraków.  At the front of the memorial there are broken trees carved into the stone, representing the broken lives because of the Holocaust.  But if you look below these broken trees you will see a break in the wall with a huge tree behind it.  What could this mean?  Maybe the life that was outside the ghetto? Maybe the potential that life could have held for these innocent victims?  Maybe our current struggle to choose to live under the shadow of the Holocaust.  

We walked to a stone memorial that was part of the Path of the Heroes, detailing how different people responded to the Nazis and in their own way showed heroism and resistance.

There were many monuments we walked past, and how I wish I could have had the time to absorb each act of heroism.  The places we did stop were inspiring, tragic and filled with awe.

One such stop was Mila 18, the site of the end of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  What was amazing was that we learned that the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto lasted longer in their struggle against the Germans than the entire country of Poland did against the Germans and Russians, and that at certain points they even caused the Germans to withdraw.  Imagine the feeling of these fighters, so few in number, so few resources actually pushing back the Nazi war machine.  

This location was the bunker where the fighters were in when they ralized that their fight was over, when they were surrounded and rather than allow the Nazis to kill them, they chose to take their own lives.  Among them was Mordechaj Anielewicz, the young man who was the head of the resistance.  Their grave was the rubble left behind, and that rubble was not disturbed as to not disturb their rest.  

The memorial was simple.  It didn't need a fancy statue or intricate design.  The mound IS the memorial.  And there was a power in that place, a strong presence that I think we all felt.  And I think we were all asking ourselves if we would have had the strength to stand up to the Nazis like these young fighters did.

We walked to another memorial on this path of heroes.  We stopped at this broken slab in the sidewalk, another powerful moment.

This is the memorial for Szmul Zygielbojm, a Polish politician who was the first to reveal the horrors of the Holocaust in 1942, a man who tried to expose the Nazis and their final solution, a man who's desperate pleas for people to stand up and help fell upon deaf ears.  We learned that the Allies had a conference in Hamilton, Bermuda, in 1943 to see what could be done to help the Jews.  While the warriors were battling in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Allies were meeting in paradise in Bermuda.  At the end of the conference the decision was to do nothing.  Szmul Zygielbojm was devastated and furious, for humanity turned its back in the face of the largest crime ever committed.  In a desperate plea to get the world to listen, he protested in the only way he could, by ending his life in the hope that it would raise awareness for what was happening.  

It was chilling to realize that so many involved in this desperate situation chose to end their lives in the only act of resistance left for them.  It was a story that repeated itself again and again, and we wondered, what would we have done if placed in the same situation?

There was silence as we walked further.

We got to this statue of Jan Karski, a man who actually met with President Rooselvelt in order to bring the horrors of the Holocaust to someone who could help.  Unfortunately, as we learned happened again and again, Roosevelt did nothing to change the situation.  Another example of humanity turning its back. 

This theme of humanity turning the other way was one that was extremely difficult for me to take in. 

We then went into the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, detailing the 1000 year history of Jews in Poland.  I was so glad that I had the opportunity to visit this incredible museum Monday with Daron, because there is so much to take in.  

The design of the museum is really amazing.  The walls are all glass, allowing us to look outside of the museum and see life happening.  It is not just a museum of how the Jews died, but also how they lived.  I believe it also shows the fragility of humanity, and how easily we can be thrust into a situation where happiness and life itself is shattered.

One thing our guide made clear to us, again and again, Poland looks at Jewish history not as separate from their history.  How wonderful to hear this, because throughout history Jews were always treated as other.

I often get asked how many ghettos were there?  Here, carved into a wall, was the answer.  Almost 600.  The organization of this horror was astounding.

With the heaviness of the Holocaust back in the forefront of our minds we were grateful for a few things.  First of all, the Polish community is doing a lot to remember the Jewish story and is also taking responsibility for their part in the destruction of the Holocaust.  They are not simply playing victim, but acknowledging their role in so much destruction.  The other thing we are grateful for is the fact that so many memorials and monuments exist.  Look at Mila 18, prime real estate that could have been developed into another Warsaw high rise, but instead, the grave is preserved in honor of the heroism of the people who died there.  

We spoke about some of this at our final dinner in Poland, and, as we made Havdallah, we noted three different types of separation we were acknowledging.  First, we were moving away from Shabbat and into the new week.  Second, we were separating this trip from the rest of our lives, acknowledging how we are all different because of this experience.  And third, we recognized that we were seperating the horrors of the Holocaust and the destruction from the light and life that Israel represents.  We sang and even danced a bit as we went to our bus and headed to the airport ready to fly home to Israel.  

Israel means the world to me.  She always has. But now, after what we have experienced, after Majdanek and Auschwitz, after Mila 18 and the other memorials, after experiencing the resurgence of Jewish life in Poland she means so much more.  I cannot wait to share my love for Israel with these travelers.  As we walked down the jetway towards our plane we were singing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, Jerusalem of Gold.