Week 1/Poland

We began our first day in Poland with a walking tour of Krakow.  After visiting the Rama Synagogue, the “old shul”, the Jewish cemetery, and seeing numerous other sites, it was easy to see how this city once housed a vibrant Jewish community.  Tragically, this once thriving Jewish community is now made up of a very small number of Jews and the signs of the holocaust, which devastated the “Jewish Krakow,” were also visually evident.  We saw the ghetto walls, the square where Jews were rounded up and deported, and we even visited Plashow, the concentration camp depicted in Schindler’s list.

Seeing Schindler’s factory reminded us that there were people who tried to save Jews, and watching a very powerful movie entitled “Hiding and Seeking” helped us understand some  of the  more personal stories of horror and heroism.

On Tuesday we visited Auschwitz/Birchanua.  Through personal stories, detailed statistical data, and numerous photos our tour guides were able to help us grasp the nature of the Nazi agenda and the torment of those who experienced it.  Before leaving we held a ceremony in one of the remaining buildings, and then, with our hearts hurting and our heads held high, we did what so many Jews who entered Auschwitz never had the chance to do… We walked out.

Wednesday was yet another day packed with history.  In Lublin we visited a yeshiva that was once considered the premier Jewish institution of Europe.  In “Yeshivat Chamey Lublin” we learned a little bit about studying in a yeshiva and then we sang songs and danced there, as so many Jews before our time had done.

Majdonek was difficult.  Seeing gas chambers, crematoriums, and buildings that now house remnants of the camp, including thousands upon thousands of pairs of shoes that have outlived their owners was simply gut wrenching.  Hearing stories of what happened at  Majdonek on a daily basis was nearly unbearable.   How some managed to survive is almost incomprehensible.  After another ceremony to remember/honor those who suffered at Majdonek, we boarded the buses and drove to Lomz, a small city close to Tikuchin.

Tikuchin was once a shtetle very much like the one portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof.  We even watched the first part of Fiddler on our way there.  The synagogue that we visited was gorgeous.  Because the Jews  living in Tikuchin did not have a printing press when the Kabbalat Shabbat service was written, the prayers were written on the inner walls of the synagogue’s sanctuary.  Again, we sang and danced, bringing a now museum like building back to life, using it as it was intended to be used when it was built well over two hundred years ago.   As we left the synagogue we followed the path of the Jews from Tikuchin who were rounded up by the Nazis in the city square.  Once on our buses we drove to a site called Lopochova, walked into the dense forest and saw the memorial which now sits where the entire Jewish community of Tikkuchin was murdered… We said payers, lit candles, and sang Hatikvah, the song that the Jews who were massacred their sang as they took their last steps.

Our last evening in Poland consisted of a whirlwind tour of Warsaw.  The Jewish Cemetery, the sites of the former Warsaw Ghetto, and the Warsaw Synagogue were all enlightening places that helped us understand how important this Jewish community once was and how the Holocaust destroyed it.  Before leaving Poland we visited a famous two sided memorial, one side depicting  Jews walking out of Warsaw, the other side honoring those who stayed to fight the Nazis.  Before leaving we all shared our thoughts on our time in Poland and what we had learned.