Friday, August 31, 2012 Auschwitz-Birkenau

Today was a long journey into darkness, to the depths of sorrow. Auschwitz - the very name means barbarity, cruelty, and death. It has been called by scholars "an intractable dilemma." How can one even write about it without diminishing the experience of those who were exterminated there? I knew all this before coming on the trip - what I didn't know was that Auschwitz is a symbol for Poles, too. For Poland, Auschwitz is the symbol of the German rape of their country.

Auschwitz is really three camps - Auschwitz I which primarily housed Polish intelligentsia and political prisoners; Auschwitz II (or Birkenau) which was an extermination camp for Jews; and Auschwitz III which was a smaller slave labour camp. It was the largest camp that the Germans built, both in size and number of victims. The camp was liberated by the Soviets who took almost all of the documents that survived the German attempt to destroy all evidence of the camp.

More than 1 million people visit Auschwitz each year. Today our group is heading 70 kilometers southwest of Krakow to Oswiecim, the town in which Auschwitz is located. Germany incorporated the western part of Poland into greater Germany and changed the names of towns to German names. So Osciecim became Auschwitz.

The Germans opened their first camp in 1933 at Dachau as a location for political prisoners. Adolf Eichmann came up with the idea of isolating people in a concentration camp to separate, indoctrinate, and reshape them to fit into the new German world order. When the first few such camps were full, Eichmann inspected a site at Auschwitz which had been a former military camp. The infrastructure was in place with 10 brick barracks, kitchens, etc. It was geographically opportune, since it was in an industrial, coal mining area for which the Germans needed slave labor. The site was originally selected to house Polish political prisoners and the first transport in 1940 was of Polish men - the intelligentsia. In June of 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union and captured 2 million Soviet POW's. Majdanek was established for some of the Soviet prisoners and Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was then built (by the existing camp prisoners) for 10,000 Soviet POW's. 9 Polish villages were leveled to create it.

In 1942 the Wannsee Conference took place and the Nazis decided to rid Western Europe of all the Jews by exterminating them. They decided to use Auschwitz II (or Birkenau) for Jews of Western Europe. In 1942, the German company I G Farben got permission to build a factory near Auschwitz because of the plethora of raw materials found locally and the availability of slave labor from the camp. They were to produce synthetic gasoline. So Auschwitz III opened 6 kilometers from Auschwitz I. There were also 39 satellite camps in vicinity. ALL of this is Auschwitz. 100,000 people lived there, worked there, next to the crematoria. The survivors of Auschwitz are primarily those who worked in the factories.


This is the basic history,as I understood it, from our group guide, Basha, and our local guide at Auschwitz, Jerczy. I didn't want to take pictures, but took along a small camera. After a few pictures at the outside of Auschwitz I, the batteries died. I had a second set and they died as soon as we got to Auschwitz II. I think this sacred place did not want me to take photographs.

A map showing where the Jews came from who were brought to Birkenau for extinction:



The famous gate: "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes you Free) at the entrance to Auschwitz.


Crematory tower at Auschwitz I:


The entrance to Birkenau:


After this experience, drained and exhausted, we went to the Jewish Center in Oswiecim for lunch and to meet with the Director. He told us that the center has the important mission of educating groups who come there about Jewish life and culture in Oswiecim before the War and has a small synagogue that is restored for people who need to pray after visiting the camps.

It is all too overwhelming to write any more. There are so many stories - the Jewish story, the Polish story, the town's story, the story of the Koreans who were visiting Auschwitz today, the Israeli teens story who marched into Birkenau while we were there, arms linked and singing, and the Moslem families we saw at Birkenau wearing full coverings. What a crazy world!


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Thursday, August 30, 2012 - Krakow

Today was spent tracing the once flourishing Jewish Community of Krakow. Krakow is the only city in Poland where almost the entire physical representation of Jewish history is intact. We visited numerous synagogues in the morning, beginning in Kazimierz, the oldest part of the city where Jews lived. By going to the synagogues and old cemetery we were able to trace Jewish Krakow from the beginning of the 15th century to the present. Below are some of the places we visited.

The Old Synagogue or Alta Schul - This dates from the 15th Century and is now a museum:


The Poppera Synagogue:


The Remuh Synagogue:


The House of Torah Study:


The Isaac Synagogue (now headquarters of Chabad):


The Kupa Synagogue:


The Temple Synagogue (a Progressive/Reform synagogue):


The Old Cemetery:


We then met with a wonderful Polish woman whose family had helped Jews survive the war. She and her parents had been recognized as Righteous Gentiles by Yad Vashem. Listening to her story was heartwarming.


We had lunch at the Jewish Community Center and met with Jonathan Ornstein, the Executive Director. His enthusiasm and charisma go a long way to making the JCC successful.


There was no security at any of these Jewish sites and Jonathan told us that the Krakow Jewish community is vibrant, thriving, and growing.

After lunch we go to the site of the Ghetto in Krakow. This was much smaller than the Warsaw Ghetto. Below is the site of the Umschlagplatz where the people from the Ghetto were collected for transport to the trains. A memorial of oversized empty chairs marks the spot.


We visit the Pankiewicz pharmacy which stood at the corner just outside of the Ghetto and where the owner helped people to escape. It is now a museum.


Our final stop is the Plaszow Camp, just outside of Krakow which was part of the story of the movie Schindler's List. Plaszow was originally designed to be a work camp, not a concentration camp, but lack of food, terrible conditions, and random shootings of prisoners resulted in many deaths. Nothing remains except the memorial built by the Soviets.


Here we break out into smaller groups to prepare for our visit tomorrow to Auschwitz.

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Wednesday, 8/29/12 Warsaw to Krakow

Today was primarily a day of travel. The first leg was 2 hours to Czestochowa, site of a Pauline monastery that houses the portrait of The Black Madonna. Every day pilgrims come from all over to pray for healing to this icon of the Virgin Mary located in the Jasna Gora Monastery. We had a tour by one of the Pauline monks, Father Simon, that brought us pushing ahead of the true pilgrims, some of whom came crawling on their knees, and who had been waiting more than an hour in line to see the portrait and the relics.

Father Simon and some shots of the chapel:









It was a very uncomfortable situation. One woman in line was so angry that she pushed me, elbowed me, and called me lovely things in Polish. Frankly, she had every right to be so incensed.

The line to see The Black Madonna and the portrait:





Father Simon was a joker telling us we were lucky to have such a funny monk giving us a tour. His best joke of the morning - "How do you make Holy Water? You boil the hell out of it."

Following boxed lunches in Czestochowa, we travelled another three hours to Krakow. There we had a fascinating tour of the library at Jagellonian University, followed by a city tour with our guide Basha. Both were interesting and informative.

Jagellonian University and Library









Model of an early globe without North America


Ceiling in lecture hall:


Waterspout on roof with gargoyle:


Twisted chimney:


Gate to University courtyard:


The central square of Krakow is enormous, filled with churches, restaurants, cafes, stores, a local crafts market (that used to be the cloth market), and teeming with people.





Had a lovely dinner in an outdoor cafe and our friends ordered a bottle of champagne to toast our anniversary. Forty-one fabulous years! Who'd have thought we'd celebrate in between visits to Treblinka and Auschwitz!!


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Monday, 8/27/12 Warsaw and Environs

Today was a very, very long day, starting at 8:00 AM on the bus and ending at 6:30 back at the hotel, with only a 35 minute break for lunch and a 30 minute coffee break in the afternoon. Lots of walking, lots of talking, lots of pictures, lots of sadness, lots of ambivalent feelings.

First stop on our travels was the town of Gura Kalwaria, a town dating from the 1300's and home of Ger Hassidism. Before WW II, 30,000 Jews lived in Gur, less than half of whom were Hassid's. Of those 30,000, only 30 survived the Nazis. We met with Feliks Karpman, one of those 30 survivors, and now an 86 year old man. Only one other survivor is still alive and living in Gur and he is 97. Mr. Karpman told us his harrowing tale of being taken to Treblinka, escaping by killing a Ukranian guard, being taken to the Warsaw Ghetto, then sent to a forced labor camp, escaping again, and joining the Polish Partisans in the forest near Warsaw. I'm not sure I have the entire story correct, since it was told to us through an interpreter, but there were ghettos, camps, partisans, death, fighting, and the loss of his entire family except for one brother. He is the caretaker of the only remaining remnant of Judaism in Gura, a study hall/house of prayer that was built in 1859 as a library, with the house of prayer attached in 1903. When he dies, there will be no one to take care of it.








Mr. Karpman:




Our study session with Haim in the Study Hall:




Mr. Karpman took us to the Jewish cemetery in Gura - the pictures speak for themselves. I felt an obligation to insure that these graves are remembered, if only for the few minutes that this page is read.












Finally, Mr. Karpman's family grave. Although he had no bodies to bury after losing his family in the Crematoria, he went to the site and took some ashes and buried them in this grave.




I know I've dwelled on this cemetery far too long, but although it is sad, it deeply moved me on many levels.

After Gur, we went to Praga, where Jews have lived since the 1600's. Across the river from Warsaw, Praga was originally the center of Jewish life in Poland. After a quick lunch we walked through parts of Warsaw, within what had been the wall of the Ghetto and drove around the outskirts to get the size of the Ghetto. Of course, the vast majority of the Ghetto was razed by the Nazis, so little remains except boundary markers along the sidewalks.


Other parts of the day made less of an impression, both because of the lack of a physical building or synagogue, but also because I became testy and combative with our Polish guide, Basha. It was not a good afternoon for me. I felt the surface story was being told, not the ugly, horrific one that actually happened.

The entire story of Poland, the Jews of Poland, and World War II is a very, very complicated story. And there are many versions of the story - each valid in its own way. Poland suffered terribly under the Nazis who treated the Poles as sub-human. Only the Jews were considered of lower status - vermin in the eyes of the Nazis. Approximately 2.8 million non-Jewish Poles died in the period 1939-1945, about 16% of the population, which is a terrible, terrible tragedy. But I can't forget that about 2.9 million Jewish Poles died in the same time period. This is 90% of the Jewish population of Poland. Although deprivation, starvation, and hardship existed for non-Jewish Poles throughout Warsaw, I didn't feel our guide filled in the facts about how much worse conditions were for the Jews inside the Warsaw Ghetto. I guess I selfishly want to concentrate on my story. It is good that I'm being forced to hear and deal with a more universal story.

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Tomorrow we visit Treblinka.

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Sunday, 8/26/12 Warsaw

Awoke this morning to rain "bucketing" down, as they say in England. Really didn't want to walk around, but you're only here once, so Eric and I took a cab to "Old Town." This historic section of Warsaw was totally destroyed in WW II and was rebuilt as close to the original historic structures as was possible by using old paintings and photographs. The rebuilding started in the 1950's and continued into the 1970's. Even in the rain, the place had lots of strollers - this seems to be a national pastime here. To me it was a bit too Disney-like. If Walt Disney had wanted to build a "Poland Land" this is what it would look like. In the first picture you can see a piece of the original city wall that remained.








As we made our way out of Old Town, we came across our first trace of Jewish Warsaw.


Our Melton Seminar began this afternoon. So wonderful to see Haim, our leader, teacher, guide extraordinaire and to see old Melton friends and make new ones. The group is too large (30 people), but each person on it wants to be there. Haim explained that they overbooked the seminar, since some people always drop out, but no one had dropped out this time. That shows the dedication of the group.

Basha is our local Poland guide and she is doing an excellent job so far.


We began with some readings and exercises to meet new people and then took off for a short tour by bus. We attended part of the "Chopin in the Park" concert (fortunately by then the weather had cleared, but the humidity was still quite high).


People were jammed in to hear the fabulous pianist


and the park setting (home of the Royal Museum) was quite beautiful.





After some more driving/touring around to get a sense of the city, we went to Old Town and learned more about Jewish life in Warsaw.



Then our final stop was the Nozyk Synagogue where part of the Jewish Music Festival was taking place. We could only hear the chazzan chorus (from Modi'in, Israel) from the outside, but all the windows of the restored synagogue were open and the voices soared. What was most interesting was the number of people surrounding the synagogue who did not have seats to the sold out concert, but who sat on walls or stood quietly by and listened intently to the music. I hate to end with the line "and they didn't even look Jewish," but truly they didn't! We will be able to talk about this more tomorrow with Haim and Basha when we return for a tour of the synagogue.


The evening ended with a late dinner at a Kosher restaurant across the street from the Orthodox Nozyk Synagogue. We walked back to the hotel and I think it's time for me to crash!!!! Early start tomorrow - Haim wants us on the bus by 8:00 AM.
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