On Saturday, February 22nd, my kvutza took a bus to the airport that stopped in Haifa to pick up the madrichim, and then to Rishon LeZion to pick up the other kvutza. We ended up getting to the airport around 2:45 for a flight that left at 5 AM, so we were all exhausted by the time we got on the airplane. I guess it's a good thing to be exhausted for a plane though. I fell asleep the second we took off. Packing for Poland was fairly easy to my surprise... I just threw in all my warm clothing and I was set. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be in Poland, but nevertheless after being in Israel for 6 months, I was not used to cold weather. However, it did remind me of home which was nice though.
Once we landed, we took a long bus ride to Krakow and explored the Jewish section of the city. We went to a few museums, peered into an old, yet beautiful synagogue, and heard a guest speaker. Paulina, the speaker, is an old Polish woman who spoke no English (we had a translater though) and wore traditional Polish garb. She told us about her family in the wake of the Holocaust, and how they risked their lives to help many Jews. Her family was Catholic, but they still helped feed hungry children who came to their doorstep, and assisted in driving Jewish families to bunkers for hiding. It was amazing to hear her story and learn about some of the valiant efforts that her and her family made in order to save the lives of some of the Jews in Krakow. After a long, long first day, we drove to the hotel in Krakow, had dinner, a peulah, and then went right to bed.
The next day, we woke up at 6:30 AM (every day of the trip we woke up around the same time), had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and then went on an hour bus ride to Auschwitz-Birkenau. One of the first things I learned is that there is a difference between Auschwitz-Birkenau and just Auschwitz. Auschwitz has sub camps, and Birkenau is the forced labor and extermination camp, and Auschwitz was the concentration camp. Birkenau was incredibly difficult for me, and most of the rest of workshop. I've learned about Auschwitz for many, many years now, but being there was something different. Seeing the crematoriums, gas chambers, barracks, and railroad tracks was just hard and knowing that I saw these awful, awful structures in person was crazy. Next, we went to Auschwitz, which is where the sign that says "Arbeit Macht Frei" hangs before you enter. Auschwitz looked like nothing that it imagined it to look like. There were numerous stone buildings that were actually pretty nice looking on the outside. Inside some of the buildings were exhibitions, like items that belonged to the Jews such as the piles of shoes, piles of hair, and prison cells that were used for prisoners.
We went to two more extermination camps during our time in Poland, Majdanak and Treblinka. Majdanak doesn't have any more original buildings, but there were barracks and other buildings that were recreated to model what the camp did look like during the time. What's awful is that there are houses that sit right across the street from the camp. It's crazy that these people are so desensitized that they can live so close to such a horrible place. Majdanak has a memorial in the back of the camp by the crematoriums that is filled with all the ashes of the people who died there. It's literally just a giant clump of ashes, all thrown into this giant dome structure.
The day we went to Treblinka was the hardest day out of all the days. We went to Tykocin, a small town which used to be a Jewish town. The Nazi's forced all the Jews there out and took them to the nearby Lopochova forest and shot them all. We went to Lopochova after Tykocin and got to see the small memorial that was set up for those who perished there. It was emotionally difficult to be standing in the middle of a forest where hundreds and hundreds of Jews were just mass murdered. Next we went to Treblinka, which is nothing but a memorial for those who died there now. There are a bunch of concrete planks to symbolize the train tracks that lead up to the memorial, which is thousands of stone structures that represent the people who died. We calculated that each stone represents about 48 people, and there were THOUSANDS of these stones.
We also got to go to a once Aryan-only street when we were in Lublin. We learned about the difference between the SS, SD, Gestapo, Order police, and the Wehrmacht.
In Warsaw we went to a vast Jewish cemetery with thousands and thousands of gravestones. We were told to look out for our last names or our family names on the graves. I separated a bit from the group to explore, even though I wasn't supposed to. It was very calming to be walking in the cemetery by myself for a bit. Although it wasn't that much time, I was able to do some self reflecting which is something that I hadn't found the time to do in Poland before. Going from place to place with 17 other people in my kvutza is very difficult. I'm constantly around other people, and for some of these things, being around that many people is just overwhelming. I found myself needing time for myself a lot, and it wasn't easy to get that without separating a bit. I also went by myself when we were at the memorial with all the stones at Treblinka and Lopochova forest. Being surrounded by nature allows for some really good thinking time, without much interference from others.
We went to Plaschow concentration camp when we were in Krakow. It's literally in Krakow, the second biggest city in Poland. It's hard to believe that a concentration camp can be right in a city.
In Warsaw, we went to where the ghetto once was. We saw an original building that is still standing from the ghetto. What's crazy is that there are apartments right on the other side of the originally wall of that building.
We also went to the building that was Januscz Korczak's orphanage. Korczak was Jewish man who was the director of an orphanage and refused freedom and stayed with his children when they were sent to Treblinka. Subsequently, he went with them and even followed them into the gas chambers, where he, and his children died.
The last day we learned about the youth movement resistance fighters like Mordechei Anielwicz, Chavka, Zivia Lubetkin, etc and their efforts in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. We walked the path of heroes and listened and learned about their stories.
Three times during this journey to Poland, we were given some money and allowed to buy our own lunches. The first time was in Krakow and it was really nice to walk around outside and go to a restaurant or cafe of our choosing. I went with Liat and Lindsey to a cafe on a side street a bit out of the way of the main square in Krakow. It was called the Botanical Cafe and it was so cool inside! We sat on couches in dim lighting with lit candles on our table in the front of the cafe, but in the back of the cafe (which was actually very large) there were roof windows that brought in natural light. The whole cafe was super artsy and had these ornamental leaves and trees growing out of the ceiling and walls. I ordered penne with pesto and some Polish cheese. After we were done eating, we went through the market in the square and looked at little trinkets and jewelry, and then spent the rest of our time people watching. The second and third times we could get our own lunches weren't as great as the first, yet I still enjoyed being able to walk around and explore a bit.
Some little things:
It was foggy most if not all of the days were in in Poland. It really set the eerie, depressing mood for the things we were doing and experiencing.
Each day members from my kvutza would pair up with members from the other kvutza and prepare a short tekes (ceremony) that would wrap up the day. People would read poems, sing a short song, share a speech, etc. My tekes group was for when we went to Treblinka. I read a short poem, while others in my group asked some thought-provoking questions to the group, recited another poem, and gave a speech.
At the beginning of each day on the bus, the madrichim played a song and we would all dance to it together. It was fun.
The bus that we traveled on had a bathroom in it, but we couldn't use it or else we would be traveling around in a bus that smelled like bathroom for the duration of our time in Poland. We had to either pee in bottles, hold it in, or drink water in the last half hour of the bus ride. Some of the bus rides were very long (we traveled all around Poland in a matter of a week) but we did stop during the longer bus rides for a bathroom break. Some of the public bathrooms charge 1 Zloty which was annoying, even though its only like 35 cents in US dollars.
Polish is a very interesting language. There are so many consonants in the words. I learned how to say Hi, Excuse Me, Thank You, and Have A Good Day. Being in Poland made me realize how much Hebrew I know though, and when I got back to Israel I felt a lot more comfortable since I was able to read signs and talk in the same language as the locals again.
Some pictures:
Some airport fun waiting for our 5 AM flight to Warsaw.
Krakow
Railroad tracks at Auschvitz-Birkenau
Railroad car at Auschvitz-Birkenau
Plaschow concentration camp monument
Krakow Pizor time again
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