Poland Overview (not written by me)

Immediately on our arrival in Warsaw last Sunday morning, we went to the 200-year-old Warsaw Jewish cemetery with 150,000 visible tombs. Here we felt the visual impact of the capital of “Yiddishkeit” prior to WWII as we paid tribute to the great creators of Jewish culture buried in this cemetery. We visited the tombs of the Brisker Rabbis of the Soloveichik family, Ansky, the author of The Dybbuk, Y.L.G. Peretz, the Hebrew and Yiddish writer, Zamenhoff, the inventor of Esperanto, Dr. Mayer Balaban, the first head of a faculty for Jewish studies at the University of Warsaw, Ida Kaminska the “Mother of Yiddish Theater,” and many others who died before the Holocaust. Here we saw and felt the loss not only of Jewish art, scholarship, and leadership, but the loss of a community that was multifaceted in its range of Jewish pluralism: from Yiddishist socialists through writers, actors, playwrights, Reform rabbis, Orthodox and Chasidic leaders.  From there it was off to the nearby mall for a fast food lunch. After this we went to see the remains of the wall of the ghetto and then took the “Memorial Walk,” from the Umshlagplatz (the site of the deportation from where we were sent to the death camps) to the hospital of the Ghetto, where Jews fought heroically against disease. From there we continued along the route, hearing the stories of Janus Korcak and the heroic young women who served as couriers and messengers between the ghettoes, to Mila 18, the site of the headquarters of Mordechai Anilevitch and the Jewish armed resistance, and from there to the memorial for Shmuel Zygelblum, one of the leaders of the Warsaw ghetto, who tried to convince the others that civil disobedience and lack of compliance to the Nazis was the way to fight back. The lives of these two individuals paved the way for a short discussion on the different types of resistance in the camps and in the ghettos. Our next stop was at the Rappaport monument in Warsaw. Following dinner at the local Chabad center, we checked into the hotel and had short class meetings to wrap up the day and brief the students about the following day. Monday morning we departed for Tikochin, near the Belarus border. Tikochin was our visit to a shtetl. From the square we walked through the town off the paved streets and felt the ambiance of shtetl life. Our final stop was at the 17th-century main synagogue built in Baroque style where we saw the Tzedaka (social welfare ) institutions in the town and learned why the Jewish communities of Europe called themselves Kehilot Kodesh; Holy communities. Here we, too, prayed Mincha, led by the students. We ended our Tfillah with song dance and joy, bringing back sounds long lost between these walls. We then traveled by bus for fifteen minutes in silence as we approached the Lepochova Forest. It was here that in August 1941 the Einzatsengruppen of the SS shot 1400 Jews of Tikochin into open ditches and buried them. After a very moving memorial service we headed south for the town of Lublin. After dinner in the hotel, we broke up into small groups to help the students process what they had seen prepare emotionally for the next day. Our first stop on Tuesday was the Old Town of Lublin, where the students were given the chance to wander around the town, getting a feel for what a Renaissance city looked like.  From there it was on to Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, which produced leaders of Polish and world Jewry until 1939. In the Yeshiva’s main study hall we studied a section of Talmud.   Following an early lunch, a fifteen-minute ride brought us to Maidanek, which borders on the outskirts of Lublin. For three hours we walked from one wooden structure to the next, each structure housing exhibitions of the death process that took place here from July 1941 to July 1944. Our last station was the gas chambers and crematoria where we had a moving memorial service prepared by the students. We then made our way to Krakow.

On Wednesday morning we visited Cracow castle and and then went on to Old Town Square, which provided an insight into medieval and middle age city life in Europe. After lunch our focus was on the richness of Jewish life in pre-War Europe. The first part of the afternoon was spent in Kazmierz, where visited the synagogue of Moshe Isserlis (known as the RAMA), who wrote the Mapa (tablecloth), which came as a supplement to the Shulchan Aruch Code of Jewish Law, written by his contemporary, Joseph Caro in Safed, Israel. This provided us with another strong example of the similarities between Jewish communities, regardless of their location. Next was the Kupa (Community Chest) Synagogue, where we saw how Jewish life and communal responsibility went hand and hand. We then entered the Temple, a 19th century Reform synagogue, exemplifying the diversity of the vibrant Jewish community in Cracow. The last synagogue that we saw on this side of the river was the Isaacs Synagogue. No longer serving as a synagogue, it is a memorial to the Holocaust dedicated to the Jews of Cracow who were forced to move out of their homes and transferred across the river until their ultimate destruction at the hands of the Nazis. We then went to the local JCC, where we met with a representative who spoke to us about the activities of the center and the revival that is going on in the local Jewish community, with many young Poles discovering their Jewish roots, and also about what it like to live as a Jew in Poland today. Late afternoon we walked the route that the Jews of Kazmierz took on their way to the Nazi ghetto in 1940. We walked to the main square and sat on the steps of the “Pharmacy” run by Thadius Pankievitch, a Christian man who decided to stay and help the Jews any way he and his staff could. It was there that we read poetry about starvation, humiliation, and brutal death at the hands of the Nazis. We then visited Oscar Schindler’s factory, where we learned the importance of remembering all those 6,000 people – and more that we do not know about, few though they were – who risked their own lives to save ours: The Righteous Gentiles.  We then went to a kosher restaurant for dinner and back to the hotel for class meetings to prepare for the visit to Auschwitz. Thursday began early as we left for a one-hour drive southwest of Krakow towards Auschwitz-Birkenau. We started our visit at Birkenau (Auschwitz II).  We followed in the footsteps of the Jews who disembarked from the trains and were then told by Dr. Mengele to go to the right. The gloomy day seemed appropriate for what we were witnessing as we walked for several hours trying to understand the Nazi death machine. Before we walked out, on the same tracks that had brought our families in to their deaths, we had a memorial service prepared by the students. We ate lunch before starting our guided tour of Auschwitz I.  Here, Polish guides supplied by the museum walked your children through Auschwitz I. Walking through the pathways, barracks and courtyards where prisoners were housed, tortured and forced to stand at attention preceded our chilling walk through the first experimental gas chamber and crematorium. We again took a fifteen minute ride to the town of Oswiecem (Auschwitz in German), where we stopped for a summing-up discussion and a very meaningful Mincha service in the Beit Midrash Lomdei Mishnayot (Society for Mishnaic learning). Then with gusto and much joy we sang and danced in this synagogue – study hall, Am Yisrael Chai. We landed in Israel just before 6am and got back to Tzuba at about7:30.