The Death Camp

Treblinka.

זה־השער ליהוה צדיקים יבאו בו׃

This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous shall enter into it.

This was embroidered on a curtain that blocked the way to death at Treblinka. The curtain had been stolen from a synagogue where it had covered the Aron Kodesh, the holy ark where the Torahs were kept.

Such was the obsession that the Nazis had with destroying the Jewish people that they knew exactly how to profane our holy objects and twist our holy words. They were not content with killing--the killing was just a fraction of it. Two parts murder, three parts humiliation, one part torture, four parts hatred = one whole Holocaust.

People just came here to die.

There were no fields to work, no walls to build, no tracks to lay. The job of the few living Jews in Treblinka? To dispose of their fellow Jews.

"The presented pictures were taken by Kurt Franz, the deputy commandant of the death camp in Treblinka. They came from the album called, 'Beautiful Times.'"

Treblinka looks like a cemetery. The difference is that each stone represents not one person, but an entire community.

The Homeland

Warsaw. July 7, 2011

Before the war, a third of this city's population was Jewish.

The president of the Warsaw Ghetto Judenrat (Jewish Police) committed suicide because he didn't want to hand over Jews to the Germans. We visited his grave.

Tikochin. July 8, 2011

"For centuries the whisper of those prayers ascended to heaven--it has stopped now. Will it ever be heard again? And was it an alien hope that sounded there, or our own?" --Stanistaw Vincenz

The Polish bus driver left the bus door open while he had a cigarette so now I am hunting bees on our bus with the rest of my staff. We are sinking into the mud in the parking lot. Besides that, however, Tikochin is incredible. The synagogue here is enormous and beautiful. It has been turned into somewhat of a museum and pictures of Jews from before the war are all around. I found one that looks just like Mama! Literally just like her! I can't stop looking at her. I guess it's true that we always view our mothers as the most beautiful people in the world. The pictures here make me feel like this is my heritage. I look like a Polish Jew. I feel like a Polish Jew. I've always felt that Israel is my homeland from a religious and cultural standpoint but I feel like Poland's shtetls are my family's origin.

Tikochin looks like a living museum. There is a man selling whittled wood outside the synagogue. He is bearded and old and poor. He looks like an actor. He looks like what he is making.

Yuval borrowed my camera to take pictures of a photograph of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, a movement he was part of growing up in Israel. He also took a picture of a beautiful girl on a beach in a bathing suit. He's crushing on a dead woman.

Nazi soldiers forced Jews from Tikochin to sing HaTikvah ("The Hope," now the Israeli national anthem) as they marched them to their deaths in the pits of the forest. Within two days, the Jewish community that had lasted 400 years was entirely destroyed.

I've never seen so many stars of David and Israeli flags. The kids love to take pictures of the symbolism. I do too. Just as the Swastika sends such a strong message, so does the Magen David (the Star of David). I'm proud to be wearing it around my neck now. They also love to take pictures of butterflies, flowers, barbed wire, fences, and railroad tracks. We create a language with these symbols so the images read like a text.

Josh broke down in tears here, one of the few. It's a beautiful forest with birds chirping and the sweet smell of confiers. I wish I could imagine it so well that I could cry.

Yuval chanted El Malei Rachamim, "God, Full of Mercy." He began to cry when he was singing these words in Hebrew:

"O God, full of mercy, Who dwells on high,

grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence -

in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones,
who shine like the glow of the firmament

for the soul of the dead
who have gone on to his world,

because, without making a vow,
I will contribute to charity in remembrance of their souls.

May their resting place be in the Garden of Eden -

therefore may the Master of Mercy
shelter them in the shelter of His wings for Eternity,
and may He bind their souls in the Bond of Life.

God is their heritage,
and may they repose in peace on their resting place.

Now let us respond: Amen."

I asked him later why he began to cry, thinking he was just so moved by the moment. But he wasn't. He is the most religious person I have ever been close to, and to hear him say this was very sad for me. He said he cried because the words of the prayer were impossible for him to believe at that moment, that "God Full of Mercy" was a false title. That as we stood above the death pits, he could not believe in a merciful God.

Now we are watching "Fiddler on the Roof" on the bus to depict shtetl life. Everyone EVERYONE is singing along. I am proud to report that I know all the words.

"Life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us"

I just went pee in the woods at a rest stop. I have a stinging, raised rash crawling up my legs. I fear for my life. There is also a dog following me. Sup, Poland?

Majdanek

Before we went to Majdanek, we were in Krakow for a day and night. We saw the grand synagogues the Jews had built, we saw the remnants of the ghetto wall that look like rows of tombstones. It was raining the whole time we were in Krakow. We went to a really nicely done, small museum about the Jews of Krakow. "It would be a treachery to those who lived here to remember only their deaths and not their lives." So we learned about their lives.

Majdanek.

"You'll have to read these things for yourself. I don't feel comfortable saying them out loud." -Shlomo, our tour guide

The smell here is making me feel sick. It doesn't remind me of track meets or grass. It is very misty and dark. Crows are everywhere, caw-cawing ominously.

Majdanek is within the city of Lublin. Houses built after the war border up against the Majdanek barbed wire. Apartments a few blocks away overlook the entire camp.

People saw what was going on here! What were they thinking!

Now the sun is filtering through the humid air. It makes the place look like a Hollywood movie--the only things clearly in focus are those directly in front of you.

This barrack is filled entirely with shoes. No one is speaking.

This is a stable for 54 horses. But they made 500 humans sleep here.

There was a reserve general who gave his soldiers a choice. If someone didn't want to partake in the murder, he didn't have to.

Along with that general, only one soldier chose not to participate.

It smells like barbecue in the crematorium. The ovens have large openings for burning the maximum number of bodies possible.

"May our fate be your warning." on the monument that houses the pile of ashes

Every window of every apartment I can see right now has a clear view of this pile of ashes.

Can "how?" be an emotion? It is not sadness nor anger which I am feeling today. Bewilderment is close, I suppose. I walk with my arms at my side and my palms facing forward asking, How?

Poland

The Polish countryside is carpeted with thick, dark forests. I can almost imagine people hiding in them, I can almost see their faces between the trees.

In each small town, the smoke stacks and ornate churches are the prominent features.

Auschwitz. 7/5/11

I'm surprised that being at Auschwitz doesn't make people nicer. Tourists from all over the world are more pushy, loud, and obnoxious than usual. The lines are very long.

The place just looks like a museum. I feel uneasy about being here only because of the emotions the name Auschwitz elicits and not because of how it looks or smells or feels.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI

Jews made the sign. The B was installed upside down as a call for help; "something is wrong here," it says. It reminds me of the upside down "3" that was spray painted on the doorway to the third level of my freshman year dorm from the stairwell. That 3 always bothered me.

The only way to exit was through the chimney of the crematoriums.

We are given headphones. The tour guide's voice has a rapid pace and a thick Polish accent. "Here, the SS doctors conducted illegal medical experiments," she says as if on an infomercial. How does she do this every day?

"About 2,400,000 people were murdered in this camp. About 200,000 people survived."

Sometimes the train journey would last 7-10 days without food or water. At what point do you just want to die? How was the will to live so, so unthinkably strong? Is it human instinct to think that you will be the outlier? That if anyone can make it, it will be you?

What am I living for? Would my reasons pass the test?

I teared up just now, when I saw Josh sobbing at the sight of the confiscated talitot. Sometimes it takes seeing emotion in someone else to draw it out of myself.

The shoes aren't all the same black, dirty leather, flat sole I was expecting. There are all colors and fashions, sandals, heels, everything. I even thought, oh, those are cute.

A room of hair and make up brushes.

None of the signs have the correct apostrophes and it bothers me.

Before Auschwitz grew too large, prisoners were photographed, like a mug shot. And now we are looking into their eyes.

Their uniforms weren't warm enough for the winter.

They look like skeletons but with very, very sad facial expressions.

I've only been here an hour or so and I already feel myself shutting down. I can't open my mind up to the possibility of this tragedy. I can't accept that people were starved and tortured by the millions and stripped of all their possessions and family and dignity. I am standing on a street where people died of exhaustion and cold during unbearably long roll calls. How?

No one in the group is speaking. Besides when they're all asleep, this has never happened. They are comforting each other.

This really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

The Standing Cell.

I don't understand how they thought up these punishments. I could never in a million years devise such horrors. If they wanted to kill people, why didn't they just do it? Why did they make them suffocate or drop dead from standing, exhaustion, starvation, cold disease, overcrowding..

Shiri told the story of her grandfather. He didn't have fingernails. He had burns on his body from a guard's cigarette.

Someone took a picture of us sitting as a group. We are a symbol here.

Scratch marks on the walls of the gas chamber, and a Magen David etched in the concrete wall too.

The crematorium ovens look like brick pizza ovens but they are long enough to accommodate bodies.

Birkenau.

They didn't just want to kill people, they wanted to terrorize people.

Yuval was holding his Tanach and I asked, what are you reading? I just want to hold it, he said.

Imagine getting elected on Hitler's platform, on the basis of exterminating an entire people.

The air here smells like it does at a track meet in May--cool, grassy, sunscreeny. We are holding water bottles and wearing sneakers. I'm ready for the triple jump.

The reconstructed barracks smell like musty wood and sunscreen too.

There is an endless expanse of brick chimneys left from when they hastily burned down the wood barracks to eliminate the evidence. It looks like a graveyard, or ancient ruins.

The Selection Process: which line would I be in?

I don't want to touch anything here. I wish I could hover from above so that not even my feet would have to make contact. Death is everywhere.

"It's very creepy to sleep next to dead bodies," Shlomo says about the barracks.

A main goal of the medical experiments was to find efficient ways to sterilize women. Ovaries were torn from their bodies without anesthesia.

Me: Everywhere I go, I keep taking pictures because I need to show my parents.

Matt: I need to show my children.

It's so peaceful here now. It's quiet except for feet shuffling on the gravel paths and the murmur of quiet voices. Birds are chirping and guides are giving tours in different languages. I am tired from walking all day. I'm also very calm. I am in such disbelief that the enormity of what happened here is not hitting me.

The grass is high. I'm worried about getting ticks. Is it wrong to complain now? After seeing this, how can I say- I'm cold, tired, hungry, or crowded? How can I say a room smells bad or my feet hurt or this food tastes terrible?

I brought 2.5 Minute Ride (by Lisa Kron) with me (thanks, Adina) and I'm reading it. I think I'll send Lisa Kron an email tonight (I did, she responded).

The ashes of the people who had been murdered were dumped on ponds and rivers and fields, as fertilizer.

After having their head shaved, starving, and wearing new ill fitting uniforms, people were often unrecognizable to close friends and family.

"I want to be remembered wearing a suit." --Andrew, pointing at a wall of pictures of Holocaust victims from before the Holocaust. There is a glamorous couple depicted, in a suit and a fancy dress. God knows what they looked like when they died. But I'll remember them looking like movie stars.

It's scary, but I sometimes wish we could simulate life in a camp for just one day. Just to get one iota of understanding. Because we can't imagine. We can't imagine what it was like to go to the bathroom where thousands had already gone, and only for a few seconds. Or to never feel warm during the winter, or to hear the last breath of the person sleeping next to you, or to live off 15o calories per day.

Why am I able to walk out of here? Why do I deserve to leave?

Terezin

Her name was Irene. She was a survivor of Terezin, one of the few who stayed there until the war was over. She was born in Bohemia in Poland, the 2nd biggest Jewish community in the country. Her family was very assimilated.

She went with her family on the train to Terezin, but no one knew where it was going. Can you imagine getting on a train with your family without a clue where it's going?

In Terezin, people were never alone. There was always someone on top of you, underneath you.

Her sister survived Bergen Belsen.

"It was very hard after the war. No country wanted us."

Now, Irene said, most people living in Terezin have no idea what happened there. She has visited several times. Once she asked a local if he had ever seen a Jew. He said no. Then she said, "I am one, and these women are all Jews." He said, "But they look like us."

Now Irene lives in Israel and identifies as Israeli. When a pilgrim asked Irene, "how old were you when you were brought here?" she said, "One doesn't ask a woman about her age."

After meeting Irene, and while walking through the museum, I wrote down these notes:

Why do we need to talk to survivors?

What does the art made in the ghetto express?

The secret art itself was a form of resistance.

Brundibar--Children's Theater

Religious life also endured; there were lectures, services, funerals, burials

Education and cultural events were escapes from the misery of every day life--the people were able to feel dignified.

They were determined, in all conditions, to live like humans.

Next, we walked into a small, hidden room. It was the synagogue. On the walls, prayers and songs were painted, many of which I knew well. "Know before whom you stand." "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning, let my mouth cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not put Jerusalem above my highest joy." "Our brothers, of the entire House of Israel, who find themselves in jeopardy or entrapped, whether on sea or land, may God have compassion upon them and bring them forth from trouble to relief, from gloom to light, and from tyranny to redemption, urgently, and let us say, amen."

"With all of this we have not forgotten your name and we hope you have not forgotten us."

The group broke spontaneously into song. I don't remember who started it, but we all joined in and sang the songs on the wall. I learned the same songs when I went on Pilgrimage myself in 2008. In 2008, we sang the songs with the captive soldiers in mind. When I went home to America, I sang the songs with Pilgrimage in mind. When I went on Nativ, I sang the songs with America in mind. When I came to Cornell, I sang the songs with Nativ in mind. And then I sang them in Terezin.

And I thought, every time I have sung these songs before in my life has been in preparation for this moment.

How could people have sustained their faith in Terezin? In that tiny synagogue? I hear this sentence in my head, "With all of this we have not forgotten your name and we hope you have not forgotten us," and I wonder how that is possible.

We cried. I saw our tour guide Shlomo tearing up, and I lost it. Sometimes it takes emotion from someone else to draw it out of myself. I thought about all the other places I had been with those songs, all the other people I had been with. I thought about the men who stood huddled in this room years before sining the same words.

It was the only time I really cried in Europe. There were a few times when my face got hot or my throat closed up or I managed to squeeze a tear from the corner of my eye, but this was everyone together, shaking.

The Terezin Cemetery:

It started raining a little bit during the ceremony, and I am chilly now but I don't mind. The rain and wind blew out the candle during Mourner's Kaddish. Everyone is crying. The cemetery didn't affect me like the synagogue did.