5-14-19

I did not prepare for this trip on an emotional respect nor did I research the history or do any reading recently. Of course, we learned much of the history as students years ago and continue to share the pain of survivors throughout the engagements over the year, on Yom Hashoa, and have read stories about the terrors of the Holocaust, but it’s not the same.

Today we traveled to Warsaw Poland. Our first stop was a Jewish cemetery. We were impressed to see so many ornate tomb stones that were uniquely designed by each family or perhaps even by the descendants based on their status, profession, spiritual belief and sometimes even their ages (for instance, the tree trunks cut half way were for people who passed away at a young age). I had never seen anything like these tombstones. The colors, stones, sizes, designs and shapes were all different (for instance, a stone with a snake depicted a doctor’s tomb. We even entered the ohel (tent) of the Netziv’s tombstone where his granddaughter’s husband, Reb Chaim Soleveitchik was buried next to him.

Next we visited the Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto was inhabited by the jews for approximately three years. Approximately 300,000 jews lived in Warsaw (1/3 of the population) and they were only given about two percent of the city of Warsaw’s land space to inhabit about 400,000 people (about a one mile radius). The jews were given rations of less than 200 calories per day, and the gentiles were given approximately 800 calories per day. On the property of the Jewish museum (closed on Tuesdays) there was a huge monument built with the stone owned by Hitler. On the back of the monument, there is a depiction of a line of jews going towards the gas chambers. there is a young child looking out and a religious man holding a Torah, looking up to the sky and praying to G-d. The tour guide, Rabbi David Abrahamovitz referred to two parts of the davening in the siddur (in Tachanun and somewhere else) where it says that we are like sheep walking sheepishly to our death, but he refuted this and discussed how the chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Lau’s father courageously took two congregations in to the camps with pride.

Then we went to the Umshlagplatz in the Warsaw Ghetto which was walled in and was where the jews convened to take the trains to the camps. The starving jews were told that if they come to this meeting point, they will receive bread and jam. We were shown photos of the jews in the same walled in area eating the bread, so they did get the food. It’s uncertain whether they realized where they were being taken.

Then we travelled about an hour and a half to Treblinka. There are three of these death chambers. There was nothing remaining here except for 17,000 stones with the names of different cities and only one individual. The one man, owned an orphanage, and he courageously accompanied his “children” to the camps and would not abandon them, even though he was given a pass and could have possibly saved his own life. At this location, there were no barracks. The map of the area as it was, showed that the jews had to walk around a bend so they were unable to see where they were going to. All the evidence was basically destroyed but the tour guide was able to show us pieces of bones found on the ground.

Apparently, pieces of tiles with jewish stars have been found here. We were told that the mikvehs in Warsaw had jewish stars on the tiles of the walls. The death camp was built with similar tile for the jews to believe they were being taken into a cleansing bath.

Surprisingly, the sign to Treblinka even today shows a cross but there is no jewish star. Do the Polish people deny the fact that so many jews were killed in their country? What are they teaching their children?? This is very concerning.

We were told that the jews were told to take their clothing off and leave their luggage in a certain area. They were given metal bracelets with a number in exchange for their valuables. (They were told to put their valuables separately and thought they were leaving it a personal locker type of spot for safe keeping.)

We drove back to Warsaw for dinner, davening, and sleep. The weather today was cold and gloomy. It rained a bit but we didn’t get too wet. The tour guide is very knowledgeable, I should have paid better attention or videotaped his presentations, as my memory is seriously lacking.

B”H, we are so blessed to have religious freedom, to have options, to be able to travel, to have the state of Israel, to have healthy children and grandchildren, to be healthy, to be married, … to have Hashem guide us to have clarity to make the best decisions.

Debbie Chadow

May 14, 2019

We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore. The Warsaw Cemetery is a massive place, surrounded by high brick walls and crossed by cobblestone paths. Its very being washed away our travel fatigue and subtlety proclaims, “Now we begin.”

The cemetery has no neat rows, no symmetry or straight lines. Each plot has its own personality, each stone tells a story. One monument is four marble pillars, seven feet tall. Another is covered in intricate carvings depicting the deceased’s career in Yiddish theater. A third is covered in creeping vines and surrounded by flowers. Everything deep in shadow cast by thick branches on ancient trees.

It’s fitting that it continues to rain as we walk between the mass graves of 100,000 Jews who died from starvation and disease in the Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto itself does not exist anymore. Where there were 300,000 thousand Jews there is now a museum and some monuments outside newly constructed apartment buildings.

This shocks and scares me. In a span of three years a thriving and affluent population vanished. There was literally nothing left behind. Now there are just monuments scattered between newly constructed apartment buildings. As we stand where Jews were sent to Triblinka, traffic rushes by, the light rail brings commuters home and a band starts playing rock music across the street at a music festival. I’m glad I’m on this trip.