An Unforgettable Visit to Majdanek

The Majdanek Concentration Camp, a short drive from Lublin, is located on the edge of town and it’s borders are adjacent to houses and civilization.  The overcast skies, the chilly air and the persistent  light rain combined to create a macabre feeling as we entered the camp.. We entered the camp gate, each of us adorned with an Israeli flag tied at the neck and hanging from our back, signaling to others that Jews still do exist. The camp area was vast, several square miles by our estimate, with boundaries of barbed and electric wire, watch towers and wooden buildings looking like barracks, just like in the films depicting the horrors of the holocaust.  We learned about how the Nazis ran the camp in an efficient, cost-effective manner and that very few Jews (or others) left the camp alive.  The evil minds of these ruthless and cold psychopaths had no boundaries. Upon entering, Majdanek, the people were led to the first building where, upon demand, and quite methodically,  they disrobed, their scalp hair was shaved and they were taken to a room to “shower”.  The hair could be sold and a bald head could be easily identified if the person escaped.  Their clothes and shoes were collected and chemically disinfected to lessen the chance that the Nazis would pick up a disease.  As the process continued, few people were housed in the barracks and the vast majority were put in the gas chamber within hours of arriving at the camp. After walking quite a distance, we arrived at the crematorium building.  We saw the room where the corpses were inspected for valuable goods and gold teeth or jewelry located in the intestines would be removed. The next room contained the ovens.  Each step in the torturous death was so coldly conceived and well crafted. All of us were emotionally numbed and disgusted by the thought that humans could be so cruel.

Our visit culminated at the circular memorial, one enormous, tall mound of ashes and bone fragments of people who lost their lives tragically by inhumane, evil actions.  Never again!

Janet and Fred Pomerantz

May 16, 2019

One day melds into the next
There is a disquieting silence everywhere
Greenery is emerald drinking the souls that vanished
The rain contributes to all the growth
Eerie faces of natives most with blond hair and blue eyes going about their daily lives
What was their pedigree?
Were they helpers or did they hinder?
The machines that remain can be turned on in a flash
Yes it happened, too many people testified!!
Seventy years later the world is calling us out again
This time calling it
Anti Zionism
My heart hurts for those that were tortured and died here and some just
Never learned…

-Robyn Blumner

May 15, 2019

 

 

I’ve stood in many special places. I’ve hiked up mountains to stand on summits. I’ve stood in Notre Dame to see the pinnacle of medieval architecture. I’ve walked the streets of the old city in Jerusalem, pressed my head against the Kotel and felt the presence of Hashem. Today, I walked through the Majdanek concentration camp.

Majdanek is not a monument in stone like Treblinka. Majdanek still has the gas chambers where my people were killed and the barracks where tens of thousands dwelled in squalor. Majdanek is where the foundation for the road is crushed headstones from Jewish cemeteries. It is the crematorium where the gassed bodies were burned and the mass grave of 18,400 Jews who were shot in a single day.

Today I walked the paths of a concentration camp. I stood where mothers refused to be separated from their children. I was barely able to stand in front of 400,000 pairs of shoes. Then, standing under a mausoleum, in front of the ashes of the victims, I said Kaddish and cried.