Do me a favor. Take a minute and think about the word “Poland.” What do you see? What are your associated colors? What feeling do you get, if any at all? Where does your mind first jump when you hear it? I can’t be sure what images or ideas the word evokes among others, but I see two things: the color gray and the Holocaust.
Unsurprisingly, I imagine the Holocaust would be a popular response. After all, 3 million of the 3.5 million Jews living in Poland died from 1939-1945: 1,100,000 in Auschwitz-Birkenau and 800,000 in Treblinka alone. So maybe it’s no wonder that I imagine the country covered in a heavy bleak shroud of gray, haunted by its past. There is blood and death on “its” hands.
Without invalidating my initial feelings towards Poland, one of the greatest takeaways was realizing the importance of defining the “its” … is it Poland? Is it the Nazis? Is it the Polish people? The government? Is it fair that this beautiful country with an unfortunate history be forever branded with a negative connotation? I believe the key here is being able to differentiate between the two sides: the perpetrator and the victim. And if you choose to ponder it, you’ll too realize that it’s quite a gray area.
Hundreds of thousands of Polish people, non-Jews, were also slaughtered by the Third Reich. Yes Jews are associated as victims. Nazis are associated as perpetrators. But, the Nazis are German and most of the SS were Austrian. Where does Poland even fit into the picture?
Unsurprisingly, I imagine the Holocaust would be a popular response. After all, 3 million of the 3.5 million Jews living in Poland died from 1939-1945: 1,100,000 in Auschwitz-Birkenau and 800,000 in Treblinka alone. So maybe it’s no wonder that I imagine the country covered in a heavy bleak shroud of gray, haunted by its past. There is blood and death on “its” hands.
Without invalidating my initial feelings towards Poland, one of the greatest takeaways was realizing the importance of defining the “its” … is it Poland? Is it the Nazis? Is it the Polish people? The government? Is it fair that this beautiful country with an unfortunate history be forever branded with a negative connotation? I believe the key here is being able to differentiate between the two sides: the perpetrator and the victim. And if you choose to ponder it, you’ll too realize that it’s quite a gray area.
Hundreds of thousands of Polish people, non-Jews, were also slaughtered by the Third Reich. Yes Jews are associated as victims. Nazis are associated as perpetrators. But, the Nazis are German and most of the SS were Austrian. Where does Poland even fit into the picture?
From May 13-19 I joined 39 others from across the world (literally from Australians to Brazilians, Americans to Israelis, Canadians to Brits) for the 2016 MASA Poland Delegation. I’ve been back almost a week, and it’s still taking me time to process the things I’ve seen, the stories I’ve heard, and the emotions I’ve felt.
You cannot prepare yourself or predict your body and mind’s response when you walk above the layers of ashes of your people. For me, the spectrum ranged from extreme sadness and sympathy to depression and hopelessness, apathy and feeling nothing because it’s easier not to care to light-heartedness as a coping mechanism and comic relief for the heaviness, only to repeat the cycle the next moment something else took my breath away.
It wasn’t that the sights were too horrific (although at times they most certainly were), nor was it the fact that Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Lupochowo looked like museums (because at times they definitely didn’t). Walking into Auschwitz, I didn’t really know what to expect and there was no clear mental image. The only physical pictures from the Holocaust that we have are in black and white. So, coming to these green fields, red brick barracks, and seeing the beauty of the sunset across the horizon contradicted the existing, perhaps outdated, picture in my mind.
The grass. It was that bright green grass that really got to me. The green grass growing fertilized by human ash and flesh. The illusion of the red brick barrack facades, the empty watch towers which seemed an empty threat but still sent chills down my spine. And yet, the emotional journey is purely psychological and self-inflicted. If you didn’t know you were in Auschwitz, you could be on a college campus, or even a Jewish sleepaway camp. Maybe the smell of death and gray soil underneath the mocking green grass was just in my head.
Thus, my emotional fluctuations flip-flopped from hey, this isn’t so bad to feeling infinitely guilty for having these thoughts, to trying to put myself in their shoes. Would I fight for survival? Would I betray another and sacrifice his life for my personal gain? Would I just wash away into the millions of others who died without a second thought? There was no talking around me, no eye contact. It was just me, my audio guide, and the visuals in front of me. And even that was sensory overload. After 2 hours of listening, hearing, smelling seeing, and feeling this place, I defaulted to numbness (which could also be partially attributed to the freezing weather) for the remaining 6.
I couldn’t even handle one day of emotional stress and physical cold, gnawing hunger, and exhaustion. And this plunged me into another wave of despondency and invalidation. Who am I to be feeling this way? Whereas I couldn’t, there were those who could, and they were the survivors.
You cannot prepare yourself or predict your body and mind’s response when you walk above the layers of ashes of your people. For me, the spectrum ranged from extreme sadness and sympathy to depression and hopelessness, apathy and feeling nothing because it’s easier not to care to light-heartedness as a coping mechanism and comic relief for the heaviness, only to repeat the cycle the next moment something else took my breath away.
It wasn’t that the sights were too horrific (although at times they most certainly were), nor was it the fact that Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Lupochowo looked like museums (because at times they definitely didn’t). Walking into Auschwitz, I didn’t really know what to expect and there was no clear mental image. The only physical pictures from the Holocaust that we have are in black and white. So, coming to these green fields, red brick barracks, and seeing the beauty of the sunset across the horizon contradicted the existing, perhaps outdated, picture in my mind.
The grass. It was that bright green grass that really got to me. The green grass growing fertilized by human ash and flesh. The illusion of the red brick barrack facades, the empty watch towers which seemed an empty threat but still sent chills down my spine. And yet, the emotional journey is purely psychological and self-inflicted. If you didn’t know you were in Auschwitz, you could be on a college campus, or even a Jewish sleepaway camp. Maybe the smell of death and gray soil underneath the mocking green grass was just in my head.
Thus, my emotional fluctuations flip-flopped from hey, this isn’t so bad to feeling infinitely guilty for having these thoughts, to trying to put myself in their shoes. Would I fight for survival? Would I betray another and sacrifice his life for my personal gain? Would I just wash away into the millions of others who died without a second thought? There was no talking around me, no eye contact. It was just me, my audio guide, and the visuals in front of me. And even that was sensory overload. After 2 hours of listening, hearing, smelling seeing, and feeling this place, I defaulted to numbness (which could also be partially attributed to the freezing weather) for the remaining 6.
I couldn’t even handle one day of emotional stress and physical cold, gnawing hunger, and exhaustion. And this plunged me into another wave of despondency and invalidation. Who am I to be feeling this way? Whereas I couldn’t, there were those who could, and they were the survivors.
And so my group walked the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau as free Jews. There, I saw the troughs where people “lived”—stables for horses, cabins for pigs being raised for slaughter. Where 52 horses were supposed to fit in a bunk, 400 men were kept. Thousands of prisoners were constrained to only 50 holes serving as the latrine for the entire men’s side of the camp. A kilometer or so of railroad tracks opening through a gap in the trees, appearing like the light at the end of the tunnel, leads to the crematorium. Again, the colors threw me off as I tried to copy and paste the victims as I’ve seen them in the plethora of pictures, stepping off the train tracks onto the side of the road, with all of their luggage ready for their “relocation” and lining up to be directed to their destiny.
After my day at Auschwitz and Birkenau, only one question came to mind: How? How did the world come to this? Why didn’t the Jewish people stop the Nazi movement in its tracks when it began as discrimination? Succinctly put, antebellum Polish-born Abraham Joshua Heschel eludes to the fact that it’s not a question of “Where was G-d?” but rather “Where was humanity?” If you were not the victim, were you the perpetrator? What about the people who were not Jews and not Nazis? Is a bystander unwilling to risk their entire family’s lives to save a Jew automatically labeled as a perpetrator?
In expressing my frustrations with the Jewish vulnerability in the years leading up to WWII, my tour guide raised the concept of time perspective. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and looking back it’s easy to be critical of the victims who did nothing. As discrimination laws were passed, as they were stripped of their belongings, as they entered ghettos, as they were deported (to them) an unknown location (which we know to be concentration and death camps), as they were being slaughtered. Why didn’t you resist?
In truth, it’s an unrealistic burden to place on these people and an unfair expectation for rebellious action. Never in their wildest dreams could they fathom their fate. Visiting the Krakow ghetto, which housed only 40,000 Jews (compared to the 450,000 of Warsaw), it’s easy to be judgmental. Get out! Leave you idiots. But it was their home.
After my day at Auschwitz and Birkenau, only one question came to mind: How? How did the world come to this? Why didn’t the Jewish people stop the Nazi movement in its tracks when it began as discrimination? Succinctly put, antebellum Polish-born Abraham Joshua Heschel eludes to the fact that it’s not a question of “Where was G-d?” but rather “Where was humanity?” If you were not the victim, were you the perpetrator? What about the people who were not Jews and not Nazis? Is a bystander unwilling to risk their entire family’s lives to save a Jew automatically labeled as a perpetrator?
In expressing my frustrations with the Jewish vulnerability in the years leading up to WWII, my tour guide raised the concept of time perspective. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and looking back it’s easy to be critical of the victims who did nothing. As discrimination laws were passed, as they were stripped of their belongings, as they entered ghettos, as they were deported (to them) an unknown location (which we know to be concentration and death camps), as they were being slaughtered. Why didn’t you resist?
In truth, it’s an unrealistic burden to place on these people and an unfair expectation for rebellious action. Never in their wildest dreams could they fathom their fate. Visiting the Krakow ghetto, which housed only 40,000 Jews (compared to the 450,000 of Warsaw), it’s easy to be judgmental. Get out! Leave you idiots. But it was their home.
And it still is the home for thousands of Jewish people. Although WWII ended in 1945 with the fall of the Third Reich, Soviet rule of Poland continued to make religious freedom taboo until the collapse of communism in 1989. As a result, the past few years there has been this incredible phenomenon currently in Poland where young people are only finding out now that they are Jewish!
The MASA Poland Delegation seamlessly wove together glimpses of current Polish Jewry with the scars of Krakow and Warsaw’s history, providing direct contrast to the remnants of the Holocaust we witnessed. My gray- and Holocaust-ridden mental image of Poland was completely defied by the historic and quaint Krakow and thriving Warsaw.
Yes, my perspective of the city was shaped by Jewish context, but I nonetheless believe that the true resilience of the Jewish people can be seen in these communities today. Old and new, I saw the ghettos of the 1940’s and the JCCs (Jewish Community Center) of today. I met with Holocaust survivors who told the story of WWII Poland and with Jewish young adults living in the Poland of the 21st century. Museums hold memories of the past, but the fact that they even exist proves current efforts to keep the matter relevant in the future.
The MASA Poland Delegation seamlessly wove together glimpses of current Polish Jewry with the scars of Krakow and Warsaw’s history, providing direct contrast to the remnants of the Holocaust we witnessed. My gray- and Holocaust-ridden mental image of Poland was completely defied by the historic and quaint Krakow and thriving Warsaw.
Yes, my perspective of the city was shaped by Jewish context, but I nonetheless believe that the true resilience of the Jewish people can be seen in these communities today. Old and new, I saw the ghettos of the 1940’s and the JCCs (Jewish Community Center) of today. I met with Holocaust survivors who told the story of WWII Poland and with Jewish young adults living in the Poland of the 21st century. Museums hold memories of the past, but the fact that they even exist proves current efforts to keep the matter relevant in the future.
For me, this bridge between past and future culminated in the Lopuchowo forest, in the middle of nowhere Poland. Here, my MASA group visited a memorial grave for thousands of Jewish victims who were deported from their villages and murdered in the forest. Before Hitler’s “Final Solution” disseminated, it was not uncommon for Nazis to raid villages and send the victims to a forest, have them strip naked and line up, and shoot them at the literal edge of their open graves. Giant holes were carved into the earth, and one by one it was the goal to pile the bodies atop each other, only needing one bullet to do the job if standing from the correct distance and aiming accurately. Lopuchowo was one of these sites among dozens.
And so we stood as a solemn group of Jews, free but in mourning. As we circled to say the Mourner’s Kaddish, four people approached the clearing in the forest where we were standing, next to the memorial. One of them was wearing a banner of the Israeli flag draped along her back. I turned to my friend who lives in PTK with me, and wondered where they were from. I can’t explain but I truly had a feeling that I was in some way connected to these people.
They joined us for the prayer and afterwards, my friend and I approached them. In Hebrew, she asked where they were from and it turns out they were in fact from PTK. As I was reveling in the “I knew it” moment, I proceeded to tell them that we were both English teachers there. The eldest woman of the four asked me if I knew of the Yeshurun school. Without thinking I blurted out in English that I teach there! At that moment, she asked me if my name was Allison. I stopped breathing as she told me her granddaughter is in the 7th grade and that she is one of my students.
And so we stood as a solemn group of Jews, free but in mourning. As we circled to say the Mourner’s Kaddish, four people approached the clearing in the forest where we were standing, next to the memorial. One of them was wearing a banner of the Israeli flag draped along her back. I turned to my friend who lives in PTK with me, and wondered where they were from. I can’t explain but I truly had a feeling that I was in some way connected to these people.
They joined us for the prayer and afterwards, my friend and I approached them. In Hebrew, she asked where they were from and it turns out they were in fact from PTK. As I was reveling in the “I knew it” moment, I proceeded to tell them that we were both English teachers there. The eldest woman of the four asked me if I knew of the Yeshurun school. Without thinking I blurted out in English that I teach there! At that moment, she asked me if my name was Allison. I stopped breathing as she told me her granddaughter is in the 7th grade and that she is one of my students.
Maybe it was one of those you had to be there moments, but running into a group of people thousands of miles away from Israel in the most remote forest I could imagine, and being so intimately linked, was a feeling I will never forget. In Hebrew we say איזה הזוי (ay-zay ha-zoo-ee), which translates to something like, “never in my wildest dreams” or “like a hallucination,” and that’s exactly what it was. It was almost too coincidental to be a coincidence, and the experience strangely gave me a boost of adrenaline. Made me feel like someone was looking out for me, and it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of “small world.” I left the forest on my way to Treblinka feeling supported and hopeful.
And the rest of the trip to Poland only echoed this overarching message of hope. I think the most we can do is acknowledge and empathize with the past, in order to understand the present and future. Yet already our generation is failing to uphold this responsibility— communities today continue to turn a blind eye to genocides, discrimination, and religious persecution.
And the rest of the trip to Poland only echoed this overarching message of hope. I think the most we can do is acknowledge and empathize with the past, in order to understand the present and future. Yet already our generation is failing to uphold this responsibility— communities today continue to turn a blind eye to genocides, discrimination, and religious persecution.
So then, whose story is the Holocaust to tell? The Jewish people? In reality, only half of 12 million people who died were Jewish. As a Jew, I feel like it’s my right to mourn. And yet, I’m sure there are people whose families died in Auschwitz who feel that they have more ownership of the mourning than even me, a Jew. Am I validated in my lament? Is a non-Jew just as permitted if not responsible to feel the same? Walking through the camps I was shocked to only see one boy in a kippah. And yet, dozens of people that I passed were shedding tears. Others looked unaffected. Is it a Polish obligation to know and to feel? What is the struggle entitlement our generation and future generations will bear?
I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity I had to challenge my perception of the Holocaust and of Poland. I connected to the past and made new connections and friends for the future. I feel that I got a comprehensible piece of Polish history and interacted with the Jewish present. Just as we never forget the Shoah, I will never forget this trip,
I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity I had to challenge my perception of the Holocaust and of Poland. I connected to the past and made new connections and friends for the future. I feel that I got a comprehensible piece of Polish history and interacted with the Jewish present. Just as we never forget the Shoah, I will never forget this trip,