"One may not be able to triumph over evil, but one need not remain silent in its presence." -Smith Hempstone
Photograph: Ghetto Walls in Krakow's Former Jewish Ghetto
February 26th, 2009 6:30 p.m.
Tonight we had our first training session after a day that was, for me, sobering and heartrending. It was a sharp contrast to the lighthearted spirit of yesterday. We woke up this morning to discover that Joanna felt fine, but Meredith Musten and Holly were both ill. We decided that the reason Joanna had to get sick before the trip was so that there would be medicine for the others when we reached Poland. So Meredith, Holly and the teacher from Florida stayed behind at the hotel while the rest of us ate a quick breakfast and hurried out the door to begin our walking tour of Krakow's Jewish district, Kazimierz.
A few minutes walk from our hotel, Kazimierz used to be a separate town, built when Krakow was overflowing with people. Eventually Kazimierz was annexed by Krakow proper, and became a district of the town. Before World War II, Krakow was home to over 60,000 Jews. After the war, it was home to just 5,000. Today, only 200 religious Jews live in the city of Krakow. The numbers by themselves spoke volumes.
Our first stop in Kazimierz was in a main square, where one of the most important Jewish synagogues and a building that once housed a ritual bathhouse still stand. We stopped before a stone memorial, which was set up in remembrance of the Jews from Kazimierz who perished during the Holocaust. Our guide pointed out the fact that there were no flowers left at this memorial; instead, there were multitudes of stones. This, we learned, is because religious Jews know that a flower will fade away; a stone will last forever. In the same way, they want the memory to last forever.
What we learned about religious Jews leaving stones at gravesites reminded me of something else that lasts forever, and will never fade away.
"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."
-Isaiah 40:8
We also visited a reformed Jewish synagogue, which was a singular experience; during the war, the building had been used as a stable, and it has since been restored with replicas of the former decorations. It was beautiful. On the way in, I spotted a Star of David scrawled on the wall outside. Patti Sheets and Jaron, however, saw something entirely different--a Nazi poster fastened to a lampost not far from the entrance to the synagogue.
After our visit to the synagogue, we headed for Krakow's former Jewish ghetto, which was not set up in Kazimierz, but in a smaller, poorer, more industrial district of the city. On our way, we stopped in one of the locations where "Schindler's List" was filmed; although it was never actually a part of the ghetto, all of the buildings there are original, so it was easy for the filmmakers to work there. It was chilling, to step into something you'd seen on the screen and imagine what it would have been like during the liquidation of the ghetto, to be hunted down and herded into cattle cars to be shipped off to Auschwitz, Belzac, or similar camps.
Just inside the ghetto, we came to another square, where a memorial had been set up--rows of large chairs, all facing north, toward Belzac, a death camp. The reason for the chairs, our guide said, was that the Jews of the ghetto were told they were being resettled, so they brought all their possessions. Of course, when they were being loaded up and shipped off, there was no time or room to bring the furniture, and so it was left behind in the square. One chair faced east, towards an alley where those who could not work and were not 'worth' transporting were taken and shot, mainly elderly people, the disabled, and the very young--children and infants. I think the most disturbing thing was watching people drive their cars and walk those streets as though they did not know... how could you walk those streets everyday knowing how much blood had been spilled there?
Our last stop in the ghetto was a place where some of the ghetto wall has been left standing. It was built intentionally to resemble Jewish tombstones, as if to say to the Jews, "You are dead to the world, and very soon, you will be dead in reality." As we walked, the Star of David around my neck seemed like a lead weight. I could not help but think that once, wearing that symbol was enough to sentence you to death. And I could not help but wonder... will there ever come a day when wearing a cross will bear just as severe a penalty?
On our way back to Muranow Square, before getting on the tram, we stopped by Schindler's Factory. We did not go in, but by standing on tiptoe and peeking over the gate, or putting our faces to the cracks in between, we could catch a glimpse of what the factory looked like. It was all very strange and dreamlike, to be walking those streets and knowing full well who had walked them before us.
We took our lunch break in Muranow Square; we were very nearly late again, but thanks to Joanna's timing we made it back to the meeting place in plenty of time, though we had to run rather theatrically through the streets, Jaron carrying his uneaten sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. I sigh. Jaron, Jaron, Jaron...
We stood in the square and listened to the legend of the mismatched towers of St. Mary's Cathedral. The story goes that there were two brothers, each of whom was charged with building one of the towers. For awhile, they built their towers exactly the same, but as time went on the elder brother began to realize that his brother's craftmanship was better; his tower was the more beautiful. So the elder brother worked feverishly on his tower, but in the end he only succeeded in making the taller tower; his brother's was still the more beautiful. So, in a fit of jealous rage, he pushed his brother from the tower to his death. Then, horrified by what he had done, he climbed to the top of his own tower and threw himself from it, taking his life. The story reminds me of Cain and Abel.
After listening to the legend, we went into the church for a look at the most spectacular wooden altar--it was stolen by Germany during the war, but was returned safely from Berlin to Krakow and restored to its rightful place and former condition. The inside of St. Mary's was gorgeous. After St. Mary's, we walked through the Cloth Hall and to the clock tower on the opposite side of Muranow Square, where the clock tower stands, and an enormous sculpture of the head of Eros rests on its side on a platform of stone.
Our guide told us that the giant head is blindfolded because of a Polish saying: "Love is blind--but after you marry, you see much more." This caused all of us to chuckle. Then we thanked our guide and bid her farewell; Chris even hugged her by way of appreciation, and we were turned loose to take more pictures and do some more souvenir shopping. When we were through, we went back to the hotel to take part in our first training session of the week, where a piece of poetry was read to open the discussion:
"Here in this transport, I am Eve, with Abel my son. If you see my older son, Cain son of Adam, tell him that I..."
We do not know the author of this gripping piece; it was scrawled in pencil on the inside of a boxcar, written by a woman more than likely on her way to a death camp. She wrote almost as an act of defiance; she wrote as the mother of humankind, mother to both Jew and Gentile. In the boxcar she saw the suffering of her obedient son, Abel, who to me represents the Jew. But her heart did not just ache for him. She longed to be reconciled also with Cain, who to me represents the Nazi. She longs to tell him something, even despite all the evil he is doing by murdering his brother. The sentence trails off; she never finishes. We do not know if that was intentional or not. But if I could finish the poem, I would write two words: "love him." Or perhaps, "forgive him."
Later on, I remembered a portion from Corrie Ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" when Corrie could not find it in herself to shake the hand of one of the Ravensbruck prison guards. However, with the strength only God can provide, she took his hand and offered the man forgiveness. What a powerful testament to God's love, that we can forgive even the seemingly unforgivable, by His might.
We discussed the terminology of the Holocaust, and some of the key players in it. It made me so angry to realize that really, just a handful of men took hold of a whole nation and bent it to their will without anyone realizing what they were doing. How could no one see? Perhaps because no one wished to see. It made me want to punch something; I was indignant at the idea of standing by and watching such evil things happen... and doing nothing to stop them.
It was such a large amount of information to take in; we were supposed to journal about it, but Joanna and I spent most of our time after the session talking it out, and expressing our frustration with those who blindly follow those in power, never questioning their motives or morals, or asking why. It was a fruitful discussion.
We wrapped up the session by watching a video preview of Auschwitz and talking just a little about Holocaust denial, which is gaining credence in the western world. We watched a video of a group of Australian scientists, who supposedly found no evidence of anything on the site where Treblinka, the death camp, once stood. I do not understand how something that was so thoroughly documented could be so easily denied. It made me so angry, even to think of people buying into such a lie.
I was glad to have done so much reading ahead of time; I knew many of the names Barnabas read off to us, and knew something about each man, including the incredible legacy of Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term 'genocide.' I read about his life in Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide." The only man I was unfamilar with was Joseph Mengele, who I am now morbidly curious about. The man must have been a true psychopath, to commit the atrocities he did--a man without a conscience.
We also discussed the events leading up to the Holocaust--nothing just happens; there are always precursory events--and the similarities between Nazism and modern day America*, which were disturbing. There has been forced sterilazation and abortion of 'undesirable' babies, and even now 800 concentration camps stand staffed and ready, but empty.**
*25 Similarities Between Nazism and America
http://67.36.84.226/crosstalk2/ct090210.pdf
**US Concentration Camps
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm
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