Responses to the Shoah: March 17th

                IT'S THE LAST DAY!!!!

So finally we made it to the last day! We had an early wake-up..like normal. We drove from Krakow to Warsaw which was about a 5 hour drive. It was a great bus ride because I was able to sleep! When we got to Warsaw, we went to an Orphanage. We didn't go inside though...only talked a little bit about it outside the orphanage.

After this, we went to the Ghetto Wall and stood in the exact place of where the Jewish Ghetto was. Alan, our teacher talked about it for a while. Everyone was so unfocused so it was hard to concentrate again. But then the most exciting part of the day happened. So the wall is pretty much surrounded by apartments. The apartment closest to the wall this Polish guy opens his window and yells in his broken english, "THIS IS NOT GHETTO WALL YOU IDIOT, GO AWAY GO AWAY." Alan said okay and then continued talking about it. The Polish guy just kept screaming at Alan, then all of sudden he goes inside but left his window open. I knew he was going to come back out. We had a huge body guard with us who was like 6'5 and all muscle anddd he spoke Polish. Alan called him over to stand extra close to us. The Polish guy comes out again with a white bucket. Our body guard started talking to him in Polish..well it ended up to be a yelling session. The Polish guy threw the bucket at us and it was full of water. Our body guard yelled at him even more, then they started hitting each other. Then the Polish guy got a white metal rod and started hitting our guard with it. That was kinda scary, but our guard took it out of his hands, bent it, and hit him with it. The Polish guy slammed the window in his face. We ended up leaving because we did not want anything else to happen. That was my first experience with anti-semitism though. It was just crazy! It was pretty exciting though. But after that we walked around then went to the airport. bye.

Shabbos Hayom: March 16th

      

It was a pretty chill day. I was able to sleep in until 10:30 which was AMAZING! We did not really do anything since it was Shabbat and you are supposed to rest. We did a small walking tour of Krakow, which was only about an hour. It was actually a beautiful day and was quite warm....well warm for Poland at least. The sun actually came out, which was the first time I saw the sun the whole week. I actually thought they did not have a sun......But anyways after the walking tour we went to a synagogue and ate shabbos lunch there. Rachel and I got there last (of course because we're always last for legit EVERYTHING) and we got the worst seats ever. But it's fine..we just kept getting up and going over to our friends. It was a nice lunch and it lasted for about two hours or so. We sang and danced as well. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and we had the option to either have free time or walk to the Wawel Castle. I choose to walk to the Wawel Castle only because I will probably never go to Poland again. It was a nice walk and the weather was not so bad. It was about a 15-30 minute walk. The castle was huge! We got to go inside and it was a church inside. It was pretty interesting and it was also huge inside. We walked around inside for about 30 minutes or so then we walked back to our hotel. I was pretty exhausted by then, but of course our day was not over. We had group discussions and then walked to the outside of the Rema Shul. We had Havdalah there and it was so nice. After that, we went to another cemetery. To be honest, I completely lost focus. I really could not listen because 1. I was really cold again 2. I just could not focus 3. I was spacey like I normally am, but like 20 times worse 4. this list could go on forever 5. okay I'm done with this list.

Okay but after we went back to our hotel and I crashed...I was soooo tired!!!!!!

                                          

The Final Solution: March 15th

                             Auschwitz Birkenau Memorials

I actually don't even know where to begin.  Again, I just have so many questions that will probably be forever unanswered. I could never imagine being in such an awful place. I walked around Auschwitz with an Israeli flag attached to my back the whole time we were there. It made me so proud to be Israeli and to be representing a Jewish state in the very place that wanted to wipe out every single Jew. The first few minutes we walked in, we saw a group of Israelis waving their Israeli flags and singing their Israeli songs. It was amazing to see so much Israeli pride.

 I really wonder what life would be like if the Holocaust never happened. I really think about it all the time...would some of my close friends even be here now? What would the world be like now? Again, just unanswered questions. I never really understood how a person just thinks of something like the Holocaust. Who just thinks, "Oh, I want to kill every single Jew on the face of the earth??" I guess only a psycho would. Also, who even thinks of stuff like that...like ways to kill a person in the worst way possible? Just hearing all the stories are so interesting, but so sad. Hannah told us her grandmothers story in Auschwitz. It was really interesting and is quite a miracle story. She talked about how her grandmother escaped Auschwitz. She said she would dig a hole under the fence every day until it was big enough for her to fit through it. Then, her mother (Hannahs great grandmother) said to just survive by eating berries and grass in the forest so that's what her grandmother did. Her grandmother got very sick in the forest from eating berries and grass and she passed out. Some French Partisons found her and helped her. She got on a boat to America and found her father and mother on the same boat. There's more to this story, but I just found it very interesting.

But Just walking around in the camp makes me wonder how anyone could even escape? I feel like it would be so hard and you have to be super brave to do something like that. There were literally guard towers everywhere and barbed wire fences. I probably would not be brave enough to do something like that. I actually really look up to the people who either survived or escaped the concentration camps. Not that I don't look up to the ones who survived, but I just think if you were able to escape or survive a place like that? That's amazing. Another thing that really really struck me was the weather. How could anyone survive the awful weather? I literally had 8 layers on, 4 pairs of pants on, 4 pairs of really thick and warm socks, t3 hats, and 2 pairs of gloves and I was still FREEZING. I was numb by the time we left. I actually could not feel my feet and to think these people may not have even had socks? They were given a thin layer of clothing too. I just don't understand how they did it. How could someone torture another person like that? The thing is that it was March...like I can't even imagine what it was like during the winter time. It was also one of the coldest winters in 1944-1945, so I can't imagine what that was like. It was around -4 C when we were there..so like in the 20's.  It was also windy, which just made it colder too. I hate the cold so being out there for a few hours was really hard...not just for me, but for everyone. I'm pretty sure every person was freezing no matter how many layers they had on.

Another thing that I did not realize was how big Auschwitz was. I thought it was like 10 times smaller. I also did not realize how many camps they had. I thought it was just one, but there are actually three...which are all huge. I thought Auschwitz would be the size of Majdanek (that's the first camp we went to). There were just endless buildings all around Auschwitz. Each building was used for something different. Some were for the gas chambers and others were for bedrooms. In the gas chamber room you could still see the blue from the gas. In the rooms where they slept, it was also really cold. They did not have any heat unless they worked for it. They had to get the coal themselves to get the heater to work. It required so much work, so most of the time they just froze.

this is where they slept

the gas chamber room

This is their bathroom...they were only to go at certain times during the day for a certain amount of time.

Behind the gate is where the Nazis would shoot people

                                     

                                          millions of shoes from all the people who were killed....

                                           

                                                 A building that was burned right before the war ended

So many pictures of families killed in the Holocaust that were found after the war


After Auschwitz, we got back of the bus and no one said a word. Everyone was exhausted, sad,  and just had so many emotions. There was nothing to say. We drove for about two hours or so back to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel, we had some free time before Shabbat. Everyone either slept or just got ready for Shabbos. We left around 5 and walked to a synagogue. It was one of the most beautiful synagogues I've seen. It had so much color and life in it. It was also a beautiful service. Everyone was dancing and singing so joyfully. We came from one of the worst places in a world that wanted to wipe out every Jew to a place that was so happy and wonderful full of Jews. It really made me so proud to be Jewish. It was so wonderful and I could not stop smiling. So much Joy and Happiness. It was really the most perfect way to end an awful and sad day! <3
xoxo Simcha

"There Once Was a World...." March 14th

The first thing we did was go to a place called Lezajsk: Ohel Rebbe Elimelech. The girls and the boys separated during this. Basically they took all the guys to a mikveh, while the girls had a group discussion on "Woman in Judaism" We ended up talking about why girls were better though...ha

A place where you put a prayer in

Another memorial

This reminded me of the poem,"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

After that, we went to another memorial. This was called the Gluglow Mass Graves. This was just so unbelievable. The grave was like never ending...I just really can't imagine all the lives that were lost. It was so sad just standing over the grave, thinking, and knowing thousands and thousands of bodies were in that one grave. I know I keep repeating the same stuff over and over, but I really really cannot imagine it. One of the things that got to me was the fact that it was behind a gas station. It was really hidden because you had to walk behind the gas station, then over a bridge, into the woods. It was just so crazy...and I'm sure there are plenty other mass graves like that. I feel like everywhere you turn or go, there's a mass grave. The country is just so grey and depressing. I don't understand how anyone could live there.

Mass Graves

Zbylitouska Gora Childrens Grave

We went to a mass grave of just children. I can't even. It was one of the things that affected me the most. Just hearing the Nazis literally put hundreds of babies in a truck and just dumped them into a huge grave in the middle of the woods and just buried them alive? How can a person do an act so cruel? Those children did absolutely nothing...they did not even get to experience life. The Nazis would also slam their heads against the very trees I was looking at when I was there. I did not see the white snow, only red blood. This is all I could think about. It's like the babies were not even  human and were treated as an object or something. Most of the Nazis did it while they were drunk because they could not even do it sober. I don't understand how a person can just go killing thousands of babies like that, then just going home to their family and kids like nothing has happened. How could a person live like that? How could someone do such cruel acts? How could someone harm an innocent child? There are so many questions that will be forever unanswered.  I  also wonder if any of those Nazi Soldiers are still alive and how they are now...like if they regret it.

Memory & Meaning: March 13th

We went to the Wlodowa Shul, which was absolutely beautiful. We had more group discussions inside the synagogue and afterwards looked around and took pictures.

inside the synagogue

right outside the synagogue



Later that day, we drove to Sobibor death camp/memorial. Basically nothing is left except memorials. It was just unbelievable to even be there. Again, I just cannot even explain how I felt being there. Just walking around knowing that thousands of people died there...I don't know. This camp was destroyed after the war, so the only thing left were the train tracks and one cattle car. In this camp, the minute people pulled up and got off the cattle cars, they would walk down an alley straight to the gas chambers. Just knowing that makes me so sad. Once you walked down that pathway, you were never seen again. No one ever came back. The pathway was actually one of the most beautiful sceneries I have seen in my life. How can a place just be so beautiful and peaceful, yet a place that once used to be a place of death, cruelty, and torture? How can someone be so cruel? How does someone just tell thousands of people to go to a gas chamber so you can die? How? So many questions that will never be answered.

                               

many memorials

the pathway to the gas chambers

After going to Sobibor, we went to a place called Izbica Shetetl. When I got off the bus, I fell straight on my butt. It was pretty funny haha I wasn’t really embarrassed since basically every fell because it was so slippery. But we walked up a hill to another memorial. The hill was also extremely slippery….so many people fell. Once we got to the top, we looked at some memorials and a mass grave of around 80,000 people. I really can’t even comprehend that number…just so unbelievable.  We were not really there for too long…maybe about an hour or so.  Trying to get down that hill was such an ordeal though. You actually could not go down without falling at least twice. I just slid down it though. It was just less painful that way haha.  Once we finally made it back to the bus, we drove to Zamosc town square. Everyone started throwing snowballs everywhere and at everyone so that was kind of annoying. But it was a much lighter and happier event because everyone was laughing again. We walked around the town for a short period of time though. The buildings were very colorful and so beautiful. We got back on the bus after like 20 minutes, went to our hotel, checked in, ate, and all went to bed. It was such an exhausting and long day. 

The Second Day of the Polish Journey: March 12th

We woke up, ate, got on the bus, & then drove to the city of Lublin. We went and stood in the exact spot of the Lublin ghetto. It's just very hard to imagine only 70 years ago, the Nazi's were trying to take over and just wipe out all the Jews.

Afterwards, we had lunch on the bus and drove to Majdanek Concentration Camp. When we first drove up & I saw the camp, shivers simply ran down my spine. I became kind of emotional, but I can't really tell you the feeling I felt. I've been learning about the Holocaust my whole entire life just by seeing pictures or movies and I was suddenly at the exact place where it all happened. It was hard to imagine that was where thousands of Jews were killed by the Nazis. I just had so many different questions and thoughts racing through my mind. Once we got off the bus, we walked around the camp. I had so many layers on and was freezing the whole time. I literally could not stop thinking about how the people survived the freezing and cold weather with just one thin layer on and no socks. How did some of them survive the harsh winters there? It's only March and it was about 15 to 20 degrees, so I just really can't imagine what it was like during the winter season. Another thing I saw that really got me were the shoes. There were just so many shoes and I just could not believe it. Just being there was unbelievable. I just still can't comprehend the fact that it was an actual running camp that so many people were tortured and killed in. 

millions and millions of shoes...all different styles, sizes, and colors

the barbed wire fences

one of the many crematoriums 

The gas chamber room...the blue was from the gas

It’s also just so hard to grasp the fact that there were so many scary , frightening, and sad stories that happened in that exact place. Majdanek was actually exactly how I pictured a concentration camp to be. It was just crazy being there and seeing it in person rather than just seeing it from a book or movie. 

After Majdaneck, we went to our hotel in Lublin and checked in. We had about two hours of free time, so of course I slept. I was just so exhausted. After dinner, we walked to a Yeshiva that was about a 10 minute walk. We sat in a group and talked about how we felt going to Majdanek. I thought it really helped talking about it. It was like a group therapy session haha. After this, we ate some snacks then started dancing and singing. Coming from a place that is one of the worst places on earth and wanted to destroy all the Jews to going a Yeshiva dancing and singing…just celebrating that we are all Jewish and we are still here was simply amazing. We also talked and discussed the Torah for about 30 minutes or so. While in the Yeshiva I noticed some pictures that looked exactly like Rabbi Lau, which is the rabbi who married my parents and used to be the chief rabbi of Israel. Thats a pretty big job! But I'm positive it was him, and he is also from Poland who survived the Holocaust. I just thought that was pretty cool.

The Arrival: March 11th

We flew overnight and I slept the whole way, which I usually never sleep on planes but I did this time.

Now that I'm here in Poland....it just seems so weird. It does not seem like I'm in real life. I've waited so many years to come to this country. It is a little bit like I imagined it to be. Everything looks and just feels so depressing and so grey. Where is the color?

The first thing we did when we arrived to Poland was of course get on our black V.I.P. bus and drive for about 30 minutes or so. We went to the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, which is the biggest Jewish cemetery in Poland...it was soo cold and snowy. It was so hard for me to deal with the cold because I'm always cold and I also absolutely hate the cold. We stood outside for a few hours so by the time we were done, my toes were completely frozen. I could not even feel them even though. The cemetery seemed more depressing than it was only because of the snow and grey skies. There were also two mass graves there that contained over 80,000 bodies in it. I just can't even imagine that. If a person just walked into that cemetery without any guide or doing research before, they would not even know that mass grave was there. There was not really any sign for it or anything. The snow might have been covering the memorial for it, but other than that it just looked like a big empty snow lot.

The empty space is the mass grave

Such a beautiful cemetery

The place where the Jews would hide for a few days. The Nazi Soldiers never caught them because they covered  the hold with tombstones so no one would find them. It was so hidden that it was not even discovered until a few years ago. This is also where I fell. haha

After visiting the Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw, we got back on the bus and drove for about two hours. I took the best nap in the world...I was just so exhausted. We drove to a town called Kazimierz Dolny.  It was such a small and cute town. It is the art center in Poland. Many painters come to this town to paint and sell their artwork. This town was partly destroyed in WWII. While we were there, we visited a synagogue which was interesting. It also snowed a lot and it was very cold. 

The wall of tombstones

After this, we went to our hotel and checked in. It was a small and cute hotel that was basically in the middle of nowhere. We settled in and then ate dinner. After eating dinner, we walked to another cemetery that was maybe 5 or 10 minutes away. It was kinda creepy since it was at night. When we got there, we walked up a hill and pretty much everyone fell because it was so steep and slippery because of the snow. The graves and tombstones were together and there was a wall of tombstones next to it. The tombstones on the wall were from people who died in the Holocaust. Behind the wall, the tombstones were scattered all over the hill and in the woods. It was very snowy and cold too. This was not really a legit cemetery, but it was very interesting.

Behind the wall

In front of the wall