Our trip to Poland was one of the hardest and coldest weeks of my life, as well as one that I will definitely never forget. Although I was constantly sad and tired, I learned an incredible amount of information about the Holocaust that is impossible to wrap my head around. We visited many places in Poland such as Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow, Auschwitz, and Lodz. We learned not just about the 6 million Jewish lives lost, but the lives of the Jewish people before and after the Holocaust as well as the resistance during life in the ghettos.
All throughout our Poland pilgrimage, we visited sights significant to the Holocaust, along with places that let us peak into life before and after this tragic massacre of Jewish life. The comparison of Tykocin before the Shoah and Tykocin during the Shoah is just one of many examples that show how drastically life was changed due to the Holocaust. Tykocin was a shtetl, or small village, where Jews were accepted and lived in society alongside others. It was said to be a world within a world because here, Jewish life flourished. The Jews were granted a charter of rights established by the Polish government. On our walk around the town, we saw old restaurants and shops decorated with Jewish symbols that showed us a glimpse into Tykocin life pre-Holocaust. Tykocin was a very small community with an estimated 50% of the population being Jewish; the Jewish community within Tykocin was very close and tight-knit. That tight- knit community, however, changed greatly after the Holocaust as all the Jews were forcefully taken into the forest and shot one-by-one. Not only were they hatefully murdered, but they were forced to dig their own graves, and count down the minutes until their death. Some hopped they would be spared, as we read an account of 2 young girls who begged the Nazi’s to let them live, and were murdered immediately following their request. When we went to visit the graves of those who were persecuted, we saw there were not individual graves, but instead there were three mass graves. The Nazi’s considered mass graves to be the effective solution on how to kill the most Jews as fast as possible. However, even that became too slow, and Nazi’s would later use gas chambers. It’s crazy to think the Star of David is plastered onto a restaurant in Tykocin when not even a ten minute drive away thousands of Jews were murdered. To me, this shows the disgusting violence of the Holocaust, but that we have to remember a good life for the Jews did exist at one point regardless if it is still standing today.
Many Jews fought against the Nazi regime through acts of Iberleben, (the yiddish word for survival.) While in the Ghetto and Memorial Walk in Warsaw, we learned of the different ways Jews fought for their rights through the resistance movement. One specific story that stood out to me was about Janusz Korczak. He was a doctor and a writer who made the brave decision to open an orphanage in one of the ghettos. Although he was given countless options to leave the children, he chose to stay, and was eventually shot and killed with them. Though he never once let the kids believe they were going to die; he even told them they were just going for a walk, but in reality they were on their way to where they would see their death. Another example of Iberleben was when a Jewish doctor made the drastic decision to poison the ill children in the ghetto’s hospital when she found out they were going to be sent to the gas chambers. I never thought of this as a form of resistance due to the fact that the doctor was actively killing innocent children, but now I understand that it completely is. The doctor took the initiative, which must have been terribly hard, to let the children die in peace rather than being murdered by the Nazis. This shows how the resistance movement could range from simply being there for a child, to making life ending choices. Another act of resistance was that of heroic girls, Chajka, Frumke, and others. These girls would escape the ghetto based on their Aryan looks and travel to Polish cities by day such as Lublin, and Czestochowa. They did this without hesitation and came back to the ghetto each and everyday even though they had the opportunity to escape and put themselves in danger each time they left. Their resistance was to complete dangerous missions in order to better the lives of others in the ghetto. All acts of Iberleben are selfless, courageous, and deserve incredible recognition, because they are all acts of loving kindness.
Rabbi Emil Fackenheim wrote, “Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victories, they are commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish People perish.” This quote, or the 614th commandment is one that all Jews should be required to follow. Fackenheim is saying that we cannot allow Hitler to achieve his goals during the Holocaust after death. If I want to call myself a member of the Jewish community, I think it is essential to follow this mitzvah. I plan on observing this mitzvah by marrying a Jewish man because of the large problem intermarriage causes in the Jewish world. I also plan to raise my children Jewish and, of course, teach them about the Holocaust. As difficult as it may be, remembering the Holocaust is the only way we can ensure to never be mass persecuted again. I completely agree with Rabbi Fackenheim’s statement because to disagree is to give Hitler power beyond his grave. I am proud to be Jewish not despite of Hitler’s demonic actions, but in spite of them.
The Poland pilgrimage taught me not just about the Holocaust, but about myself. Before this trip, I knew a few of the events that took place during the Holocaust but it was always impossible to believe them. It was so difficult for me to wrap my mind around what happened during the Holocaust before seeing the places in which these tragedies took place. Even now I still find it impossible to believe Hitler and the Nazis could be so heartless, but by visiting Poland, I am able to better understand my past. This allows to move forward knowing that I cannot stand by idly. Just as those in the resistance did, it is up to me and my generation, being the last able to hear accounts from living survivors, to stand up for those who no longer have a voice. The holocaust is not the first time in Jewish history that Jews have been violently murdered for no reason, but it is our job through education and supporting Am Israel to make sure it is the last.
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