Dear Parents,
I write this early on the morning of Friday, June 30, while most (if not all) of the participants are sound asleep. With Shabbat coming in later today, and half the pilgrimage behind us, this is a good time to look back at what we have done and seen since arriving in Poland on Tuesday.
After arrival in Warsaw, checking into the hotel and some orientation, the students had an early night to help get over the jetlag. On Wednesday morning, we started the day bright and early, driving to the 200-year-old Warsaw Jewish cemetery which contains 150,000 visible tombs. Here we felt the visual impact of the capital of “Yiddishkeit” prior to WWII as we paid tribute to the great creators of Jewish culture buried in this cemetery. We visited the tombs famous rabbis, Yiddish authors and artists, Zamenhoff, the inventor of Esperanto and many others who died before the Holocaust. We saw and felt the loss not only of Jewish art, scholarship, and leadership, but the loss of a community that was multifaceted in its range of Jewish pluralism: from Yiddishist socialists through writers, actors, playwrights, Reform rabbis, and Orthodox and Chasidic leaders.
The focus for the day moved on to the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto in particular, and other ghettos in general, while visiting the one remaining fragment of the wall. We then took the “Memorial Walk,” from the Umshlagplatz (the site of the deportation from where the Jews of the ghetto were sent to the death camps) to the hospital of the Ghetto, where Jews fought heroically against disease. From there we continued to Mila 18, the site of the headquarters of Mordechai Anilevitch and the Jewish armed resistance, and from there to the memorial for Shmuel Zygelblum, one of the leaders of the Warsaw ghetto, who tried to convince the others that civil disobedience and lack of compliance to the Nazis was the way to fight back. We ended the walk at the site of the famous Rappaport statue.
After lunch at a mall, we went to the Warsaw Zoo, which is not only pretty, but also the site of the zookeepers’ home. During the war, this house was the center of a concerted effort to rescue Jews from the Ghetto. From there it was back to the hotel for dinner and evening activities. In general, the participants met every evening with their counselors; both for group building activities, and to process what they have experienced during the day.
On Thursday morning we departed for Tikochin, – a small village near the Belarus border. This was our visit to a shtetl. From the square we walked through the town off the paved streets and felt the ambiance of shtetl life. Our final stop was at the 17th-century main synagogue built in Baroque style. Everyone was well-aware of the profound symbolism of bringing back sounds long lost between these walls. We then traveled by bus for fifteen minutes in silence as we approached the Lepochova Forest. It was here that in August 1941 the Einzatsengruppen of the SS shot the 1400 Jews of Tikochin into open ditches and buried them, making Tikochin the first Jewish community in Europe to be destroyed. While the bodies are no longer interred there, the pits are clearly visible. After a very moving ceremony we headed south for the town of Lublin. After dinner in the hotel, we broke up into small groups to help the students process what they had seen and prepare emotionally for the next day.
After breakfast today, a fifteen-minute ride will bring us to Maidanek, which borders on the outskirts of Lublin. For three hours we will walk from one wooden structure to the next, each structure housing exhibitions of the death process that took place here from July 1941 to July 1944. Our last station will be the gas chambers and crematoria where we will have a memorial ceremony prepared by the students.
On conclusion of the ceremony, we will make our way to Krakow, with some time to prepare for Shabbat. We will be conducting our own services this evening and tomorrow morning. After lunch tomorrow, it’s time for some fun at a local water park, before heading to the Old Town Square for dinner.
On Sunday morning, the participants will visit Kazimierc, which is now part of Krakow, but was once home to the Jewish community, as Jews were not allowed to live in Krakow itself. They will hear stories and see sites which communicate the richness of the Jewish communities which called Kazimierc home. After lunch, we will walk through and learn about the ghetto. We will see the remaining fragment of ghetto wall before ending the afternoon at the factory of Oskar Schindler, which is an appropriate place to discuss and hear stories about the Righteous Among the Nations; those brave souls who risked everything to save Jews. We will return to the hotel to prepare for our visit on Monday to Auschwitz – Birkenau, where we will spend the whole day. While every site connected to the Holocaust is meaningful, Auschwitz is THE symbol of the tragedy that befell us during World War 2, and it is fitting that we end this part of the Poland Pilgrimage there.
On Tuesday, the students will have a fun day, visiting the resort town of Zakopane, where they will take the cable car up the mountain to go for a walk and to enjoy the views.
On a personal note, it has been a pleasure contributing to what has already been an incredibly impactful experience. It will take some time for the participants to process what they are going through, but there is no doubt that that the pilgrimage has had a deep impact on everyone in the group.
Yours truly,
David Solomon
Yallah Israel Poland Supervisor
