When signing up to come on this trip, one of the things I was really looking forward to was going to Poland. While I knew it was not going to be the most joyous or exciting part of our 5-week adventure, I was feeling really lucky to have the opportunity to learn about the history of the Jewish people. I believe that one of the most important Mitzvot a person can do is to teach, and to teach, you must learn, which is exactly what we did in Poland.
Coming to Poland was a bizarre emotional roller coaster for me because we were meeting tons of new friends and learning each day about deeply sad pieces of our people’s history. It often felt weird for me to go from mass graves and seeing ghettos to going out for pierogies and laughing with friends within the span of hours. Nevertheless, I found the experience to be really moving to be able to physically walk in places where our ancestors walked. To be able to see remnants of the Jewish community and to learn more about what happened was hard but important knowledge to gain.
On the night before we went to Auschwitz, our Madrichim and leaders sat us down to talk about expectations for the next day. They said that nothing could really prepare us for what we were about to experience, but to ready ourselves for having a range of reactions.
The next day, July 7, we arrived to Auchwitz Birkenau and the moment we stepped off the bus, I was hit with the mist confused feeling. I was expecting to feel heaviness in the air and in my mind. Auschwitz is dark and gloomy. But in an even more eerie way than that, it was a gorgeous day outside, the sun was shining, and as we walked through the gates, we could smell the sweetness of freshly cut grass. It was certainly difficult for me to begin to imagine the treacherous conditions and environment while looking at the wildflowers scattered along the path. However, this feeling did not last too long as the first stop on our tour was the “bathroom”.
Bluemy, our tour guide, explained to us that this was “Stripping away the last thing that people thought they would always have.” When he said this, it really started to put things into perspective for me as to how dehumanizing the concentration camp process was. As you can see in the photo, there are hundreds of toilets in this room, all lined up next to each other, but Bluemy told us that the other half, where we were standing, used to be a mirror image of even more “toilets”. I thought to myself that that seemed like so many until I realized that there were probably hundreds of bathroom places like this, and the numbers multiplying in my head became too large to comprehend. I remember turning to my friends and saying, “I can’t think of 6 million anything.” My brain physically could not handle that large a number, and that thought stayed with me through the rest of the day.
We then walked outside to see a train car that had shuttled hundreds of people per car into the camp.
We heard the story of a man who came into Birkenau wearing his tallit and tfillin. A Nazi officer ordered him to take them off, and he refused. Even as the officer was beating him, he refused to be separated from his faith. Hearing this story, despite its sadness, inspired me, and I felt proud to be Jewish. For many people, this trip is hard, and they don’t know what to take away or how to remember it, but something our tour guide would say when we went to hard places was to just take one name and remember it. 6 million is a really important number to remember, but it’s even more important for us to understand that these were 6 million individuals with names and lives, and to just take away at least one and remember their name is to give them the last bit of dignity that they did not get in their deaths. If I could leave this trip with one message, it would be to remember names and stories and teach them to others so that nobody’s legacy is ever forgotten, and to always try to find Jewish joy in every place you go.
Sylvia B
