By Rabbi David Wilfond, Director of Education
The past week in Europe has been a very intense time in the lives of the teen participants. On Friday, the group experienced the highest high and the lowest low. The lowest low was felt when the group went to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This Extermination Camp is the world’s largest grave. The ashes of 1.2 to 1.5 human beings lie here. A visit to Auschwitz is a sobering lesson of the potential for cruelty that can lurk in the human soul. Walking through Auschwitz is also an inspiring opportunity to encounter the stories of survivors who refused to surrender their dignity, their morality and encouraged others to survive if only to be able to tell the tale of survival against all odds.
On Friday morning, the group entered Auschwitz to learn what the lessons are that we can take from this place as Reform Jewish teens in 2018. After a full day exploring the deepest of moral issues the group went to celebrate Shabbat in the Historic Reform Temple Synagogue of Krakow built in the 1860’s. If the walls of the synagogue could talk, they might have been singing along with the teens the joyous NFTY melodies of Kabbalat Shabbat. For almost 80 years, from 1862 till 1939 this synagogue heard they happy songs of Progressive Reform Jews every Shabbat until 1939 when the Nazis arrived and silenced their voices, halted their breaths and murdered the Jews of Krakow. Today almost 80 years later the Krakow Reform Synagogue is vibrant and filled again with young Reform Jews singing Jewish songs of hope and life. The contrast between the depths of the mourning in the morning at Auschwitz to the joyful heights of the Krakow Friday Night Shabbat Service in the Historic Reform Temple is an experience of healing that gives hope.
On Shabbat morning, the group enjoyed Tefilot (services) together at the hotel. This was followed by a session with an elderly Polish woman in her 90’s who told the groups about how her family, at risk to their own lives, hid a Jewish family in their home during the war. Her family was recognized by Yad Vashem and awarded the honorary title of “Righteous Among the Nations.” The students were very moved by her story and the example of individuals making a difference and doing the “Right Thing” even when it placed their own lives at genuine risk.
Following lunch, the groups departed for Warsaw and celebrated Havdallah at the Warsaw Hotel.
This morning, Sunday, the groups began their tour of Warsaw by first visiting the last surviving remnant of the Wall around the Warsaw Ghetto that was built by the Nazis. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Nazi-created Ghetto. At its height, the Warsaw Ghetto contained more than 400,000 Jews crammed into only 2 percent of the city. Warsaw was 30% Jewish prior to the war and was Europe’s largest Jewish city.
The focus of our touring program today was the “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.” A few thousand Jews revolted against the world’s largest and most ferocious army of the time (the Nazis), and held them off for nearly a month. With only a few weapons the dedicated defenders of the Warsaw Ghetto preferred death with dignity and with the hope that their fight might serve as an example to others (Jews and non-Jews) to resist the Nazis and to fight back. On Warsaw’s Route of Heroism, the participants encountered the life stories of “Heroes of the Jewish Resistance” against the Nazis.
In the afternoon, our teens held a discussion to summarize their experiences in Prague and Poland. On the grass under the shade of chestnut trees, the groups discussed “Where was God during the Holocaust?” They also talked about “What lessons do we learn from the Holocaust for our lives as American Jews in 2018?”
After making way to the airport their counselors started preparing the groups for the physical and spiritual journey to the land of Israel.
Tomorrow, Monday, the group will hold an “Arrival to Israel Ceremony” at a park in Old Jaffa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and the skyline of modern Tel Aviv. Here we will discuss the difference between being a tourist versus being a pilgrim. The following day we will begin our Negev Desert experience. Like the children of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years, we will hike for four days discovering the beauty of the desert and growing as a community by supporting each other while hiking, making meals together, snorkeling together in the Red-Sea and singing together at evening camp fires.
Now that the group is leaving the gray days of Poland behind, there is intense joy about looking forward to the group’s adventures in Israel, the Land of Milk and Honey.
