Journey to Poland
By Reut
The Journey to "There"
6/12/2003
I thought, that after I'd go there, I'd have answers. I thought that I'd understand more. I thought I'd cry.
I didn't cry there. I don't have answers, only more and more questions. I don't understand. "Actually" I realized that I would never understand. I won't understand "how" and "why" and what exactly the meaning of "6 million" is. It's not a number, it's not money, or "insurance company" or a commercial. It's life. People's lives, future, hopes, dreams, family. and I...I will never understand. How can you cry for 6 million? I can't even cry for one.
The journey to Poland, to "there." Journey to the past, to the most painful place, to the hardest dilemmas. Journey inside me. Everything has been said about this journey already. But all the words in the world can't describe how I feel now, after. This feeling that burns inside me, so much to say and I can't find the words to describe it. "Someone who wasn't there could never understand". It's true. and someone who visited there, knows that he would never understand.
Almost a year later...and I miss the jokes on the bus, the group and Rotem (our group leader), the atmosphere we created for ourselves "there", in that awful place. I also remember the camps..Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka and Plashov. I didn't cry. The tears came later. when I watched "Schindler's List", or "Life is Beautiful," when I walked down the street and thought about it, when I saw the number on grandpa's hand. I cried inside. Its been 9 months. Hard to understand what we saw. The talks through the night. "What would I do?" How can I know? I wasn't there. And Rotem insists, "What would you do?" Why do I need to think about it? I wasn't there. How can I know. It can't happen these days. Can it? Maybe not to us. But to others. It can. It does. I don't know what I would do. I want to cry. Why does he ask us those questions? We are only 16-17 year- olds. But "there" ...there were kids than we are and no one cared if they were only 16-17 or whatever age. But I'm not "there." I'm here… in Israel. Why do I need to think about it? I don't know. I don't have answers. I don't know where they found the strength to go on. I'd just go to the fence. What gave them the reason to go on? The hope that it would end someday? It's beyond me, like many other things.
The journey to Poland. New perspective. What is that which I lost, compared to what they lost, "there"? It's not comparable. I lost one brother. Grandpa lost 11 of them. Take my pain and multiply it by 100. Also for the parents, and cousins and friends, for the daily humiliations Grandpa had to take. For the life that will never be the same. For the past that still haunts him. Multiply by 1000. "Auschwitz is another planet". The cold we felt "there", in -8C. with coats and socks. and still, cold that gets through the clothes, down to the bones. How can you describe how they felt, "there", in -40 degrees? They had no coats and no sock. I have chills. not only because its cold. "I light this memorial candle for...who were murdered here, in the holocaust..." each one in his turn. and I don't even remember all of their names. David, Shlomo, Chaya. I don't have enough candles. I don't have enough tears.
The journey to Poland. To learn the past, and look towards the future. How can we change this world? How can we make it a better one? We're the generation. It's on our shoulders… to sing Hatikva "there", and hope it will be good here. To realize, that because of them, we are here. To realize what our responsibility is, here. To watch this country. and never, never forget those who died "there".
Majdane
7/3/2004
Today last year I was in Majdanek. And still, if someone asked me- which camp was the worse- I'd say Majdanek. In Majdanek, it all stayed like it was 60 years ago. The barracks, the gas chambers, the crematoriums….the mountain of ashes. To see and not to believe…7 tons...how many people are there in 7 tons?
Majdanek was known because of how they abused the prisoners
there. I remember Rotem telling us, about the commander of the
camp..one day
they caught a 3 year old Jewish girl stealing food. he beat the ****
out of her...then someone called him and said that his little girl was
hurt from a thorn in their garden. He went to her and hugged her and
cried with her.
One minute a monster, the next- a loving father. Another one of
the
things that I will never understand. But actually, I realized already
that I would never understand, so why do I keep trying?
We sat there, at the exit of the gas chambers. "From here, the zondercommando took the bodies to the crematoriums, that were further."
I ask, "But its right near the fence, how come the Polish people didn't see it from their windows?"
"They saw it."
And I try to picture the zondercommando in my mind, taking the bodies, like in the movies, human skeletons...and from the windows of the houses outside the camp, the Poles look at them, apathetic. So what if people are being burnt here? So what???? It doesn't matter to them??
And then the dilemmas. "What would you do if you were in their position? If you were there instead of the people who stood by and did nothing? What could they do actually? If they threw even an apple inside, they were risking being shot by the nazis. Is it worth it, for one apple, that wouldn't even save anyone?" (Rotem torturing us with questions about the meaning of life) "but, it can't be, there must have been something that they could have done, show the world, anything.."
The world didn't care".
And we know that he's right. Know it too well. But don't want to believe. and he doesn't justify them. He tells us that he too thinks they should have done something. But what could they do? Even to throw an apple---. If all of them threw apples in there, less people would have died of hunger.
And then I remember the Polish woman with the baby, that I saw walking "there" only a few minutes ago. I think, even today, they would have done nothing. 300,000 people were murdered here, and she walks calmly with the baby's carriage. Suddenly I feel hatred for the Polish people, all of them, unexplained hatred...and I usually don't hate anyone.
I don't remember everything we did "there", in the camp. I don't remember what came before what,. It's all mixed up in my memory. I remember pictures and things that were said. I remember the gas chambers, the barrack with the shows and the mountain of ashes. It all stayed the way it was.
And here at Majdanek, it's harder...I don't know, maybe because we had already been to Auschwitz, and the feelings build up..
I remember the ceremony at the mountain of ashes. Noa with the voice that gets to your bones, singing "punar." The one with the kipa saying kaddish and the anthem. And someone who didn't go there, wouldn't understand.
After we're all shaking, and not only from the cold, we go back to the bus. It always amazed me, how fast we can go from "holocaust" to "lunch" (fun and jokes) - to do this switch in our minds..it's not disrespectful, that's just how it was. It was hard for everyone...
Then we arrived at a yeshiva in Lublin. And I only remember sitting on the stairs there, and the teacher asking me "how are you?" A simple question. And I started laughing for no reason, and I couldn't stop...I couldn't calm down...for no reason. It never happened to me before. Usually I use "repression" and "black humor", and even not laughing instead of crying.
But it's ok. Here there are no rules - nothing allowed or forbidden, do whatever you feel...and half an hour earlier I wanted to cry, to cry there in the mountain of ashes. I wanted to cry so bad...
And at night, we have the daily discussion. Friday night, and instead of going out with my boyfriend, I'm staying in some hotel in Warsaw. I'm with a group that until a few months ago I didn't really know, except for "hi" and "bye" in the halls...and now we talk about the meaning of life, death, silence. the holocaust. And it didn't even seem weird to me. It seems as if it's the most normal thing for a group of 16-17 year-olds to do…. to talk about the meaning of life, to argue about issues that usually wouldn't bother our gray cells in the brain.
This is the meaning of being Jewish, Israeli, to go to Poland, to talk about the holocaust, about the dilemmas, about life. If we were regular Americans, Europeans or whatever, why would we care?
Suddenly I feel proud to be Jewish. Yes, me, the one who says "allah" instead of "elohim", just to get on everyone's nerves. Me, the one who argues with the bible teacher about every little thing in the bible.
For me Judaism isn't only about God.
I wouldn't want to be anything else, only Jewish and Israeli.
And this I think about my brother. Suddenly the holocaust day
and
memorial day connect to each other, and I know that this year they
will be harder. Because of this journey, and again, because of him.
Thanks to them, who died there- we have our country.
Thanks to him, and all the other soldiers- we have our country.
It all connects.. and out of this pride, for being Israeli.. I
want to cry, to cry because of the bombings just 2 days before,
to
cry because of the 6 million that were murdered on the land that I'm
staying in right now, because of my brother, who never went to Poland
and never will, because of my brother that was killed.
It's not easy to be Israeli. The Poles, the Europeans, the Americans, everyone actually can't understand. They can't understand the meaning of the holocaust, which is much deeper than "6 million", the meaning of living here, in Israel. Suddenly I understand and my personal pain, that I brought from home, connects to this national pain. "There." And I want to cry so bad.
Reut
Jerusalem, Israel
Write to Reut at write@ttt.org.il
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