Day 3 continued, Krakow & Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camps: posted by Susan Tapper, Sandy & Stanley Boykansky, and Leonard Borman

Posted by Susan Tapper
I didn’t know what to expect when we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau. At first just looking at it, the buildings in Auschwitz I looked like college dormitories. The I started to walk under the famous gate that I have seen all my life in pictures. I looked at the barbed wire fence that surrounded the buildings and my body went numb.

As we entered the different buildings, I could see the horrific, inhumane way people were treated. I felt the tears come to my eyes when I saw the huge rooms filled with human hair, shoes, eye glasses, and many more items of personal use. I do not understand how this was allowed to happen! It wasn’t only the Jews, but other cultures that had to endure inhuman suffering and cruelty. I am looking forward to being in Israel There, I will not see the horrors that a whole generation had to endure. I will see our home land that stands for human rights and the freedom to be a Jew.

Posted by Sandy Boykansky
Today we had the great honor of praying at the Rema Synagogue, the synagogue of Rabbi Moses Isserles, the “Rema,” the great codifier of Jewish law. It was indeed one of the most spiritual moments of my life. To think that here, once Polish Jews from a free and rich Jewish life also prayed in this special place for centuries. We went on to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp/death camp, only about one hour away from the Rema synagogue. What once was is no longer!! From this experience, I realize that we, as free Jews must work hard to maintain and enrich our Jewish life.

Posted by Stanley Boykansky
Of all the books I have read, movies I have seen, and lectures I have heard, none have given me the level of understanding that I have obtained by being in Auschwitz-Birkenau today. Evil was everywhere, from the barracks, to the gas chambers, to the crematoria. Hopefully with this knowledge, I can better explain the Holocaust to my family and friends. Only with knowledge can we prevent this from happening again.

Posted by Leonard Borman
How long does sadness or desperation last? Everyone goes through such periods. It is not forever, unless you lived in Europe as a Jew is World War II. Jews believed that Hitler’s rise to power was temporary. There was always the next election. Everyone would be cognizant of Hitler’s destructiveness and vote him out.

That’s what victims of the concentration and death camps thought, that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A will to live with life’s encumbrances of disease, hatred, inhuman treatment. Others die. I can make it.

I understood that feeling as I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. Experienced was imagining myself lined up in the morning for roll call, no chance of showering, no chance of resting because of ill health, no chance of being fed enough food to regain physical strength. To experience sadness and desperation for a month would be implausible. To have the will to fight and continue requires reaching for human courage within the deep depths of the human soul.

I had the privilege to walk out, to go to a home safe from evil and depravation. A visit to a Holocaust center is informative. Being at such a site of seeing it first hand is numbing. I imagined General Eisenhower standing in a liberated concentration camp and overseeing the live prisoners being helped, and viewing the piled corpses. I always felt he learned the depths of evil that flourished within the Nazi psyche.