Day 5 begins with a visit to the Plaszow concentration camp. The camp is nestled in a quiet and scenically beautiful park, set on the outskirts of Krakow. People are riding their bikes and walking their dogs on the very spot where 700 Jewish people were brutally murdered upon their arrival, here, over 60 years ago. I am appalled at the paradox of such peace, joy and beauty in a place where such inhumane savagery occurred. In fact, these people pass by at the moment our guide, Muki, is explaining about the horrible atrocities that occurred such a short time ago.We learn that the majority of those killed (if not all of them) were Hungarian Jews. We learn the meaning of the word “concentration”, that the Nazis took people from other countries, brought them to Poland and concentrated and isolated them so that escape in a land where they were unfamiliar with the culture and language and had no support system, was futile. I am struck by a comparison made to the Metro Detroit Jewish population of 70,000 and how the Nazi extermination system would have taken less than a week to wipe out the entirety of Jewish Detroit.
Upon leaving, we stop at a travel rest stop and a couple of trucks with horse trailers pull in. There are about 5-6 horses in each and they are very well ventilated. I again feel a strong sense of irony as these vehicles pull in at the very moment we exit the bus. The horses are treated far better than my brothers and sisters were in their overcrowded, unventilated, camp transport rail cars.
We re-board the bus and travel to Kielce, the site of the first of several post-Holocaust pogroms. Kielce was a town of 7,000 Jews, pre-war, and the 200 (yes, only 200) survivors return “home”.
Imagine returning “home” to find your property occupied by others who tell you “this is our property now, not yours”. On July 4, 1946, 42 are killed and some 80 more injured on the 170th birthday of the United States of America. Apparently, the incident resulted from a young boy being ordered to lie about his recent disappearance and subsequent re-discovery. He untruthfully blames transplanted Jewish people who live at the site, and an angry mob arrives and begins shooting the Jews. I was certainly familiar with the Holocaust before embarking on this trip. What I never thought about, however, is what happened to the few who were liberated and attempted to return to homes that were no longer theirs. In this horrible example, they were hoarded into this small structure we were standing in front of, forced to live together in these crowded conditions, and, about one year later, were shot and killed; it was déjà vu, all over again. This event and others like it resulted in massive emigration to Israel, virtually ending any hope of a rebirth of “Jewish” Poland.We return to the bus and travel to the Sidlowitz cemetery and monument. The cemetery, sadly, is neglected. Many tombstones are displaced and broken and piled together in a pile, like “junk”. Those standing are in disrepair. The grounds are unattended; weeds and overgrown grass abound. We arrive at a monument erected in honor of an incident in which 150 Jews were mass murdered. The inscription is in Polish so I venture to the back of the monument to see if the inscription is repeated in English.
There, on the back, in chalk, is a swastika and the words “Jude Rause” (Jews out). We are shocked to silence and while I am angry at the stupidity of the “artist”, I also feel terrible for our Polish guide, Yanish, standing at my side. Yanish had, during the course of our visit, admitted various anti-Semitic actions of the Polish people, but had valiantly defended his Polish brothers and sisters as no more anti-Semitic than any other culture of people. My wife, Tobye and our travel mate, Carol Dubrinsky, defiantly wash off the chalk and Barbara Olsman takes a picture of the clean slate that her husband, Jules, had photographed with the chalk “design”. My thought is that you can temporarily erase the offensive symbol and language, but you cannot, so easily, eradicate the stupidity and prejudice that causes some idiot to use this monument as a canvas for hatred and bigotry.
We return to the bus and drive to the Warsaw airport for dinner and a discussion of our four days in Poland. Opinions are given that the trip is powerful and necessary; one of us indicates that “camp visits” are unnecessary and that our children (as his were) should be discouraged from making such a trip. Most, respectfully, disagree. My theory is that those who ignore the past are doomed to relive it. He is, certainly, entitled to his opinion; no one has the “right” opinion.
I pen this at the airport, awaiting our flight to the Promised Land. Tonight, we leave the “darkness” and travel to the “light”. I am very excited, yet, I found Poland to be a scenically beautiful country, reborn in a democracy that seems to be working. If Yanish is an example of the “new” Poland, there is certainly “light” here, as well, because he is a knowledgeable, friendly and fine gentleman. It certainly seems that “Jewish” Poland is gone forever; that is the ultimate “darkness”, because we have learned that the community was large, close knit, and vibrant. Certainly, my “Jewish” traditions originate in Sandomierz, Poland (and, on my father’s side, Russia), a town rich in Jewish tradition, like Warsaw, Krakow, Kielce and Lublin were. There is “light” in Eretz Yisrael, but there are also a thousand points of Jewish light in many other countries, including the U.S., where survivors and other immigrants, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren carry on their Eastern European traditions. Susan Tapper, pass me some more of your Aunt’s delicious mandel bread!!! And so it goes…
Posted by Leonard Borman
I just visited the bottom of the ocean. There, a shipwreck lay. The debris was spread over about 25 acres. Ocean currents were the wind eroding the artifacts, making the inscriptions on tombstones difficult to read. Make no mistake, it was a shipwreck. The name was Sidlowitz, and its passenger list was about 3,000.There was a disaster. Nazis came and took the children of the deceased inhabitants to death camps. No dignified burial happened. The deceased died a second death. The ship was torpedoed and there were no rescuers and no survivors. The gravestones I saw lay untouched for about 60 years. There is no way to raise this ship. My wish is to have the ship lay quietly. The Titanic lay quiet. I was a visitor.
Here is a link to photos from Day 4:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jonberkun/Day4PolandPlaszowConcentrationCampPogromIn1946AtKielceAndSidlowitzCemetery
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