Jewish Poland 7th day - Kielce & Warsaw and Conclusions - Sunday 4 December 2016

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Our last day started with a frantic packing, praying, breakfast, making lunch and getting on the bus. Because I had been advised that it would be difficult for me to say kaddish in Manchester (part of our next week’s tour) I made sure that I was up early. We had to take an orientation of the room and change my position three times before the “boys” were satisfied that we were davening in the right direction and although it ended up that I was near the front this time I was told to stay put. Wow is this what it feels like to lead the prayers (and no I didn’t lead the prayers).

We had a northerly long ride back to Warsaw. The roads were really a surprise. We were on a motorway for a very short time and the rest of the time it was fast roads which were full of road works. Of course we had to make the usual number of loo stops.



Half way to Warsaw we stopped in Kielce. Outside the city we went to see the Jewish cemetery, which was closed to visitors but we looked through the gates. We saw a plaque which memorialises 45 children who were left in the Kielce ghetto when everyone else was sent to the camps. The Nazis murdered those 45 remaining children.

Then we proceeded into the city of Kielce to a key Jewish location. Before WW-2 about 18,000 Jews lived in the Kielce area. The influx of Jews rounded up from surrounding towns swelled the ghetto in Kielce to over 25,000, of whom the vast majority were sent to concentration camps and exterminated. After the liberation, some surviving Jews returned to Kielce and tried to reestablish their homes and lives. In July 1946 there was a pogrom there and 42 Jews were killed by the Poles because of a blood libel. Somehow 400 originally-local Jews had managed to survive the Holocaust, and now 10% of those returnees were murdered! This pogrom was the turning point for many Jews and their decision to stay or leave Poland.

There are two relevant monuments here to Jewish victims. One is a menorah with a plaque in memory of over 20,000 killed from the Kielce ghetto. The other monument was dedicated 60 years after the pogrom. It looks something like several incomplete checker-boards. In fact it is situated opposite the address 7 Planty Street and represents the number 7 fallen on its side, with 42 black squares for the Jews slaughtered in the post-war pogrom, scattered amongst the white squares of the monument.



We left Kielce and continued toward Warsaw. At one loo stop we davened mincha outside a restaurant. We were a tourist sight to those out for their Sunday lunch.

On the bus we watched "Schindler’s List" - I actually watched this film whilst knitting - followed by a documentary which produced evidence showing that Churchill and Roosevelt knew exactly what was happening to the Jews in Auschwitz. However besides the excuse of diverting any bombers from their war targets, there was a fear that if the railway going into Auschwitz was bombed innocent civilians would be killed. Churchill didn’t seem to mind killing thousands of civilians in Cologne or other German cities. Hypocrisy is too gentle a word to describe their in-actions!

We were supposed to visit Lodz but time and weather were against us. So Sara told us about the ghetto there. The leader of the ghetto was Chaim Rumkowski who is remembered for his speech "Give Me Your Children" delivered at a time when the Germans demanded his compliance with the deportation of 20,000 children to Chelmno extermination camp. In August 1944, Rumkowski and his family joined the last transport to Auschwitz, and were murdered there by the Jewish Sonderkommando inmates who beat him to death as revenge for his role in the Holocaust. This account of his final moments is confirmed by witness testimonies of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. There were many more survivors from Lodz as they worked in the textile industry. After the war many came to Israel and set up Lugia Textiles. Another point Sara told about Lodz was that unidentified dead were buried in individual graves marked Peloni (anonymous) whereas in Warsaw the rabbis decreed mass graves for all the unidentified bodies.



On to Warsaw. We began at the ghetto wall and saw the monument to the Jews who were held there.

As on our first day, we again walked along Zamenhofa Street past the series of memorial blocks highlighting some of the Jews who played key roles in the Warsaw ghetto and perished there or in the camps to which they were transported.

We saw the memorials at the mound where 18 Mila Street was destroyed, after the Germans finally killed all the leaders of the 1943 Warsaw uprising whose headquarters bunker was hidden there.



We ultimately made our way back to the Polin Museum where we sat in the cafe and started our final discussion about our thoughts and feelings of the entire trip. On our way out of the museum we met a bunch of guys serving in the Israeli air force with their sefer torah on the IAF annual trip to Poland. This made the raison d’être of Israel even more poignant for us. If G-d forbid the Jews are targeted again in such a way we are prepared and ready to fight back.

We walked over to the monument in front of the Polin Museum to see what we had not had the time to examine in our first visit only a week ago. It felt a lot longer!

It was now after dark outside the Polin Museum. We stood there in the sqaure and studied the large ghetto uprising monument erected in 1948 just 5 years after the Warsaw uprising. One side of the monument shows figures representing the resistance fighters, whilst figures on the other side appear like downtrodden Jews. There are menorahs on the ground flanking the large monument.



Then back on the bus to the Chabad where we held our last debriefing session before dinner. We aired our feelings and emotions yet again. Leora read the poem she had composed the previous evening, which is appended to the end of this travel blog with her permission.

Then held our own tekes (ceremony) which included singing Ani Ma'amim to the niggun composed by David Fastag on the train to Auschwitz, and recited psalms and the prayer for the soldiers of Israel, and sang Hatikvah, the national anthem. Then we broke out into a spontaneous singing of Am Yisroel Chai and dancing, to end on a high.

After a last meal together it was back on the bus for the group to fly home. We said goodbye to the group whilst all bags were unloaded from the bus in front of the Warsaw airport terminal. Don and I walked over to the airport's Marriott Courtyard Hotel where we were staying overnight before our trip to England.



Personal conclusions:

We had very mixed emotions about coming on this trip, and left Poland with more questions than answers. Our feelings are expressed as follows in no particular order but alphabetical for convenience.

Anger - that this whole Holocaust was allowed to happen. Why do I say allowed? Because the leaders of the allies knew exactly what was happening and allowed this to continue.

Blessed - that Don and I have a homeland we can go to that we love and that we are not alone.

Cemeteries - far too many, in contrast to Jewish life.

Drivers - and Kris our security guard and our 'pilot' Monica - a big thanks to all those comprising our Polish touring team. One sad thing was that Kris carried a gun with him the whole time just in case, indicating that anti-semitism is not dead. On a nicer note Monica not only coordinated logistics, she provided us with warming cups of tea and comfort when we needed them, which was quite often.

Experience - this trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us.

Faith - would we have managed to retain our faith if we had been in their position? Would we still have faith as survivors?

G-d - People ask where was G-d at this time? We ask the same question and despite all the answers we have received our faith would have been shaken if we had survived.

Humanity - or lack thereof. The Holocaust illustrated man’s inhumanity to man!

Ira and Michelle Green - for their organisation of this trip.

Jews - those who survived despite everything, and the overwhelming numbers who did not.

Kinor David - our group for making this trip a lot easier than it could have been. We were all there for each other.

Loss - too many to fully comprehend.

Monuments - plenty of sites commemorating the dead, but memorials do not make up for the loss.

Numbers - we still cannot comprehend 6 million.

Organisation - thankfully this challenging trip was very well organised.

Personal family stories - so many told by people on the trip. Some made us laugh but many made us cry.

Questions - for us there are more questions than answers. The biggest question being Why?!? Why was the world so anti-semitic and why is it still?

Rav Tzvi - for his spiritual input and support as well as his stories of rabbinic heroes before and during the war.

Sara Pellech - our brilliant tour guide who led us through what for her was obviously a very emotional experience even though this was tour number 351 for her.

Thankful - that we have the support of family and friends who have been with us through our difficult times.

Understanding - of what really happened during the Holocaust, at least somewhat more than before the trip. As mentioned earlier we both had no firsthand knowledge of the Holocaust as our ancestors left eastern Europe in generations before the war, some because of Russian pogroms or similar anti-semitism of the 19th century.

Volunteers - in the Warsaw JCC some Poles who discover they have Jewish backgrounds still choose to participate as non-Jewish helpers in the Jewish Community Center.

We won! - The fact that we Jews can come back to Poland free and be able to thumb our noses at those who wanted to destroy us. To be able to sing and dance and bring back some Jewish life to Polish society.

Xenophobia - today Poland is amongst the European (and other) countries blocking Muslims and generally refugees who differ from the white Polish population.

Yellow stars & armbands - for all Jews, but tattoos only for those in Auschwitz not immediately exterminated on arrival.



"Snowflakes" a poem by Leora Damelin, copied with her permission:

Snowflakes

They come falling down from the skies, each one its own special crystal with its own special shape, magnificence, perfection.. some are big & some are small, some are fat, some are thin, each one its own unique form...

On this frozen, dull, grey land, they seem to come down so quickly & so quietly, they land & they melt. Gone! -just like that, the snow flake is gone - that snow flake will never be again!

Neshamot Tehorot

They come down from Shamayim, each & every one, its own special spark, in its own special body, with its own unique shape, face, shining eyes, smile... On this blood stained soil, they seem to go down so quickly, so quietly, they are beaten, tortured, shot, gassed!! He or she is no longer... that mother, father, zaide, bobba, child, baby is gone, just like that!

But those neshamot do continue to live in me, in you & you & you... in us all - Never Again!

!!! עם ישראל חי
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