KRAKOW TO WARSAW

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Friday, August 8th

Set out from hotel for another very full day. Began at the Kazimierz district. This was the old Jewish district and Janusz gave us a detailed historical talk as we stood in the shade for an hour outside the Old Synagogue. We reviewed how the Jews came to Poland, how they were treated in different times, and how they came to be in Kazimierz (moved there by the king when they were forbidden to live anymore in Krakow itself). We went to the Ramuh Synagogue, the synagogue of Rabbi Moses Isserles who wrote the Mapah, the commentary to the Shulhan Aruch. We saw the adjacent cemetery, including the wall at one end constructed of broken pieces of gravestones that had been destroyed or fallen over the years. It was amazing how much of this cemetery had survived. They are restoring gravestones in one corner. We then walked to the Tempel synagogue, originally a beautiful Reform congregation and now restored to its beauty by foundations and wealthy overseas Jewish families. Stunning.

After this, we went by bus to the area of the Jewish ghetto during Nazi times. We just drove past and paused to look at the memorial sculpture of empty chairs and the “pharmacy” on the corner where a non-Jewish owner kept medicine and such flowing into the ghetto to save Jewish lives. We drove past the factory where Schindler kept the Jews working and saved their lives; and then walked up to the edge of the empty fields and hills that had been the Plashkow Concentration Camp. Again, the Nazis pulled down all buildings and destroyed all evidence of the camp and the workshops there at the end of the war as they retreated. There is a large monument built by the Soviets that does not mention Jews - just Poles in general. That was the Soviet approach at every Holocaust site. In last ten years or so there are two smaller plaques put up by governments and others, including the Hungarian government because Hungarian Jews were sent to Plashkow.

We continued on to the train station. Oy. So many stairs: up and down, carrying the suitcases because the elevator didn’t work to our track. Then, on the train (first class car) with 6 to the compartment. Very comfy. All was good - except we were shocked to hear that the same morning of our travels, there was a terrible train crash from Krakow to Prague.

Arrived in Warsaw and transferred on very fancy bus over to Polonia Palace Hotel. Heard how 90% of those in Warsaw after it was rebuilt by Soviets are not originally from here. Started to hear about the destruction of Warsaw by the Nazis. More on that tomorrow. The hotel is gorgeous, recently (2004?) renovated. We had 30 minutes to change and went off to have Shabbat with the people of Beit Warsaw. That blog comes next. Best evening of the trip, hands down. Unanimous opinion!

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