Tuesday July 1, 2008: Tykocin and Treblinka

Today included an amazing visit to a small shtetl (village) known as Tykocin. This little village, where Jews lived for hundreds of years, reminds one of Fiddler on the Roof. In this small little town, there are wooden houses, livestock, a river, a Russian Orthodox Church, a synagogue that has been beautifully renovated, and a town square. Jews lived here with their Christian neighbors for hundreds of years. The Jews lived on one side of the market square and the Christians lived on the other side. They did business together in the square; yet, kept a distance from one another and practiced their religions separately.

As one walks through this town, you cannot help but notice the places where mezuzahs once hung on the doorframes of the Jewish homes. You sometimes even notice Stars of David in the carvings of the exteriors of the homes. Running alongside the town is the river, a beautiful river that runs parallel with the main street. While the Church is at one end of the town, surrounded by the Christian homes, the synagogues is in another part of the town surrounded by the Jewish homes. At the very end of the Jewish section is the Old Jewish Cemetery--on the extreme opposite end of the Church.

When you walk through this town after visiting the beautiful synagogue, you can't help but notice that there are no people to be seen anywhere. They hide! They hide with shame and with guilt. Those who live here today, and especially the elderly, lived here during the Shoah. Those who are young are the descendants and have inherited the guilt or perhaps sin of their fathers. This little village, an Anitevka if you will, remains relatively unchanged with just one exception--there are no Jews.

Your children visited the synagogue today. They sang and celebrated the Jewish people's survival. They saw with their own eyes what once was a magnificent synagogue, including the little room where the custodian of the synagogue lived. They walked through the main road of Tykocin. They saw chickens, perhaps pigs, and even ducks in the yards. And most likely they saw people hiding, peaking behind their curtains as they walked through the town.

At the end of the town, there is what was once a Jewish cemetery. No more. The gravestones are gone. Where are they? The townspeople threw them in the river. There are very little traces that Jews ever lived in Tykocin. And perhaps without the Lauder Foundation and their renovation of the beautiful remaining synagogue and perhaps without other Jewish groups who visit here, all would have been forgotten. For what happened in Tykocin happened in many little towns during the Nazi Occupation.

When the Nazis came to Tykocin, they rounded up all 1400 Jews--children, the elderly, men, women, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and babies. Their neighbors watched. Their neighbors helped. The Nazis marched the Jews to a forest about 5 miles from Tykocin. There they made them take off their clothes and in three mass graves, they machine-gunned all the Jewish residents of Tykocin. When the Nazis left the mass graves, some, a handful of people, who feigned their deaths and fell into the pits, survived and escaped from the graves. Although these survivors lost everyone they ever knew, they managed to escape into the Forests and survive with the partisans, living to tell the story of Tykocin.

When the war ended these same people returned to this little town. When they went to their homes, they saw that their Christian neighbors whom they had lived side by side with for generations, had moved into their homes, taking their belongings, and were unwilling to return them or to welcome them back.

. . .and the Jewish cemetery? What became of it? Well, on a clear day, when you stand in front of the church on a bridge overlooking the river, you can see Hebrew letters illuminated by the sun's rays. Once the Jews of Tykocin had been eliminated, so were any traces that Jews ever lived or died here. The gravestones remain at the basin of the river.

Sarah and Brian just called. They said this is an amazing group of kids. Very engaged and well behaved. They will be leaving voice messages this evening. Tomorrow I will report on their visits with direct quotes. At that time I will also update you on their visit to the memorial of Treblinka Death Camp.

Talk to you then!
Have a nice evening.
Barb