Today's Visit to Majdanek

Rachel Barr:
“Today we visited Majdanek. I was really shocked having seen concentration camps before. We saw the gas chambers and a barrack that was filled with piles and piles of shoes and I cannot imagine how one human being could do this to another human being and how someone could even build a gas chamber specifically to kill others. How could Nazis believe that shoes, clothes, and the hair of people were more important than the people themselves? It was really weird to be walking around a place where so many people had been murdered.

When we saw the ashes of the victims there was a bouquet of flowers that had also turned to ash and there were even bones. I could not imagine just how many people had been turned to ash—and for what.?

Finally I was really surprised with how close the town was to the camp. The people (of the town) had to know what was going on in the camp and yet they did absolutely nothing. The entire city of Lublin had to know what was going on in this camp.”

Sarah Warren said the group had lots of deep discussions tonight so that they could process what they saw. She said everyone is doing great and they are a very bright and sensitive group of students.

More Information About Warsaw

The students will visit several cities seeing remnants of the Ghetto of: Warsaw, Krakow, Lublin and Lodz. During their visit to Warsaw they learned about not only life in the ghetto but the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto. Here is additional information about the Warsaw Ghetto, the uprising and Jewish resistance.

When I hear from the kids, I will send you their direct quotes, too.
Thanks
Barb

In September of 1939 Poland’s total population was about 33 million. Ten percent were Jews. Jews had lived and thrived in Poland for hundreds of years. Nazi Germany’s Blitzkrieg and the partition of Poland brought two million Jews under German rule. For Hitler, this “Jewish Problem” was one of enormous proportions. According to Nazi racial ideology, Poles were much inferior to Germans. Eastern European Jewry—Polish Jews among them—ranked even lower. Nazis referred to the Jews as sub-humans. Polish Jews therefore were given even less respect than the German Jews had received. Although the development of the Nuremberg Laws in Germany was a gradual process, allowing some German Jews the opportunity to leave; in Poland it was quite different. Things happened almost overnight.

The Nazis established their first ghetto on October 8, 1939. It stood in the Lodz district of Occupied Poland. A year later 500,000 Jews in Warsaw, Poland, struggled to survive in constantly deteriorating ghetto conditions. Severe hunger, overcrowding, disease and despair caused the Warsaw ghetto and other ghettos like it in cities such as Lodz and Lublin (Poland) Lvov and Minsk (Soviet Union), Kovno and Vilna (Lithuania) and Riga (Latvia) to become places of horrible suffering and death.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the ghettos organized by the Nazis in Poland. A tiny section of the city, an area of 3.5 square miles, imprisoned half a million Jews. It covered almost 2 percent of the city’s area but contained 30 percent of its population. With the fall of Poland the Nazis forced Jews to wear identifying armbands, confiscated their properties, and forced them into hard labor. They concentrated Warsaw’s Jews in the northern part of the city, the most heavily Jewish populated district. Each building in the ghetto housed an average of 400 people; rooms held an average of six to seven people. Many took refuge in courtyards, under stairways, or in cellars of bombed out houses.

The walls of the Warsaw Ghetto were sealed on November 16, 1940; and from that time until the final liquidation, the traffic to and from the ghetto was tightly regulated. The barbed wire and wooden fences originally erected gave way to an 11 foot high brick wall topped with broken glass. At first the ghetto had 22 gates and openings in the wall. By April 1941 only 13 remained, all of which were guarded by police: German, Polish and Jewish. Today all that remains is one small portion of the wall and a few old tenements which your children viewed.

The Nazis provided only minimal food supplies, rationing them in exchange for the output of forced labor and products that were produced by the ghetto craftsmen. The food allocations equaled 200 calories per person. The Nazis permitted no fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, fish or milk. Safe drinking water was scarce. Food allocations were distributed through the Judenrat, the Jewish council appointed by the Nazis. The Council was responsible for housing assignments, meeting roundup quotas, and other “choiceless choices” that were forced upon the Jews by the Nazis. Some people were part of this Council because they thought it would save themselves and their families; others thought they could be kinder to the Jewish residents than the Nazis. Either way, they often were despised by the residents of the ghetto and in the end they met their deaths as well.

During the winter, when sewage pipes froze, human excrement was dumped in the streets. Many ghetto residents died on a daily basis. Old people and children simply lied down in the streets and died. About 500,000 residents of Warsaw lost their lives during the Nazi occupation.

Jewish children were a particular affront to the Nazis as they were the “future of the Jewish race.” Furthermore they were useless because few of them could work. Therefore they usually were the first among the victims of Nazi pogroms. Children of the ghetto were particularly vulnerable to the harsh treatment of the Nazis. Without proper food, shelter and clothing, childhood death rates were extremely high. In addition with schools closed and parents dieing, the traditional family structures were shattered, and children of the ghettos were deprived of education and their innocence. Many of the children of the ghettos became the “smugglers”. Because of their small size, they were able to squeeze through cracks and holes in the walls, meet up with the underground through the sewer system, and bring back food, weapons, and other items needed to survive within the ghetto walls. There is an actual sewer or manhole in the middle of the Warsaw Cemetery where many of these children of the Warsaw Ghetto ended up escaping to in order to meet up with the underground and receive goods to smuggle back into the ghetto.

During 1942 and 1943, the Nazis “liquidated” the ghettos by deporting and murdering their inhabitants. Those in Warsaw were sent mostly to Treblinka. Round ups became a daily occurrence in the ghettos.

The tragic history of the Warsaw Jewish community can be heard in the word, Umschlagplatz (transfer point). During the deportations that began in July 1942; an average of 7,000 Jews per day were forcibly marched to the Umschlagplatz, a way station to the Treblinka extermination camp. German police, the SS and their Latvian and Ukrainian helpers would search the streets of Warsaw, rounding up Jews to send to this way station. Jews of Warsaw knew that it was imperative to their survival to avoid this holding place of death. (See the film The Pianist)

Today there is a small memorial to the Umschlagplatz. Your children went there and saw what basically looks like a box car structure made of marble, with the first names of ghetto residents inscribed on it. In the middle of this structure is a small opening with a tree in eye view. Students are asked to reflect on this memorial. Some will find their own names inscribed on the wall; others will find their Hebrew Names. The horrible circumstances of the ghetto, coupled with the appalling conditions on the trains, caused many of those who began the journey of death to die here at this point and even before they reached their final destination. And of course, those who survived the trains or the conditions of the ghetto or the brutality of the Nazi guards were ultimately murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka.

One cannot leave the city of Warsaw without remembering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In the summer of 1942 the Nazis removed 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. Most went to Treblinka. Approximately 700 to 750 Jewish men and women armed themselves as best they could. They were determined to resist the roundups and the Nazis who were intent on destroying the nearly 60,000 Jews who remained in the ghetto in the early spring of 1943. On April 19, the eve of Passover, the Germans entered the ghetto to liquidate it for good. They met up with the first “urban uprising” in German-occupied Europe. It lasted from April 19 to May 16, 1943. Although the poorly armed Jewish fighters were outnumbered 3 to 1 by Nazis who had tanks and cannons, it was not until May 8 that the Germans destroyed the Jewish Fighting Organization’s headquarters bunker at 18 Mila Street, where Mordecai Anielewicz, the organization’s commander, died.

Although on May 16 General Stroop declared victory over the Warsaw Ghetto, and although only 16 Germans were killed and 85 were wounded, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising remains highly important as another example of heroic Jewish resistance against ENORMOUS ODDS. Furthermore it prompted Poles to revolt and others in other places to do the same.

The Rapoport Memorial of the Warsaw Ghetto can be seen both in Warsaw and at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. It stands as tall as the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto did in the year 1948 -- piled 16 feet high covering hundreds of acres. When your children come home, ask them what they remember about this memorial and what was different about the memorial as seen in Poland versus the one at Yad Vashem in Israel. Both are a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Wednesday July 2, 2008: Majdanek

Dear Family and Friends:

Today your children visited the Old City of Lublin, home to a very famous Yeshiva. They witnessed a bustling town, both then and now, that was once home to a very large Jewish community. After visiting the Great Yeshiva of Lublin and learning about the religious life of the many Jewish communities of Poland, your children gained an understanding of the nature of so many Jewish communities in Poland prior to the Holocaust.

Most Polish Jews were very religious, spoke Yiddish, and had established their own communities and agencies within the larger cities or even smaller towns of Poland. In contrast the Jews of Western Europe, including Germany, were far more secular and assimilated. They spoke the language of the country where they resided and they experienced high rates of intermarriage. Their nationality (German, French, Dutch, etc.) often preceded their religion in rank of importance; not so, for the Jews of Poland.

Following their visit to Lublin your children went to what I believe has to be one of the darkest places on earth. At Treblinka they saw a memorial to the camp. In Treblinka grass now grows and there are beautiful forests. Treblinka was hidden from the cities and placed deep in the countryside and the forest.

Majdanek is a concentration camp and an extermination camp that is located on the Southern outskirts of the city of Lublin. It is in full view! Originally established in 1941 for prisoners of war, it was soon turned into a camp for Jews with a maximum capacity of 35,000 inmates. All transports to the Camp consisted mainly of Jews and to a lesser extent, Poles. The first groups of Jews arrived from Slovakia followed by Bohemia and Moravia and then Poland. Early in 1943 Dutch and Greek Jews also arrived. Polish Jews mostly came from Warsaw and Bialystock and Lublin.

Altogether about 800,000 were sent to Majdanek in 1942-43 of whom about 60 percent were women and children, the sick and the elderly, and were either shot or gassed upon arrival. By November 1943 an addition 37,000 victims had either succumbed to the unbearable living conditions or to sadistic treatment by Camp guards. Until the spring of 1942 prisoners were usually shot in a nearby forest, but afterwards two of the camps four Zyklon B gas chambers were used and the bodies were then cremated.

Toward the end of 1943 a strong partisan movement developed in the Lublin district. At the same time the Jewish prisoners of the death camp of Sobibor revolted. In retaliation the Germans carried out a massacre euphemistically named the Harvest Festival of 42,000 Jews, some of whom had been brought from the nearby work camps. This “action” included the machine gunning of 18,000 Jews in a single day (November 3, 1943) I front of the ditches that the victims were made to dig to serve as their own graves.

When the camp was liberated by the advancing Soviet armies (July, 1944) only a few hundred prisoners were still alive.

In 1947 the Polish authorities established a museum and research institute at Majdanek. With the exception of many of the barracks, which were dismantled at the approach of the army, the rest of the camp remains today much as it was on the last day of operation.

For more information on Majdanek visit: http://www.cympm.com/majdanekcitysuburbs.html


My Personal Reflections:

When one sees Majdanek there are so many unthinkable moments. One is struck by the devastating notion that man can be so incredibly evil and most cannot but help wonder about the following among many other things:

First, the Commandant’s house, located next to the gas chambers. Here, the commandant and his family, including his many, many children, lived within a few hundred feet of the gas chambers. The children played in the yard as prisoners arrived and as victims, women and children, stood in the lines waiting to enter the gas chambers.

Next, the camp is extremely close to the city of Lublin—a large bustling city. Even today, apartment buildings have been built where one’s central view from the apartment balcony is of the camp. When I was at Majdanek I could hear radios playing from these apartments as I walked through the barracks. I was amazed that any one would build apartments so close to the camp even if they were built after the Shoah. Because of the camp’s proximity to the city, one also realizes that those who were sent to Majdanek were first brought by trains that stopped at the train station in the heart of the City of Lublin. Unlike Treblinka or Auschwitz, the trains did not pull directly into the camps, where they were out of view. It was obvious that the residents of Lublin had to have been eyewitnesses to what was going on; there was no way to deny this fact. They had to see the thousands of people arriving daily with suitcases in hand walking through the city and into the camp. They had to smell the burning flesh.

Finally the reality of the gas chambers in Majdanek and the crematoriums, left totally in tact as they were then, are very hard to comprehend—factories of death to kill human beings in the 20th century. As you approach the gas chambers, written above the doorway are the words, “Bath and Disinfection.” After being in ghettos, traveling on cramped trains for hours and even days, and being subjected to many other horrific circumstances, those who arrived here were lead to believe that they were going to a work camp and would have the opportunity to shower and clean up. To make sure everyone remained calm, they were told to enter the room marked Bath and Disinfection, and it was here that they encountered hooks for their clothing, a place to put their shoes, and actual showerheads. There they were asked to undress and remove their clothes, men, women and children together, while Nazi guards looked on intentionally humiliating all. Once undressed, water really did come out of these shower heads. However, after showering, they then were asked to move into the next room where they were told they would be deloused.

When you enter this room and stand there with others, you feel nervous, anxious, and you can see with your own eyes the cement walls that held thousands and thousands of people-- covered with scratch marks of those who tried to survive the gas.

Jewish prisoners of the camp were forced to remove the bodies from the chambers and take them to the crematoriums on the opposite end of the camp.

Next to these many ovens in Majdanek one cannot help but notice a porcelain bath tub. It was here that the commandant of the camp would bathe. The heat from the ovens provided him with a hot bath and a warm sauna. This was the mentality of the incredibly sadistic Guards of these Camps.

After touring the entire camp, and after seeing barracks filled with shoes--shoes, shoes and more shoes, one is struck by the magnitude of loss. One also wonders about the individual--who were the persons who walked in the high heeled shoes, the baby shoes, the heavy boots, the torn-up flats?

At the end of the camp is a stadium-size mound of human ash and bones, piled high and wide. It is covered by a tremendous dome. It was established as a memorial to those murdered at the Camp. It is virtually unimaginable to comprehend how many were killed when just one handful of ash is the equivalent of one human body.

Visiting Majdanek is grueling. It is a horrible place and one that reflects the magnitude of the Holocaust. Tonight your students will have an opportunity to talk about what they witnessed and to share their feelings with their guides, their educators, and with each other.

As soon as I hear from your children with quotes about their experiences today, I will forward them to you.

All the best,
Barb

Reflections on Warsaw, Tykocin and Treblinka

Sophie Kanter:
“Today was othe second day of our trip. First we went to the deportation place or the umhschalplatz in Warsaw. This is where the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto waited for the trains that took them to Treblinka. We heard stories of people being deported. We held a ceremony there and reflected on the names of those who went to their deaths. After this we went to Tykocin; my group was responsible for the ceremony in the Forest. It was very, very sad and we reflected on those who were murdered in this forest. It was very sad and we lit candles. This was very interesting for me because this was what our group had researched before we went on the trip. We also sang Hatikvah as this was the song the Jews sung as they marched through the Forest to their deaths. Following this we went to Treblinka. It is a huge memorial filled with thousands of stones representing little villages, towns, and major cities in Europe where Jews once lived. We saw the monument that represents the town where Sarah Warren’s family was from. In the middle of this rather peaceful and somewhat beautiful area is a huge monument that represents where the gas chambers once stood. We all gathered there and had a lot of discussions about what was lost and our feelings about the trip. This was probably the saddest part of the day. It was a really interesting day but it was very sad.”

Lauren Marmer:
“Today we went to the three mass graves in the Forest which was pretty intense. It was really beautiful in the forest but it was so sad to see where mass murders occurred in this beautiful forest. We also were on the bus forever today! We went to Treblinka and saw the huge monument representing the gas chambers and we saw the stone representing Sarah’s family’s community. It was so sad hearing the stories and talking about it. It was really emotional for me; I almost walked away. I cried and was very emotional. I was surprised I would react this way. I think the Polish people can be somewhat rude but I think the country is beautiful. Believe it or not I am having fun, too!”

Jeff Spitz:
I am calling on our first full day of Poland. I have enjoyed our trip so far even though we have had some long bus rides and long waits. Today we saw Treblinka, the concentration camp, and it was pretty intense and there were just monuments; no remains of the gas chambers. But even with that it was pretty cool to see. Something I learned from this trip is that before, when I thought about concentration camps, I would think dry land, cloudy skies and no trees. But, when I got to Treblinka it was really beautiful, birds chirping, forests and it was so weird that all these people could be killed in such a beautiful place. That shocked me because I always thought concentration camps were barren places.”

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

My Experience at the Nozyk Shul

by Barb Miller

During my visit to the Nozyk Shul (when I chaperoned March of the Living with Sarah Warren as a student), I sat next to a young Polish woman in her early 20’s on a Shabbat morning. I asked her what brought her to the synagogue as I did not think she was Jewish. She told me a story typical of many who come to this shul: She said she had recently learned that her grandmother was Jewish. Her grandmother, who had survived the Holocaust and remained in Poland, then married a Polish man. However, her grandmother hid her Judaism to avoid any further anti-Semitic problems in post-holocaust Poland. Although the man she married was Catholic, with the rise of communism, no religion was practiced. During this time period they gave birth to the young woman’s mother. Her mother also married a Catholic man. Her mother and father, with the fall of Communism, raised her to be Catholic. However, when her grandmother was on her death bed, her grandmother confessed to the Catholic priest that she was a Jew. Halachically this meant that not only was her daughter a Jew but her granddaughter was too. Although the mother was not interested in pursuing her Jewish roots, this young girl seated next to me was. Rabbi Shudrich of the Nozyk Synagogue has outreached to many of these young people with similar stories. As a matter of fact, in Warsaw there not only is a functioning synagogue, but there is a thriving Jewish Day School known as the Lauder Jewish Day School.

A Story about the Lauder Jewish Day School:
“The woman was a survivor of ghettos, concentration camps, and death marches, but at the end of the war, she remained in Poland. Despite the hardships of Communism and despite the periodic anti-Semitic slurs, she was one of several thousand who stayed on. She never thought her sons and daughters would have a Jewish life, and indeed, few options were open to them as they grew up, married and had children of their own. But on a September morning in 1994 this elderly Holocaust survivor collected her grandchildren and took them across Warsaw to a modern building in the suburbs. Stepping inside, she placed them before the administrator and smiled. “I can hardly believe I am here,” she said. “A Jewish school in Poland; so I want to enroll these two—I want them to have the chance I could not give my children.”

The establishment of the Lauder Morasha School in Warsaw, the first Jewish school in Poland in more than a quarter of a century, marked a watershed in an extraordinary reawakening of Jewish life on Polish soil. Just a decade ago, a viable Jewish future seemed impossible to contemplate. With the loss of three million Polish Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, many observers believed that Poland’s thousand year Jewish History had come to an end.”

Thousands of young and not so young Poles are reclaiming their Jewish identity through a myriad of programs which the Ron Lauder (Estee Lauder) Foundation supports as does Rabbi Michael Shudrich of the Nozyk Shul. Many synagogues and Jewish sites in Poland that have been restored are because of the Lauder Foundation.

Reflections on Warsaw

Calling from the hotel in Warsaw on Monday night are the following students:

Sarah Schneider: “We had a nice day today. We had a long wait in the Newark airport at first so we were pretty tired but when we got to Warsaw it was pretty neat. We went first to a cemetery and learned about the people who were buried there and what they did for a living. We also saw a mass grave and some of us lit candles to memorialize those who died and were buried there.

“We also went to a church where there is a statue of Pope John Paul II and we learned about what he did during his years in Poland and helping Jews suffering through the Holocaust. We also saw the only remaining synagogue in Warsaw, the Nozyk Synagogue, and then we saw one of the only remaining buildings still standing of the Warsaw Ghetto.”

Yuliya Azirbayeva: “After the long tiring plane ride and waiting at the airport everything was really interesting in Poland. All the places we saw like the Cemetery and the wall of the ghetto were really interesting. I would not say it was fun but it was really deep and intense. At the end of the day we had dinner together and now we are having some fun in the hotel.”

Daniel Makutonin: “What really struck me was the cemetery we went to and the unmarked graves of 80,000 people and so many children. I am really looking forward to the rest of the week and the end of the trip because I LOVE ISRAEL!”

Joanna Kaisar: “Today was great! We visited the biggest Jewish cemetery in Eastern Europe. It was really interesting to see the tombstones and learn about the people by interpreting the symbols and reading about who they were. We saw the Wall of the Jewish Ghetto and we talked about how small the ghetto was and how many people had been contained in such a small area. It was really cool to see the only synagogue still remaining in Warsaw. Poland is actually beautiful and I really like it.”

For more information about the Nozyk Synagogue Visit: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/poland/WarsawGhetto/WarsawGhetto06.html

For more information about the Warsaw Ghetto, Visit: http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto/home_warsaw.html

Have a Great Day!

Barb

Monday, June 30: Warsaw

Dear Family and Friends,

Today your children are in Warsaw. During their stay they will visit the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, the House of Janus Korzak, The Zlota Wall, Mila 18 and the Rappaport Memorial. They also will see the Umschlagplatz—the place where the ghetto residents waited for the trains that took them to Treblinka.

Later they will have dinner in Warsaw and drive to Lublin where they will spend the night. As I hear from the students I will send you their personal updates and quotes. In the mean time I will provide you with some information about specific sights on their journey.

Since they began their trip with a visit to the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, I will begin with this site. Although it is a huge cemetery, this incredible place reveals so much about the Jewish Community of Warsaw and of Poland in general. Established in 1806, it is located on Okopowa Street. It is estimated that there are 300,000 people buried in this cemetery, perhaps even more. However, there are 100,000 tombs that have been preserved. The Warsaw Cemetery is one of the few remaining cemeteries in Poland where new burial still takes place.

There is a mass grave of Jews who perished between 1940 and 1943 during the war due mainly to starvation. It is to the left of the wall surrounding the original cemetery and during the war it was part of the Ghetto. As one enters the gate of the cemetery you see on the left an administration building which before the war housed hearses. On the site of a grassy path to the right stood until 1939 buildings of pre-burial houses with rooms for the Tahara (cleaning of the body) and a prayer house. To the right of that is a wall that was built in 1907. Another brick wall into which elements of tombstones destroyed during the war also has been built and was put up by the Poles after World War II.

Students will walk to several gravestones of prominent Jews and by visiting each one of them they will learn the symbols of the gravestones and begin to understand just what was lost when close to 3 million Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Great rabbis, doctors, authors, artists, playwrights, bankers, etc., are buried in this unbelievably immense cemetery. The dates go back more than 200 years.

It is the right place to start a journey to Poland in order to understand how Jewish individuals and communities lived and even thrived for several centuries in Poland. One of those individuals well known among Poles and Jews and a hero in his own right is Janus Korzak. Today the students will visit his orphanage.

Dr. Janus Korzak (or Korczak) was an incredible hero. There is a memorial to him at the Warsaw Cemetery and at Yad Vashem. Both show him with his arms reaching around children. He was well known throughout Poland and he was if you will the Dr. Spock of his day. However, he rejected many offers to be saved from extermination in the Nazi death camps. He refused to desert the children to whom he devoted his entire life, so that even as they approached death they would be able to maintain their faith in human goodness. He easily could have saved himself. He was repeatedly urged to do so by his many Polish admirers and friends as he was a prominent figure in Polish cutural life by the time he had died. He was offered false identity paper and they arranged for his escape from the Warsaw Ghetto. Even the children whom he had rescued from neglect in the past begged him to save himself. But as the head of the Jewish orphanage in Warsaw for 30 years, Korzak was determined not to abandon the children who trusted him.

On August 6, 1942 the Nazis ordered the 200 children who remained in the Jewish orphanage of the Warsaw Ghetto to a train station only to be packed into railroad cars. Korczak, like most other adults of the Ghetto, knew at this time that they were to be taken to their deaths in the gas chambers of Treblinka.

To deceive the children of their fate, Korczak told them that they were all going on an outing or a picnic in the countryside. On this day he had the oldest child lead them through the streets, carrying high the flag of hope, a gold four leaf clover on a field of green--the emblem of the orphanage. Even in the most terrible of situations Korczak had arranged things so that a child rather than an adult would be the leader of the other children. He walked immediately behind this leader, holding the hands of the two smallest children. Behind them marched all the other children, 4 x 4, in excellent order. Many saw the children walk to the trains accompanied by the many they loved as much as one can love a father.

Many years preceding this Korcak had been known all over Poland as "The Old Doctor." He used this name when delivering his state radio talks on children and their education. He was one of the first to treat children as little people. He became a familiar name even to those who had not read his books. He even had received Poland's highest literary prize. He wrote plays and numerous articles on children. He not only fully understood the child's point of view, but deeply respected and appreciated it. What he taught best was the title of one of his most famous books "How One Ought to Love a Child."

He was born Henryk Goldszmit, and came from two generations of educated Jews who had broken away from the Jewish tradition to assimilate into the Polish culture. His grandfather also was a successful doctor and his father a successful lawyer. He spent his early life in comfortable circumstances. His family were Jewish but in terms of religious Polish Jewish life they were non-practicing Jews who spoke only Polish, not Yiddish. So although he was well cared for as a child he knew practically from birth what it meant to be an outsider in a certain way. He changed his name from Goldschmit to Korczak when he was 18 years old. His father at this time had died and the family had economic hardships. As a university student he began to support himself, his mother and his sister by writing. He therefore thought by adopting a Polish sounding name this would prevent him from being disqualified in a literary competition. Although he did not win the competition he kept this new penname.

As a medical student specializing in pediatrics, Korzcak worked in the slums of Warsaw, hoping that by combining medical treatment for children's physical ills with spiritual assistance; he would be able to effect changes in their living conditions. He was angry at how children were forced to live and spend their lives. In 1912 he decided to give up his medical practice and devote his life to helping suffering children. In his early thirties he then became the director of the Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. From then until his death, he lived and worked at the orphanage, the only interruption was his service as a physician in the Russian army during World War I.
Many of Korcak's ideas are now commonplace but they were radically new at the beginning of the century. He stressed the importance of respecting children and their ideas even when we cannot agree with them. He insisted that it is wrong to base expectations of children on what we want them to be in the future. He felt it more important to be concerned with what the child is now--not what we wish for him or her.

His most widely read book is "King Matt the First," a story of a boy who on the death of his father becomes king and immediately sets out to change his kingdom for the benefit of children and adults alike. King Matt is really none other than Korczak himself, recreated as a child, who did battle against all the injustices of the world, most of all against those that inflicted the kids.
From the time of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 Korczak knew the end was coming. On the last pages of his diary in 1942, Korczak wrote, "I am angry with nobody, I don't wish anyone evil."

The memorial at Treblinka to the 840,000 Jews who were murdered there consists of large rocks, marking the areas (cities or countries or towns) in which they died. The rocks bear no inscriptions other than the name of the city or country from which the victims came. One rock however is inscribed with a man's name; it reads: "Janus Korczak (Henry Goldszmit) and the Children"

"When everyone acts inhuman, what should a man do?" asked the Rabbis. The answer was: “He should act more human."

It is almost 3 p.m. and I have to leave the office today for a meeting. I will report tomorrow on what your children say about their journey thus far. As you know they will be calling me and leaving voice messages on my machine. As I receive my messages I will forward their reports to you.

Have a nice evening.

Barb

The Group Has Landed in Warsaw

Dear Parents, Friends and Family,

The Cincinnati Jewish Experience in Israel and Poland group landed in Warsaw at approximately 1:30 p.m. Warsaw time (early this morning). As you probably know their flight was delayed and they left last night from Newark around 11 p.m.

Sarah Warren called to say that all is GREAT! They were met by the guide, Razi Mamet, the Director of the Partnership and their Israeli Chaperones. They are currently touring the Warsaw Cemetery and will then stop for lunch!

I am sure they will sleep well tonight! I am waiting to hear for their daily report and as soon as I do I will send another email.

It was great seeing all of you at the airport yesterday. If you can email me some of the photos that were taken, we will post them on our website.

All the best,
Barb