TREBLINKA

After a long night of flying we arrived in Warsaw right around 1pm, after what seemed days apart – though really our perception of time was just skewed by lack of sleep and jetlag. We were met at the airport by Claire Simmons and our Polish guide, Jed.

We traveled to Treblinka, where most of the Jews of Warsaw were murdered. The bus crossed the very train tracks and we saw the landscape similar to that which our people saw from the cracks in the cattle cars. Upon our arrival, we were surprised by the sight of bus loads of Israel Defense Forces personnel. Our walk into Treblinka was met with silence – the solitude of a place encompassed by heavy forested areas and sky that together concealed the atrocities of this place. Instead of the buildings, gas chambers, and burning pits that once stood here, which operated for 13 months (beginning in July 1942), were dismantled by the Nazis in 1943. Treblinka is now marked only by 1,700 stone markers – one for each Jewish community destroyed there and one that bears the name of an individual, of Janusz Korczak, the famous doctor and educator who led the orphans under his care boldly to their death. We saw the platform where Jews were unloaded and deceived by what looked like a normal train station, complete with a station house and ticket booth. Shortly after their arrival, they would learn the truth – here they were run down the snaking path, a narrow path from entry through the camp to the gas chamber, referred to by the Germans as the “road to heaven.” They were beaten viciously as they went to their death. 870,000 Jews were murdered in Treblinka.

We spoke about the topography of Poland and how it contributed to the silence of Treblinka. The empty fields surrounded by woods masked the horrors of Treblinka. A museum recently opened on the grounds of Treblinka, where we were able to view a detailed 3-dimensional model of the camp, helping us to visualize the use of space for these tremendous atrocities.

We held a memorial ceremony for those who were murdered. We read about survival,strength of those who met their deaths, and those who revolted.  We spoke of the generations lost, and read the words “Ani Ma’amin,” “I believe,” over and over again, juxtaposing the longevity and intensity of Jewish faith with the realities of Treblinka, Sobibor, Bergen Belsen, and Auschwitz. We sang for the religious Jewish community and the Zionist community, embracing all members of the Jewish community and their political, social and cultural beliefs through the words we sang and read. In closing, we wandered the site, taking our own time to process the place where we found ourselves, the grill where the bodies were burned, the vast emptiness and the sunken images of the mass graves.

 Off we go.......