In the Footsteps of our History Part 2

Tuesday August 1st

What does one think of when one thinks of the Warsaw Ghetto? Many people automatically think of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. However, to get that event, it’s important to understand the conditions in the Ghetto, how people scraped to survive, and how ultimately the Ghetto was destroyed. 

Today if you walk in Warsaw there is an area demarcated with red bricks on the road which indicate the walls of the former Ghetto. The area is approximately 2.8% of the area of the entire city and included the poorer area of Warsaw at that. Non-Jews living there were relocated to Jewish homes, and the entire Jewish population of Warsaw, over 350,000 individuals, were shoehorned into this small locale. This was compounded by the addition of Jews from surrounding towns and villages. At the apex, over 560,000 people were crammed into the ghetto. The average number of people populating these homes was 9 people per room. 

The food situation in the Ghetto was also beyond comprehension. People were given rations of 180 calories per day. That’s not a misprint. The rations were intentionally at starvation level. Survival was based on the ability to smuggle in food. This took all means of black-market trade with soldiers, with Poles living on the outside, primarily via small children who could take advantage of small holes in the Ghetto walls to get in and out. Clearly this was highly perilous; most of the children were under 11 years of age to be able to contort in and out, then steal food or negotiate with people on the outside. Hunger and disease were thus rampant. We saw a mass burial site and memorial in the Warsaw cemetery to the 100,000 or so who died of typhus and other diseases in the ghetto. Unfortunately, the vast majority met an even more difficult end. 

We moved on to the area where the main train platform, the Umschlagplatz, had been. That was where the mass transports to labor and death camps were organized, and this was known as “Resettlement”.  People were herded from the ghetto to the train stations with the promise of going to work for the Reich in some productive labor. Instead, they were loaded onto cattle cars and, during the peak times in summer of 1942, headed off to Treblinka, from where there was no return. More about Treblinka later. 

The resettlement transports and disease decimated the Jewish population of Warsaw. However, there were groups who attempted to show some resistance to the German armies. Housed in an apartment complex at Mila 18, there were several disparate groups who tried to put up a fight. The largest, led by Mordechai Anielewicz, repelled an SS attempt to liquidate the Ghetto in January 1943. Men and women made up this small band of individuals who stood up to the SS. The Germans did not try to capture this part of the Ghetto again until April, and then brought in a larger battalion. Even then, according to the writings of the Commander named Stroop, there was more resistance than they expected. In the end, by lighting buildings on fire, the members of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were defeated, although several escaped to bear witness to this display of heroism. To this day, this resistance against the Nazis is a highly celebrated part of both Jewish and Polish history of the war. While standing at Mila 18, Rabbi Poupko spoke eloquently about the need to never lose hope, to stand up to adversity and to dream that we have the power to accomplish tremendous things; even in defeat the example of the Ghetto uprising represents resilience and tenacity. 

We ended the tour of the Warsaw ghetto at a large monument describing the fate of the Jews during the war and celebrating the resistance of Anielewicz and his small army. In an incredible irony, the black onyx used for the sculpture had been set aside for Hitler to use for a bust or statue of himself. The tables were turned…..

Our next stop was Tykochin (AKA Tiktin) about 2 hours away. This small town had a vibrant Jewish population of 1640 before the war, a town square with markets where the towns folk came to barter and haggle, and a beautiful riverwalk. The Jewish community in Tiktin started in the 1500’s and with it came generations of merchants and trades people. This all ended in August 1941. The community was rounded up en-mass, marched several miles into the Lopuchowo forest, executed and buried in large pits. 

Try this for contrasting emotions. In this idyllic setting were probably several synagogues, but one beautiful building still stands as if frozen in time. It has not been used as a synagogue for decades, and since the 90’s has been a tourist site. Our group prayed the afternoon (Mincha) prayer there, sang songs and danced, which transfixed several onlookers. We brought life to a dormant synagogue. Then we moved on to the forest, and to the memorial of the mass graves. We could not bring them to life, but we could memorialize and try to carry on with pride the Jewish religion and culture they personified. 

As horrific and inconceivable the mass shootings that destroyed the population of Tykochin and hundreds of other villages in Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and elsewhere in Europe were, this paled in comparison to the terror and clinical efficiency of the death camps. We next traveled to Treblinka, which is hidden in a forest north-east of Warsaw. The camp was dismantled and plowed over to leave little evidence and is currently a large grassy area with memorials to the 17,000 cities, towns and villages; their inhabitants brought there by train and then killed in gas chambers. The camp was closed soon after a large revolt of the prisoners and laborers in August 1943. The survivors have provided testimony into the brutality and dehumanization experienced by the victims of the camp, from its façade train station to the Red Cross infirmary with no physician but a pit into which anyone sick or infirm was hurled after being shot. In total likely 900,000 Jews perished in Treblinka. Many of our group had parents, relatives or close friends with origins from Poland, and we all took a picture of one of the many communities memorialized at Treblinka to say a prayer and remember. 

Wednesday August 2, 2023

We started out our next day by visiting the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery. Before you say that’s a depressing way to start the day (not that the end to the previous day was uplifting) lets share some facts. Established in 1806, it was the burial ground for a thriving Jewish community for over 130 years. Great Rabbis such as Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik, and Rabbi Naftali Tzve Berlin are buried there, as is Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, plus thousands of husbands, wives, doctors, lawyers, educators, and people from all walks of life. The monuments are impressive and the cemetery itself covers a huge area. The majority of people buried here had normal lives and were buried as all people should be. It’s amazing what one can learn about how to live life by studying those who were buried in the cemetery.  

We got back onto the bus and our next stop was the city of Lublin, which again had a sizeable Jewish community. Lublin was unique, in that it is famous for the Rabbinical Academy known as Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin (The academy of the scholars of Lublin). Friends who have followed this blog may remember that our children all studied for various times in Yeshivot in Israel, and Elan teaches in Yeshivat Hakotel. These are usually post high school academies of learning based on the Study of Talmud. The Yeshiva in Lublin was opened in 1930, which meant that unfortunately it had a very short life. It was built in a grand style, due to its founder’s concept that Talmudic study is the most elevated pursuit for Jews and should have appropriate accommodation. The Founder was Rabbi Meir Shapiro, a brilliant Talmudist and innovative Educator. Rav Shapiro is well known for his concept of Dav Yomi, the study of one page of the 2711 pages of Talmud (64 volumes) in a cycle of 7.5 years. This began in 1923 and has continued continuously; the Jewish world is currently on the 14th cycle and there are literally hundreds of thousands of Jews who follow the cycle and study daily. When the Nazis captured the Yeshiva, they cleared out the library and there are witnessed testimonies of the burning of books. It’s clear that the attempt to destroy Jewish knowledge was not in the least bit successful. Fascinatingly, the Holocaust monument in Berlin is made up of 2711 bricks arranged in a mosaic. The official web site (and the Wikipedia page) says this number was chosen at random, perhaps because that’s the number that would fit into the allotted space. This might be a very fortuitous accident; however, the parallel with the number of pages in the Talmud cannot possibly be coincidental. 

Literally on the outskirts of Lublin is the Mydanek concentration camp. Picture the hydro lines in Cote St Luc. Then switch the vison to a large camp with smoke constantly billowing from a chimney. People lived right next door to possibly one of the most evil places on earth. Not to be crass, but the stories and testimonies that we heard about life and death in Mydanke came straight out of hell. Again, the purpose of this blog is to provide a record of where we were and what we experienced; the amount of information is overwhelming, and this record allows to go back later to refresh memories. If you want the full experience, you need to go with an experienced guide who is passionately versed in the history and implications, as our guide Tzvi and the Rabbi with whom we are travelling. Mydanek is a post war reconstruction of the camp by the Russians, using a lot of the original materials. Reconstruction or not, the place is eerie and horrific; we walked through disinfection showers and gas chambers. The crematoria have the original ovens. The places where people were selected to go to the right or left, not knowing if they were to survive or not, are still standing as they did 80+ years ago. We were told about the psychological torture and physical humiliation that accompanied people to their deaths. Again, the term dehumanization is the constant theme. We did not walk through the entire camp (which I did in 1996) which contains barracks holding the remnants of the prisoners, including suitcases, shoes, jewelry, even hair.  The vision and emotion from visiting these rooms are etched deeply in my mind despite the years. I can’t fathom how those who survived the camp can shake the hideousness of these visions. In all about 90,000 Jews were killed at Mydanek, as well as many Polish prisoners and Russian POWs. 

So, how do you combat such evil? You could do it with revenge; you could do it with holding hatred in your heart. In contrast, since the war, Jews have survived by rebuilding and rededicating itself to our roots. Just picture this: when Ukraine was attacked by Putin’s army, who were the first to set up on Polish soil to lend a hand by building a field hospital? Israel. Think of the irony; Israel landing on the border of two countries where the Jewish population was decimated to provide assistance to those in need (credit to Rabbi Poupko for this great concept). We also rebuilt with the study of sacred texts, Torah, Talmud and writings by many great Rabbis. Our next stop was Lejansk, which is a small town where one of the early disseminators of the wisdom of the Hassidic movements, Rebbe Elimelech, is buried. The grave of Rebbe Elimelech is housed in an “Ohel” (literally Tent) which is a small mausoleum where hundreds of thousands of people come annually to pray, beseech, and look for spiritual guidance. We had a moving ceremony in the Ohel, accompanied by a troop of Chassidic singers and Mr. Josef Lewkowicz, father of our friend Zigui, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor who comes from the city of Krakow (which is our destination for Thursday). 

To place an exclamation point on the concept of renewing Jewish Identity post-Holocaust, we ended the evening with a special event.  Lejansk is also the place where our friends, the Liebermans, parents came from. On our trip there are 6 cousins from the same family. Our friend Willie and Linda Lieberman hosted a Siyyum; the completion of a tractate of Talmud; in the city that Willie’s father left in 1939. Willie spoke about the genesis of this trip, the history of his family, their escape from Lejansk, and ultimate migration to Montreal and rebuilding their lives. This culminated in Willie teaching us the final section of the Talmud tractate. A siyyum is usually celebrated with a festive meal, and we certainly did that, with amazing food and drink and the Hassidic choir providing music. Finishing with Talmud study was a very fitting way to demonstrate how we can climb out of the depths after learning of the harrowing treatment of Jews at places like Mydenek. We turn one page of the 2711 pages of Talmud and move on to the next to continue the unbroken chain of study.