Life and Death - Poland trip

In Poland we went to sites displaying the aspects of life and death during the Shoah (the Holocaust). One place that stuck out very strongly for me representing life, the suffering of the Shoah and death, was our visit to Tikochin. The town itself was the life aspect, but just outside of the town, in the woods, showed the death aspect. And the trail from the town into the woods was symbolic to me as the journey of pain throughout the Shoah.

Tikochin is a quaint little town in a rural area. Some might refer to it as a Jewish ghost town because as of today there is no longer any Jewish population living there. Before the Shoah Tikochin was what is known as a shtetl. A shtetl is most easily described by the movie Fiddler on the Roof. In this town we talked about different aspects of shtetl life. Two parts of this really stood out to me. The first was a very fun little exercise we did. We did a "traditional" Jewish dance, but basically my class looked like a bunch of drunkards. It was really fun and showed the life and liveliness of our community. The second thing was a short service (Mincha) we had in an old synagogue  We did this to bring a little Jewish life back to the town. We were singing and jumping around and dancing and it was just a blast. And to me that is what life is about. Having fun, enjoying yourself, and just being in the moment.
We drove the road to the woods in silence. Along this road thousands of Jewish people were taken in either trucks or forced to run behind the trucks. They were taken from their homes. We heard first hand accounts of two survivors. In the accounts we learned that these people had to run as fast as they could just for the hope of survival. And if they lagged behind or tripped, they were killed. But what they had in store at the end of the road was worse. To me this path is symbolic of the struggle of the Jewish people during the Shoah. Along this path just like during the Holocaust, the people were doing whatever they could to survive when in most cases the end result was death no matter what they did. The Holocaust was not logical. If it was logical people who did what they were told would have had a chance at survival, but that just wasn't the case. 
The woods were a symbol of death in every way. The chill of the air, the dark twisted trees, the stillness of the atmosphere. On any other day, under totally different circumstances, this forrest would have been a beautiful, tranquil place. The first hand accounts I mentioned above talked about the horrors that occurred in this forrest. The whole Jewish community of Tikochin was taken into these woods and systematically killed one by one and dumped into pits. The woman of one account watched everyone she had ever known and her whole family fall down dead before her. After watching that she was shot. She was flung into the pile of bodies and the gun shots continued to go off and bodies continued to build on top of her. At some point in time she began to struggle to from the depths of death bodies. Some people barely hanging onto life attempting to claw their way to the top as well. When she got to the top, everyone was gone. She was alone. I tried to put myself in that position and I just couldn't even imagine how awful that would be. I don't know if I would ever be able to move on if something like that happened to me. We spent time walking around the final resting places of these poor souls. The memorial was filled with Jewish flags, candles, and prayer notes. It was beautiful to see everyone lighting these candles that showed that we have not burned out. That the Jewish people are still alive and thriving and we are here to stay.