Sunday, March 30, 2014

Small Reflections


As some of you may know I took a trip to Poland to learn about the Holocaust. We went to Warsaw, Tikochin, Lublin, and Krakow. At each place we talked about the different stages involved in the Shoah (the Holocaust). The first stage is life, peoples lives before the Holocaust. The second stage is during the Holocaust, people trying to survive, and all the horrors that came with this time. The third stage is death. In this post I am just going to go over what we did via the things I wrote in my journal while at some of these places.
Warsaw 
"We got to the ghetto wall and I could feel my throat closing. A huge lump formed and as I looked up at the enormity I felt my eyes growing heavy and damp. It was a very indescribable feeling. Around the wall is tons of apartments and two things about that did not make sense while I looked at this brick wall. 1) How could anyone live here? The heaviness I felt in my heart, and I am not a very sensitive person about this sort of stuff and even I felt heavy. I just don't understand. 2) If you don't like people being outside your apartment, then why did you choose to live with a memorial outside your window. If you don't like it, don't live there. A woman opened her window to yell at us to leave and all we were doing was touching the memorial wall and connecting to it, and learning. We didn't even talk loud. Don't live there if you have a problem with people paying their respects."
"We are now at the place where the Jews were gathered to be shipped off to camps. Again there is a growing lump in my throat that I don't understand. The wall reads, 'Along this path of suffering and death over 300,000 Jews were driven in 1942-1943 from the Warsaw Ghetto to the gas chambers of the Nazi extermination camps.' The wall also reads many names of people who passed through here."
Tikochin
"We drove in silence along the path the whole Jewish community of Tikochin was forced to run down after a truck packed full of other Jews. At the end of this road was a deep forrest. We got off the bus and still in silence walked to separate spots, split up by classes. We were told stories about people who went through this. The accounts of two people who survived. We then went to the pits where thousands were killed. The people of Tikochin were taken to the forrest, stripped of their clothes and pride, and killed one by one. Forced to watch their loved ones falling down around them to the shot of guns. Then they too were shot dead. There were candles, notes and Israeli flags everywhere. This wasn't just a memorial to the dead, this was also a memorial to a whole civilization, a whole community, a whole culture. Today in Tikochin there is not one Jewish person living. While we walked down the path I listened to the footsteps of everyones boots against the woodland floor. Crunching over sticks and bugs. All I could think about was when the Jews marched to their death they may not even of had shoes on. "
Majdanek
"I just walked through a building that was once used to strip people down and either send them to painful methods of bathing or gas them. I have a large lump as I look out through the inside of the barbed wire fence."
"We walked down rows of cages, at least 9ft tall holding thousands of shoes. The shoes were tightly packed in making the amount even more painful. The hall of cages was starting to feel never ending. The smell was still lingering in the shoes and I couldn't handle it much longer and had to get out. Sitting outside I can still smell it."
"We are sitting outside the Majdanek crematorium and I am shaking. It could be from the cold air and brisk wind, or maybe not. I think even in the middle of Summer my hands would still be trembling. The chimney is towering above me."
"Next to the crematorium is a large wall of rocks. Up the stairs about these rocks is a dome. In the dome is a massive pit. A pit full of ashes. Human ashes. The ashes of over 10000 Jews. The pile is over 10 ft high and that is just the surface, you can't even see how deep down it goes. My eyes are full of of tears and I am shaking. This amount of murder shouldn't be a reality."
Birkenau
"All the sound around me had drained away. The only noise remaining was my inner thoughts and the erie ringing you can often hear as your world slowly fades away. All the sudden from beyond the barbed wires, inside the fences, among the rubble, I saw an animal prancing by. Some type of deer like creature. And the silence broke around me. Suddenly I was surrounded by birds chirping and the marching of feet. I was not alone on this trail of pain, sorrow, and suffering. This trail of my ancestry. I was with others. I was with my friends, my Jewish family of Israel."
"I'm sitting against a tree in the forrest, looking out at a small pond. Under different circumstances this place would be beautiful and I would feel at peace. But instead I am inside the gates of the camp. And the rippling water of the pond only posses death. This pond was once the dumping place of ashes of those who were gassed and burned here. This pond is no bigger than the plot of land I live on in Albuquerque and yet is home to thousands of dead souls, just below the water surface. Other ponds scattered near by. Some now just pits with bone fragments and memorial roses left behind. One pond no bigger than my bathroom at home and still thousands of dead souls here. This shallow pit, their final resting place."
Quotes
We read some quotes and I wrote in my journal the ones I liked.
"All attributes need good intentions, except for the attribute of humility, since humility which has good intentions is no long humility."
"Nothing is more complete than a broken heart, and nothing is more flawed than a complete heart."
"Not everything that one thinks must be said, and not everything that one says must be written and not everything that one writes must be printed."
"When one has cause to scream and wants to scream, but he can't scream - then that is the loudest scream of all."
"If I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you. However, if I am I because I am I and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you."
Flowers
So while I was in Poland I would pick flowers and put them in my journal. I did this to show that even though bad things happened there, something beautiful still sprouted. It was a sort of reminder to me that just because something bad happens doesn't mean it is permanent. It will always be there, in our hearts and minds. But it ended and good things can happen now.



1 comment:

  1. I am speechless, ( and that doesn't happen too much). I appreciate your words and observation to no end. Thank you for seeing this and sharing these things and thoughts. I love you and so does our whole family. We are grateful to you.

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