day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky...
here comes the moment i've been waiting for. it has come at last. finally. i found some free time to write about my trip on the March of the Living, a task i've been putting off for far too long.
_____Well, I started out for my trip ok. Packed all day saturday before the sunday i left. crammed my bag full of 2 weeks of clothing (no laundry capabilities). sat night i spent with my parents in movies/dinner. had sorta restless night sleep, so anxious for my trip. woke up early sunday to get to the airport in time. we had an early flight from Ft. Lauderdale to JFK in NY and then a layover until our EL AL flight to Krakow. so, it was a pretty good flight overall. i knew some people that i met in FLL and talked on the plane with them. met up later with some ppl in JFK and hung out. finally got on our El Al plane (which of course i had to take a pic of - first timer!). it was two floors, a type of plane i've never been on. i sat up front in the hang out part of the plane, so as one would expect, i didnt get much sleep. they gave us ok food. got off after about 10 hr flight in Krakow. actually, it was really funny - the krakow airport is apparently also the military airport of Poland, so we landed by these fighter planes with air force soldiers staring at a commerical plane landing there. ^.^
_____Anywho, so we landed there and got off (on the tarmac, nonetheless). The mountains and hills there looked amazing. its too bad Poland is associated with so much death from the Holocaust, because the country really is beautiful. after, we got our luggage (which took far too long) and got on our assigned buses (the same buses we would be on for the entire two weeks) to leave directly for Auschwitz.
AUSCHWITZ
_____We got to Auschwitz (actually, called Auschwitz I because there were satellite Auschwitz camps) and had a brief lunch outside the 'museum.' now, i say museum because it really is a museum to the Poles in the area. I mean, at the entrance was a souvenir shop. A F***ING SOUVENIR SHOP!!! so i ask these Poles: what is the place of death to you? a simple attraction? just another place to bring the family? or is it just another way of making money (hence proving the power of greed) by desecrating a place like this? No, Auschwitz is a place where Germans killed people, namely Jews, while Polish families stood idely by and witnessed attempted genocide. Not a museum or attraction, but evidence of intolerance, cruelty, and stupidity. So how then could Poland establish this horrible place as a simple museum, disregarding completely all that occured there? Its just not right...
_____So, walked by the idiotic souvenir shops and into the camp. My group walked with our survivor, Irene Zisblatt, into the place that so many other Jews had walked into without ever leaving. There was a tall white oak tree in the entrance to give a "warm" feeling about the place and to disguise the hostility the camp's inhabitants would soon face. At the entrance gate, which allowed us to pass through the barbed wire fence surrounding the camp, there was an archway with "ARBEIT MACHT FREI"
, which means "WORK WILL SET YOU FREE" (an utter lie). Actually, the Jewish workers in most of the camps who constructed the phrase inverted the B in ARBEIT to show that this statement is the opposite of what is true. After passing under the infamous archway, we walked through some of the cobblestone-like roads until we got to some of the barracks. Most of the barracks have been cleared out and been made into exhibits of different things. We walked through different barracks and saw a lot of disturbing things. There was a room full of hair from when the Jews were shaved upon entry, with it behind a glass case. And despite the casing, you couldnt help but smell the horrible smell of rotting hair. The stench was unbearable. And the heap of hair was only a small collection of all the hair that was shaven. In another display case nearby, there was a collection of some cloths and fabrics made from the hair. In another room, there were thousands of pairs of shoes, each pair obviosuly belonging to someone now dead. And one pair, as noted very somberly by my friend Kevin, was no bigger than the size of our palms. How can people kill someone so young?! What in the hell is wrong with them? They can't be selfless enough to risk their life to not obey orders for what's right? I mean come on! I bet the child never even had his or her first kiss or learned to swim or do any number of extraordinary things in life.
_____Anywho, so we saw those 'exhibits' and then left for the camp's courtyard area. In the courtyard were two buildings: on the left was the prison, and on the right was a hospital under the jurisdiction of Dr. Mengele. In fact, Irene showed us in the courtyard an underground dungeon where she was kept for a few days for experiments to change her eye colors to the "Arian" eye color. At the end of the courtyard was a wall. Part of this wall had another reinforced wall in front of it. This wall was a place that SS soldiers lined people up to shoot, a few times daily. It was because of this that the wall needed to be reinforced in the first place. So, we made a little memorial by the wall (with candles) and then left to the ultimate evidence of death: the gas chamber and crematoria building.
_____En route to the building, we saw some gallows where the Jews upon liberation hung Himmler (I think that was his name), an SS guard in charge of Auschwitz I. It was sort of like victory for the oppressed. Close by was the entrance to the gas chamber. Before walking through the doorway to hell, I paused to really take in where I was and what I was doing (or about to do): Here I was, in Auschwitz, Poland, with an infamous gas chamber in front of me and a chimnney jutting out into the almost beautiful Polish sky. Was I "lucky" to be here? I mean, not most people get to experience things like this, so it was definitely a different thing than mundane life. Yet, I was really scared about what I would soon see. This was a really disturbing and bizarre thing to show a growing and maturing teenager. If I couldn't handle the enormity of the place, I could've cracked or something. Who knows? So I walked through after this in-depth and brief burst of thoughts, and was a little disappointed in my sites. Actually, I was more disappointed in myself. I expected to walk in to this complex and be overcome with emotions. I imagined I'd break down and burst into tears. Yet, I found myself comforting others, instead of needing the comfort myself. This place was horrible. It was an enclosed box with different rooms everywhere. Huge holes were situated in the ceiling to release the Zyklon B pellets for suffication. The walls were littered with fingernail scratches and bite marks and other attempts at escape. A few large chunks were actually taken out of the wall, which made me swell with pride. These people, knowing death was coming upon them, still fought to live. It was truly a moving experience. The walls also were scattered with blotches of blue spots, from the different gases used to test the efficiency of killing.
_____After the gas chamber was a doorway and the entrance to the second part of the hell of mass murders: the crematoria. Two large furnaces were situated in the room, once used for food preparation (I think). The doors to the furnaces were open for public display (like the public really needs to see that, right?) and you could see lines of ash all over it. After walking around the back of the furnaces, where the ashes were taken out and discarded, remnants of ashes still were in and around the furnace. Even after 60 years, the ashes remained. What was more suprising was a lingering burning smell. Now, whether it was actually there or just created by my mind, I don't know. But it was a very disturbing place to be in. We walked out of the complex gloomily. I looked up and saw the crematoria's chimney again, only this time it looked quite different. I could just see that 6 decades ago, ashes and smoke were issuing out the hole and once-alive Jews were being sent into the air and scattered about. We held a memorial service for the people who perished in the gas chambers, and then got on our buses and headed back towards our hotel in Krakow.
_____(Once at the hotel, I found my roommate, Jordan Blumenthal, and we went to our room. It was a dank room and kind of ruddy, but it definitely felt like Poland should. I don't know, but it just seemed like what I'd imagine of Poland. The TV was all in Polish (duh) but some channels were English shows with Polish over the English words. Actually, you could hear the English subteley behind the Polish. So we talked for a bit, and then went to bed.)
MARCH OF THE LIVING & BIRKENAU
_____The next day we got up early and had a quick "breakfast" at the hotel. Actually, it was a pretty crappy breakfast, but nonetheless, we started our day off. We got on our buses and headed back to Auschwitz I.
_____We got to Auschwitz I rather early in the morning. Broward County, the group I was with, was one of the first groups to arrive, so we had to wait for a while. For you see, we were waiting for 8,000 Jewish teenagers from all over the world to assemble there. This program, called March of the Living (Mitzad Hachaiim), is an annual program where Jewish people from all over the world gather and participate in a March. The very one in fact that Jews went on close to the time of Liberation, when the Nazis were losing the war. Except it was called the March of Death. So, it seems very appropriate and poetic to call it the March of the Living. The March consisted of a long trek from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II (aka Birkenau), a more notorious and efficient death camp. Many malnourished and tired people were killed on the March for walking too slowly. In contrast, other prisoners had enough courage and strength to escape the March and a large handul of Holocaust Survivors escaped in this way. And we would be mimicking this March to show that Jewish life does continue despite the attempted genocide.
_____After about an hour of waiting, in which we met some other American, Australian and Mexican Jews, the ceremony was underway. A group of Israeli soldiers accompanied us in white shirts, serving to juxtapose white with the Holocaust's darkness. The soldiers carried Israeli flags and many of the participants in the March (hereafter referred to as 'marchers') also brandished small Israeli flags. An announcer came on a loudspeaker and talked about the March and the ceremony and the significance of what we were doing. It was very meaningful and a very appropriate part of the program. So, we began walking and headed out the ARBEIT MACHT FREI gateway. One of the announcers pointed out the fact that a mass of Jews were walking out of Auschwitz and looking at the gateway upon exit instead of entrance, a feat many Jews never got to experience. As I looked around during our walk, I was amazed at seeing so many Jewish teenagers gathered in one place, from all over the world, for the same purpose. It was very inspiring. We walked along a designated path with Polish security officers leading us and along the sides of us. Supposedly, there have been Polish citizens who have come out and yelled insults and curses at marchers, so they now use security to prevent this. Although, we did see many Poles watching us. Some were sticking there heads out windows to catch a glimpse of this spectacle. I even saw a couple on their front porch with binoculars, watching us. What were we to them?! Just another attraction?! Like AUSCHWITZ??!!?? Come on! Where are their morals!?! Anywho, another interesting part during our walk was some scenes I took pictures of. One was of a small boy on his father's shoulders waving the Israeli flag with pride. A second scene was of one with a Polish officer standing by train tracks - the very train tracks that took so many Jews to and from their deaths, in cattle cars and other inhumane containments. The apparent contrast was quite shocking. And another part of the March that distrubed me was the fact that the March and the train tracks went right through neighborhoods. HOW THE HELL CAN ANYONE IGNORE SOMETHING LIKE THAT!?! I mean, what kind of humans were those? They let people go to their death instead of standing up for what's right (assuming of course they knew right from wrong and actually had a conscience). It disgusts me. They disgust me. Continuing on. We walked about 30-45 minutes from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II/Birkenau. It really was an eyeful. And finally, as we rounded the last bend in the road, we were hit with the view of the Birkenau death camp.
_____The camp was humongous. Beyond humongous. The camp stretched beyong what the eye could see. Barbed wire fences surrounding the entire camp were reinforced by hundreds of guard towers. It was so depressing thinking how much murder could go on in this dreadful trace. So we walked up the infamous train tracks towards the camp. The tracks that brought millions of Jews to their deaths. And as we approached the entrance way (a large archway/train station) I walked through and got a chill up my entire body. I've never felt so strange in my life. The sun was beaming and there wasn't a wind in the air, so the fact that I felt this was sort of ominous. I don't know. Maybe I'm just making something out of nothing, but I definitely felt that it was significant. So we walked through and was given a view of Birkenau.
_____On the left was an enclosed set of barracks and other buildings, and the same on the right. In between these areas was a sort of corridor with grass and a rock path. At the far end of the camp was a barely visible stage (post-war) and some blown up gas chambers (cool story about that later). As we walked on the rock path, a man on a loudspeaker was announcing the names and ages of various children who died in Birkenau. After about halfway from the entrance was a split in the rock path (where grass cut off). At this very point was the place where Dr. Mengele often was set up to determine "who went to left and who went to the right." In other words, who would die and who would be forced into labor (what barbarious Nazis called "life"). I've heard that this "Doctor" decided Jews' fates based on his whim and his attitude that day. What a subjective system. at least if you're planning on systematically annihilating an entire culture, do it with official methods.
_____Well, I started out for my trip ok. Packed all day saturday before the sunday i left. crammed my bag full of 2 weeks of clothing (no laundry capabilities). sat night i spent with my parents in movies/dinner. had sorta restless night sleep, so anxious for my trip. woke up early sunday to get to the airport in time. we had an early flight from Ft. Lauderdale to JFK in NY and then a layover until our EL AL flight to Krakow. so, it was a pretty good flight overall. i knew some people that i met in FLL and talked on the plane with them. met up later with some ppl in JFK and hung out. finally got on our El Al plane (which of course i had to take a pic of - first timer!). it was two floors, a type of plane i've never been on. i sat up front in the hang out part of the plane, so as one would expect, i didnt get much sleep. they gave us ok food. got off after about 10 hr flight in Krakow. actually, it was really funny - the krakow airport is apparently also the military airport of Poland, so we landed by these fighter planes with air force soldiers staring at a commerical plane landing there. ^.^
_____Anywho, so we landed there and got off (on the tarmac, nonetheless). The mountains and hills there looked amazing. its too bad Poland is associated with so much death from the Holocaust, because the country really is beautiful. after, we got our luggage (which took far too long) and got on our assigned buses (the same buses we would be on for the entire two weeks) to leave directly for Auschwitz.
AUSCHWITZ
_____We got to Auschwitz (actually, called Auschwitz I because there were satellite Auschwitz camps) and had a brief lunch outside the 'museum.' now, i say museum because it really is a museum to the Poles in the area. I mean, at the entrance was a souvenir shop. A F***ING SOUVENIR SHOP!!! so i ask these Poles: what is the place of death to you? a simple attraction? just another place to bring the family? or is it just another way of making money (hence proving the power of greed) by desecrating a place like this? No, Auschwitz is a place where Germans killed people, namely Jews, while Polish families stood idely by and witnessed attempted genocide. Not a museum or attraction, but evidence of intolerance, cruelty, and stupidity. So how then could Poland establish this horrible place as a simple museum, disregarding completely all that occured there? Its just not right...
_____So, walked by the idiotic souvenir shops and into the camp. My group walked with our survivor, Irene Zisblatt, into the place that so many other Jews had walked into without ever leaving. There was a tall white oak tree in the entrance to give a "warm" feeling about the place and to disguise the hostility the camp's inhabitants would soon face. At the entrance gate, which allowed us to pass through the barbed wire fence surrounding the camp, there was an archway with "ARBEIT MACHT FREI"
, which means "WORK WILL SET YOU FREE" (an utter lie). Actually, the Jewish workers in most of the camps who constructed the phrase inverted the B in ARBEIT to show that this statement is the opposite of what is true. After passing under the infamous archway, we walked through some of the cobblestone-like roads until we got to some of the barracks. Most of the barracks have been cleared out and been made into exhibits of different things. We walked through different barracks and saw a lot of disturbing things. There was a room full of hair from when the Jews were shaved upon entry, with it behind a glass case. And despite the casing, you couldnt help but smell the horrible smell of rotting hair. The stench was unbearable. And the heap of hair was only a small collection of all the hair that was shaven. In another display case nearby, there was a collection of some cloths and fabrics made from the hair. In another room, there were thousands of pairs of shoes, each pair obviosuly belonging to someone now dead. And one pair, as noted very somberly by my friend Kevin, was no bigger than the size of our palms. How can people kill someone so young?! What in the hell is wrong with them? They can't be selfless enough to risk their life to not obey orders for what's right? I mean come on! I bet the child never even had his or her first kiss or learned to swim or do any number of extraordinary things in life.
_____Anywho, so we saw those 'exhibits' and then left for the camp's courtyard area. In the courtyard were two buildings: on the left was the prison, and on the right was a hospital under the jurisdiction of Dr. Mengele. In fact, Irene showed us in the courtyard an underground dungeon where she was kept for a few days for experiments to change her eye colors to the "Arian" eye color. At the end of the courtyard was a wall. Part of this wall had another reinforced wall in front of it. This wall was a place that SS soldiers lined people up to shoot, a few times daily. It was because of this that the wall needed to be reinforced in the first place. So, we made a little memorial by the wall (with candles) and then left to the ultimate evidence of death: the gas chamber and crematoria building.
_____En route to the building, we saw some gallows where the Jews upon liberation hung Himmler (I think that was his name), an SS guard in charge of Auschwitz I. It was sort of like victory for the oppressed. Close by was the entrance to the gas chamber. Before walking through the doorway to hell, I paused to really take in where I was and what I was doing (or about to do): Here I was, in Auschwitz, Poland, with an infamous gas chamber in front of me and a chimnney jutting out into the almost beautiful Polish sky. Was I "lucky" to be here? I mean, not most people get to experience things like this, so it was definitely a different thing than mundane life. Yet, I was really scared about what I would soon see. This was a really disturbing and bizarre thing to show a growing and maturing teenager. If I couldn't handle the enormity of the place, I could've cracked or something. Who knows? So I walked through after this in-depth and brief burst of thoughts, and was a little disappointed in my sites. Actually, I was more disappointed in myself. I expected to walk in to this complex and be overcome with emotions. I imagined I'd break down and burst into tears. Yet, I found myself comforting others, instead of needing the comfort myself. This place was horrible. It was an enclosed box with different rooms everywhere. Huge holes were situated in the ceiling to release the Zyklon B pellets for suffication. The walls were littered with fingernail scratches and bite marks and other attempts at escape. A few large chunks were actually taken out of the wall, which made me swell with pride. These people, knowing death was coming upon them, still fought to live. It was truly a moving experience. The walls also were scattered with blotches of blue spots, from the different gases used to test the efficiency of killing.
_____After the gas chamber was a doorway and the entrance to the second part of the hell of mass murders: the crematoria. Two large furnaces were situated in the room, once used for food preparation (I think). The doors to the furnaces were open for public display (like the public really needs to see that, right?) and you could see lines of ash all over it. After walking around the back of the furnaces, where the ashes were taken out and discarded, remnants of ashes still were in and around the furnace. Even after 60 years, the ashes remained. What was more suprising was a lingering burning smell. Now, whether it was actually there or just created by my mind, I don't know. But it was a very disturbing place to be in. We walked out of the complex gloomily. I looked up and saw the crematoria's chimney again, only this time it looked quite different. I could just see that 6 decades ago, ashes and smoke were issuing out the hole and once-alive Jews were being sent into the air and scattered about. We held a memorial service for the people who perished in the gas chambers, and then got on our buses and headed back towards our hotel in Krakow.
_____(Once at the hotel, I found my roommate, Jordan Blumenthal, and we went to our room. It was a dank room and kind of ruddy, but it definitely felt like Poland should. I don't know, but it just seemed like what I'd imagine of Poland. The TV was all in Polish (duh) but some channels were English shows with Polish over the English words. Actually, you could hear the English subteley behind the Polish. So we talked for a bit, and then went to bed.)
MARCH OF THE LIVING & BIRKENAU
_____The next day we got up early and had a quick "breakfast" at the hotel. Actually, it was a pretty crappy breakfast, but nonetheless, we started our day off. We got on our buses and headed back to Auschwitz I.
_____We got to Auschwitz I rather early in the morning. Broward County, the group I was with, was one of the first groups to arrive, so we had to wait for a while. For you see, we were waiting for 8,000 Jewish teenagers from all over the world to assemble there. This program, called March of the Living (Mitzad Hachaiim), is an annual program where Jewish people from all over the world gather and participate in a March. The very one in fact that Jews went on close to the time of Liberation, when the Nazis were losing the war. Except it was called the March of Death. So, it seems very appropriate and poetic to call it the March of the Living. The March consisted of a long trek from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II (aka Birkenau), a more notorious and efficient death camp. Many malnourished and tired people were killed on the March for walking too slowly. In contrast, other prisoners had enough courage and strength to escape the March and a large handul of Holocaust Survivors escaped in this way. And we would be mimicking this March to show that Jewish life does continue despite the attempted genocide.
_____After about an hour of waiting, in which we met some other American, Australian and Mexican Jews, the ceremony was underway. A group of Israeli soldiers accompanied us in white shirts, serving to juxtapose white with the Holocaust's darkness. The soldiers carried Israeli flags and many of the participants in the March (hereafter referred to as 'marchers') also brandished small Israeli flags. An announcer came on a loudspeaker and talked about the March and the ceremony and the significance of what we were doing. It was very meaningful and a very appropriate part of the program. So, we began walking and headed out the ARBEIT MACHT FREI gateway. One of the announcers pointed out the fact that a mass of Jews were walking out of Auschwitz and looking at the gateway upon exit instead of entrance, a feat many Jews never got to experience. As I looked around during our walk, I was amazed at seeing so many Jewish teenagers gathered in one place, from all over the world, for the same purpose. It was very inspiring. We walked along a designated path with Polish security officers leading us and along the sides of us. Supposedly, there have been Polish citizens who have come out and yelled insults and curses at marchers, so they now use security to prevent this. Although, we did see many Poles watching us. Some were sticking there heads out windows to catch a glimpse of this spectacle. I even saw a couple on their front porch with binoculars, watching us. What were we to them?! Just another attraction?! Like AUSCHWITZ??!!?? Come on! Where are their morals!?! Anywho, another interesting part during our walk was some scenes I took pictures of. One was of a small boy on his father's shoulders waving the Israeli flag with pride. A second scene was of one with a Polish officer standing by train tracks - the very train tracks that took so many Jews to and from their deaths, in cattle cars and other inhumane containments. The apparent contrast was quite shocking. And another part of the March that distrubed me was the fact that the March and the train tracks went right through neighborhoods. HOW THE HELL CAN ANYONE IGNORE SOMETHING LIKE THAT!?! I mean, what kind of humans were those? They let people go to their death instead of standing up for what's right (assuming of course they knew right from wrong and actually had a conscience). It disgusts me. They disgust me. Continuing on. We walked about 30-45 minutes from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II/Birkenau. It really was an eyeful. And finally, as we rounded the last bend in the road, we were hit with the view of the Birkenau death camp.
_____The camp was humongous. Beyond humongous. The camp stretched beyong what the eye could see. Barbed wire fences surrounding the entire camp were reinforced by hundreds of guard towers. It was so depressing thinking how much murder could go on in this dreadful trace. So we walked up the infamous train tracks towards the camp. The tracks that brought millions of Jews to their deaths. And as we approached the entrance way (a large archway/train station) I walked through and got a chill up my entire body. I've never felt so strange in my life. The sun was beaming and there wasn't a wind in the air, so the fact that I felt this was sort of ominous. I don't know. Maybe I'm just making something out of nothing, but I definitely felt that it was significant. So we walked through and was given a view of Birkenau.
_____On the left was an enclosed set of barracks and other buildings, and the same on the right. In between these areas was a sort of corridor with grass and a rock path. At the far end of the camp was a barely visible stage (post-war) and some blown up gas chambers (cool story about that later). As we walked on the rock path, a man on a loudspeaker was announcing the names and ages of various children who died in Birkenau. After about halfway from the entrance was a split in the rock path (where grass cut off). At this very point was the place where Dr. Mengele often was set up to determine "who went to left and who went to the right." In other words, who would die and who would be forced into labor (what barbarious Nazis called "life"). I've heard that this "Doctor" decided Jews' fates based on his whim and his attitude that day. What a subjective system. at least if you're planning on systematically annihilating an entire culture, do it with official methods.