Looking back on Poland

It has now been almost two months since our trip to Poland had begun and ended. I’ve been trying to figure out how to put into words my experience during this trip. Although it was overwhelming at times, I know it was something not everyone gets to experience. Going into this trip I had a lot of expectations and worries, like how would going to the concentration camps make me feel? I have always been interested in the Holocaust since I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was in elementary school. I also have always had a desire to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau for a few years now, so when I realized that Iona offered this course it was something I was extremely interested in. Looking back on the day we left for Oswiecim, Poland, I was super excited but also nervous. I had looked over the itinerary for the week and started to prepare myself for what was to come. I’m not a religious person, so after hearing about some of the tours I was a bit anxious. Although I didn’t really know what to expect from this trip I’m extremely grateful that I was given this opportunity, one that many people don’t have. The whole week that we had spent In Poland was something that I could never fully explain to someone who didn’t experience it first-hand. When we arrived back from our trip, all everyone seemed to ask was… “How was visiting Auschwitz? Was is scary? What was it like? How was Poland? What did you do?”. But, I couldn’t give anyone a complete answer. I thought I would come back and be able to tell everyone who asked just exactly what I did experience on this trip, but I couldn’t. I still can’t find the words to explain what it was like to walk on the same ground as millions of Jews did to their unknown death. It was eerily calm and peaceful when we visited both camps and thinking back it’s such a weird thing to say because of all the murder that happened at one time there. You heard the birds chirping and you saw the grass growing where it used to not grow. I don’t think that I would ever revisit Auschwitz-Birkenau, I feel as that it is a place to visit once to give your respects. But, I too am now a witness and it’s my job to make sure that this piece of history is never forgotten about.

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Guilty Of Ignorance

As I am writing this on May 1^st, 2017, it has been seven weeks since our journey from New York to Poland. Although I am finally settled back to life at Iona College, overloaded with work as finals are quickly approaching and surrounded by my friends in a residence hall that has become a place that I can call home, I am still constantly reminded of my journey to Poland. I knew that going to Poland would be a rare experience that I would treasure forever, but I did not know how many things in the United States would remind me about what had happened during these devastating times. For the past year, U.S. President Donald Trump has been compared to Adolf Hitler, but I have never focused or understood why people had this opinion. I thought it was nonsense and people simply being upset because they did not like this political figure, but after my journey to Poland, I understand peoples concern. Following my return from Poland, I saw an article about the early warning signs of fascism so I clicked it. The article was directed at Donald Trump, and his similarities towards Adolf Hitler. Some of these warning signs included a distain for human rights, rampant sexism, controlled mass media, obsession with national security, and fraudulent elections. While Donald Trump and the RNC deny this, there have been many allegations towards Donald Trump that go along with these warning signs. A few weeks back, White House press secretary Sean Spicer while talking about the danger of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad argued in a press conference that Hitler had not used chemical weapons for World War II. These examples of Sean Spicer and Donald Trump comparisons to Adolf Hitler make me realize that people are ignorant and ill-informed when it comes to World War II and the Holocaust.

I would have never guessed that my journey to Poland would affect my life so much and so deeply. I learned that this trip was not simply to learn the material, but to witness and reflect. I have many pages of notes, but it is not the notes that will stay in my head and my heart; it is the images and sounds of the Holocaust that will stay with me forever. Following my journey, I did not think that I would constantly be putting thought into what had happened. I consider many things that I would have never even thought of before witnessing the grounds of the Holocaust. I still have many unanswered questions, and I know that I will always have unanswered questions, but I know that I will always look at every question with multiple perspectives. Poland changed my life, and I have a whole new understanding of the Holocaust, but I know that there is still so many things to learn and witness. As I end this blog, I will finish the same way I started, constantly pondering about the Holocaust, Hitler, Nazis, Jews and Poland, but I am okay with pondering now, because that is what this journey was for.

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A Day in Krakow

I woke up full of excitement to finally explore Krakow, the capital of Poland, also known to be the most populated Jewish town before WWII. During the Shoah, six million Jews where murdered. Besides the facts, about WWII, there was also a lot of division between religious groups, especially the Jews and Christians.

“After the war, 4,282 Jews resurfaced in Krakow. By early 1946, Polish Jews returning from the Soviet Union swelled the Jewish population of the city to approximately 10,000. Pogroms in August 1945 and throughout 1946 as well as number of murders of individual Jews led to the emigration of many of the surviving Krakow Jews. By the early 1990s, only a few hundred Jews remained in Krakow”.

Today, the city is slowly growing and increasing their Jewish population. We visited the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, where we were given the opportunity to meet and listen to a lecture by the director of the Center, Jonathan Ornstein. The purpose of the Center is to allow all Jews to become members of the center, allowing them to get a chance to understand and expand their knowledge on their culture and beliefs. Through our lecture he gave us an example of one individual experience from a young girl that had recently visited the Center. He explained her great grandmother was a Jew but during the Shoah she made it clear to her daughter the young girls’ grandmother, to deny her Jewish beliefs forever. Now, her grandmother is elderly, and she confessed to her that they came from a Jewish background. This was the opportunity for her to visit the Center and expand her knowledge and start a new life as a Jew.  

                                              

            Soon after we arrived in Krakow, we also visited a synagogue, and a cemetery in Krakow.  We came across a wall in the cemetery that was very special. It had many different pieces of stones, from a cemetery during the World War II, where majority of the Jewish cemeteries where targeted and destroyed. All of the stones on these particular wall where found individually, and they had no place to put it back since they wouldn’t be able to know where they belonged.

We also, attended a lecture in the University of Krakow, and listen to a lecture by Dr. Anna-Maria Orla-Bukowska. During her lecture she showed many pictures that justified the unity between many Jewish Students’ today with Atheist, and Christian students. She describes Krakow as a town filled with unity, even after all the division they faced during and after WWII.

                                                                (Cite Source)

"Krakow (Cracow)." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 05 May 2017.

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Work Doesn't Set You Free

As I am writing this, it is still surreal to me that I am in Poland, let alone in Oswiecim, where Auschwitz 1 is located. We have all gotten used to our living arrangements and being in a foreign country, but some of us, like myself, are still not used to the time difference. Although my sleep schedule is a mess, it gives me time at night to reflect on the day, which helps me follow the reasons why I am here, to witness and to learn. Over the past few days, we have visited the concentration camps of Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz Birkenau. I went in with indescribably unknown expectations, and I was eager to embark on this experience of a lifetime.  As we walked over from our home away from home to Auschwitz 1, we were full of energy, and didn’t fully understand how our day and lives were about to change as we walked under the unsettling but prominent sign at the entrance of Auschwitz that reads “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which means “work sets you free.”

As we were walking over, the first thing that we saw was an old, grey building that looks like it hasn’t been touched in dozens of years. This building was the building where all of the prisoners arrived to the camp from their train cars, and you could still see the ruins of the rusty railroad tracks that led through the town and up to the building. From the moment I saw this building and the rusty railroad tracks, this experience became real for me, and I finally felt like I was in the presence of where all of this had happened. As soon as we walked onto the grounds of Auschwitz 1, our tour had begun, and we had received some unsettling facts. I thought that I had known a lot about Auschwitz and the Holocaust as a whole, but some of the facts hit me hard. I was told that there were up to one thousand people in each building at one point, and if I were asked how many people I would say could fit in each building comfortably, I would have said fifty. I could not even imagine fitting over 200 people in that building, let alone five times that. As we passed by the crematorium, I felt my stomach turn for the first time. We were told that up to 1,500 bodies were cremated per day, and there were up to 2,000 dead bodies per pile. When I heard this, I realized that they were killing more than 1,500 Jews per day. Over 1,500 people lost their innocent life every day, and there was nothing they could do about it. Before the war, there was around a 3.3 million Jewish population in Poland, which was one the biggest Jewish communities. Today in Poland, that number is drastically reduced. When standing on the grounds of these concentration, I was trying to think of words to describe what I was looking at, and one word that kept reoccurring was ‘hell’. The Holocaust, Auschwitz, and every death camp was the real life hell, and I still have questions that may never have an answer to them.

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Ignorance Isn't Bliss

Auschwitz II - Birkenau

A few weeks ago,  US Press Secretary Sean Spicer was in the news, vehemently apologizing for comments he made during a press briefing on April 11th. During the press briefing Spicer said, “We didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had a — someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons.” A few months ago this comment may have just struck me as insensitive, because of the comparing of atrocities, but I probably wouldn’t have thought too much more of it, but now it angers me. 


A little over a month ago I returned from Poland with a new understanding of what happened during the Holocaust. I find Spicer’s comments so disturbing because they were made out of complete ignorance on the Holocaust and Hitler. Not only did Hitler use one kind of “chemical weapon” he used multiple, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and Zyklon B. I think the most troubling part of Spicer’s remarks isn’t even the comments themselves, it is that Spicer’s view, though very public, aren’t the only display of ignorance on the Holocaust today. 
Since returning I have been asked many questions about my time in Poland, but most recently they have been about things people have heard on tv or read in the news. People generally are not knowingly being insensitive or cruel but they simply don't understand the historical significance of this tragic event. I have learned that you need to use this as an opportunity to educate people instead of getting frustrated. 

Walls in Auschwitz stained by Zyklon B

If I was to have a conversation with Sean Spicer today I would probably start by showing him the photo album filled with my chilling pictures from Auschwitz I and II. I have discovered that when I start to tell people about Poland, showing them pictures makes it easier for them to understand the true impact. I still don’t believe that pictures capture the full impact but at least pictures have given me the opportunity to show people what this horrible place looks like. I would then explain the history that I learned at these “Holocaust centers” where we heard about the horrors and what “chemical weapons” were actually used. 


During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program. The Nazi concentration and extermination camps, like Auschwitz, used hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon B. The first experimental gassing with Zyklon B took place at Auschwitz I. Zyklon B would stain the walls blue. Zyklon B was originally created and used for the fumigation of citrus trees in California. Zyklon B emerged as the favorite killing tool of Nazi Germany for use in extermination camps during the Holocaust. The chemical was used to kill roughly one million people in gas chambers installed in extermination camps like at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The use of this gas was devastating to the many victims of the Holocaust but especially the Jewish religion. 


What I have learned since coming back from Poland a month ago is that the amount of knowledge I gained while there has given me a powerful tool. I believe that people don’t mean to mistakenly mix-up facts or mean to insult the Jewish religion, I believe it is out of ignorance. So even though Sean Spicer made a mistake in reference to World War II and the Holocaust, he is not the first one and will unfortunately not be the last one to do so, but hopefully with the knowledge that I and other secondhand witnesses have attained we can work towards a world of greater understanding of the Holocaust.

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Most are Gone, but All Aren’t Forgotten

Returning home from Poland and attempting to fully explain my experience was tough.  Sharing my new knowledge about the Soah, Pope John Paul and Krakow wasn’t difficult.  Sharing pictures with my loved ones was a bit of a struggle, merely because I remember exactly how I felt when snapping them.  Oddly enough the hardest part for me, was answering the simple question of “How was Poland?”  When someone first asked me this question, I was dumbfounded.  How does one fully explain one week of their life that was life changing, eye opening, humbling and incredible in a few sentences?

To be honest, I don’t have an answer for my own question and still have some trouble answering it today.   However, I found when I set aside time to have a lengthy conversation with a family member or good friend, I can fully explain my thoughts, feelings and experience, so talking about Poland becomes easier.  I am aware that everyone who asks about my trip to Poland doesn’t actually want to hear every detail, so I describe my experience to him or her as educational, unimaginable, bewildering and mournful. 

Flowers left on prisoner’s sleeping area

Even though our trip was only a short period of time, everyday I find myself being reminded of Poland and/or the Soah.  For example, a few weeks ago I was conversing with a friend about my experience on this trip.  After sharing my pictures and telling him about some of the horrifying events that occurred, he said “I don’t understand how people could let something like this happen.  Millions of people were being killed, and no one even tried to stop it.”  My heart dropped, but I knew what I had to tell him.  I told him all about righteous gentiles and how it is so important not to judge other people’s actions, especially when one doesn’t fully understand another’s circumstances.  I also told him that some people wanted to help the victims, but there were high risks involved, such as death, if they were caught.  I also reminded him that terrible events occur today around world, but not everyone is sympathy or proactive. 

I think it is important to relate my interaction to a reading we were assigned to read.  It said “More or less eight to 10 million people go to such exhibitions around the world today, they cry, they ask why people didn’t react more at the time, why there were so few righteous, then they go home, see genocide on television and don’t move a finger” (Kimmelman).  This was a gentile reminder that it is so easy to look back at our not so far away past and judge the actions of others.

It is difficult to grasp how a select group of humans decided they had the right to create this camp and others like it, in order to carryout a systemic genocide. Its tough to comprehend the horrific events and my experience can be hard to talk about at times.  Regardless, I believe it is vital for everyone to study this time period and remember all of those affected by the Soah, because most are gone, but all should be remembered.

WORK CITED

Kimmelman, Michael. "Auschwitz Shifts From Memorializing to Teaching." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Feb. 2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.

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