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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Reflecting on my Experience in Auschwitz

  
                 On the second day in Oswiecim, I found myself feeling very nervous to start walking towards the Auschwitz one. I had been trying to prepare myself for what I was about to witness, and I continuously tried visualizing how the camps will look like in my mind but reality is nothing can really prepare you for Auschwitz. It is humanly impossible to even start to imagine the pain, the hunger, emptiness, and the suffering of all the prisoners. Each prisoner was different from one another however, they all shared the same faith, and entered the camps with the same hope, and that was to survive.

Entrance of Auschwitz 1

                    The first thing I saw once I entered Auschwitz one was the sign that says” Arbet Mach Frei” which means “Work will set you free”. A sign that all of the prisoner saw once they entered the camps. The gate where millions of prisoners walked through and where later murdered. When prisoners were brought to Auschwitz they believe they were there to work, never where they told they soon will be identified by a number and would be separated from their families. The prisoners had no idea, many of their family members would be send directly to the gas chambers upon arrival, and they would never encounter each other again. Prisoners worked enormous amounts of hours, and only given a small portion of food per day.  A picture I saw during my tour, was of prisoners coming back to their bookracks and many of them where being carried by other prisoners since they no longer had the strength to do so on their own.

Belongings taken from the prisoners

 There are no words to fully describe my experience, as well as what I saw. No matter how many book, documentaries and movies I had watched on the Shoah prior to my visit, I was not expecting what I actually saw. My mind was filled with so many thoughts and question, yet I knew they would never be answered. I questioned myself what if this was me? Would I have survived? What if this was my family? Being able to look at real evidence left me with no words to really describe what I was witnessing.  For the majority of time I had no emotions Prisoner lost there dignity, their faith and their families.Prior to this experience, I was a student with an interest in the Shoah yet since my participation on this trip, I have become a secondary witness.  Overall this was an experience I would reflect on for the rest of my life and I am beyond grateful to have had this opportunity that has changed my views on many different things in my personal life.                 

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Number 432

               “NUMBER: 432”

On the fourth day in Oswiecim, Poland we got the opportunity to visit the Labyrinths of Marian Kolodziej, a Holocaust survivor who left his testimony behind through his drawings. He was one of the many first prisoners that were transported to Auschwitz. He later became identified as prisoner number 432. With his art interest, he was able to create his own world “mentally” in order to find strength for his survival. Many of his drawings in the Labyrinths illustrated the suffering of all the prisoners in the camps, including Jewish, and Polish-Catholics.

 Fifty years after liberation, Marian Kolodziej openly expressed himself through his drawings after suffering a stroke.  He used his creativity to tell the story of his past and his experience in the Shoah. During his time in the concentration camp, he was selected to do various jobs. One of them in particular was working in the crematorium, where he was in charge of transporting all of the dead bodies from the gas chamber to the crematorium. One day he stumbled across his beloved childhood best friend lying in front of him the crematorium. He elucidated this exact image, of where he showed respect by not putting him in a tray with all of the other bodies. Instead he carried his friend from the crematorium, to the gas chamber.

While walking through the Labyrinths, I observed all of the different drawings that represented the prisoners suffering and struggles in order to survive. The Jewish people were the target group to be exterminated. Upon arrival at the camps, the prisoners were then divided into two groups. The group to the right were sent directly to the gas chambers, and the group to the left where given striped uniforms and assigned to work.  All families where divided, and each prisoner that was not sent to the gas chamber was now identified by a number that was tattooed to their forearm.

  

During the stay in the camps, food was limited to all prisoners. Their daily consumption consisted of a loaf of bread and many times a small portion of soup. Prisoners where assigned to work an enormous amount of hours, and later became very weak, and died. In one of his drawings, he demonstrated Jewish-people, and their appearance upon arrival on the top, and how they later became ashes towards the bottom. This drawing implied how they started to lose their dignity, faith and identity.

            

Not only did he illustrate the way Jews where affected, he also demonstrated the suffering of many Polish-Catholics. Father Kobe, being a great example. He was a Polish-Catholic priest, a prisoner that was left in a cell to starve to death, after exchanging fates with another polish-man to be sent to starve to death. He drew his faith from that man as if it was a cloak. He demonstrated his courage, and dignity to his people. As a Roman-Catholic priest he influenced many prisoners in the camp using his faith including non- Polish- Catholics. Father Kobe’s faith allowed him to survive ten days of starvation, but he was never the less later killed by a lethal injection.

      This drawing describes that no matter where life will take him he will carry the weight of the knowledge of the holocaust forever. After telling his testimony through his images, he became a legend himself. His main purpose for the Labyrinths was to honor his friends and all of the people that suffered during the Holocaust.

By: Isabel Marin 

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