Now two months into the program, I can genuinely say that I
have gotten to know my sixty-two classmates extremely well. We have learned,
travelled, and lived incessantly with one another. Sometimes this continuous
living with one another has tested our strong community, but one recent event
has tested it like no other- when all sixty two of us flew to Poland in order
to deeply understand the worst occurrence of the Jewish people: the Holocaust.
Together, we travelled all over Poland- from the Warsaw ghetto, to the Tykocin
Shtetl where traditional Jews lived before the Holocaust, to the extermination
camp of Majdonek, to Auschwitz, to the Lodz ghetto, back to Warsaw. While we
did learn about the thriving Jewish life in Poland prior to the Holocaust, it
was often overshadowed by the horrors and unforgettable stories of what came
soon after, stories that included bold acts of resistance against the Nazi
government, known as Iberleben. My trip to Poland was unforgettable, and
engraved in me an appreciation for Judaism along with the belief in an
ever-present goodness no matter how tempting evil can be.
While in Poland, my peers and I
visited a Shtetl called Tykocin, where we learned about the lives of Jews prior
to the Holocaust. A Shtetl is a Jewish population, despite residing amongst
non-Jews, who lived in a distinct Jewish culture- celebrating Shabbat, keeping
Kosher, speaking in Yiddush, praying daily, and not intermarrying. Tykocin
was very similar to the setting of the well-known movie Fiddler on the Roof. However, this
similarity between Fiddler on the Roof
and the actual setting of Tykocin are not surprising, considering the man who
wrote Tevya the Milkman, the book
that Fiddler on the Roof is based off
of, was written by Shalom Aleichem, a famous Yiddush writer who grew up in a
Shtetl of his own. Shalom Aleichem also wrote The Town of the Little People, a story about a Shtetl similar to
that of Tykocin. In the story, the citizens value their cemetery more than any
piece of land, as it is the only piece of land that they truly own. Tykocin, to
this day, also has a cemetery in a field similar to that of Kasrilevka, the
Shtetl in Aleichem’s story. While most people associate cemeteries only with
death, the cemeteries in Shtetls helped them to live. Because of the
cemeteries, they had a land where they could “breathe freely”, and had a land
where they would be proud to show their visitors. There is life in places of
death, and that idea is something I will take with me from the Tykocin
experience. Though the citizens of Tykocin were murdered in the forest, the forest
brings Jews all over the world together in mourning. There, I saw languages
from all over the world expressing both grief over Tykocin’s tragic end and
confidence that the Jewish people will live on. The coming together of people
is certainly something I associate with life.
Just as Jews came all over the world
to mourn at Tykocin, Jews came from all over to mourn together at Majdonek.
However, there is much less life to be found at Majdonek. Rather, we walked
around Majdonek hearing stories about and looking at symbols of death. The
symbols that stuck out to me most at Majdonek were the ones that reminded me of
the enormous number of individual lives lost during the Holocaust. The 7 ton
pile of ash of Jews murdered at Majdonek initiated a realization that not only
did the Jews of Majdonek die in a horrible way, but the remembrance of Jew’s
life was taken away too. No one can visit an individualized grave surrounded by
flowers to remember them; they can only stop by an enormous pile of ash without
even the ability to know who la in that pile. They were robbed of the chance to
leave an individual legacy. The only chance for me to understand what sort of
people lay in that great pile of ash was when I saw a room filled with their
shoes. Each one slightly different, I felt like I was afforded the slight
opportunity to get to know who these people were and how they expressed
themselves. In this way, the impressions that the places of life and death left
on me were somewhat similar. They both allowed me to get to know others- one
through death, through the shoes the Nazis took away, and one through life,
through the places of gathering in Tykocin.
During the Holocaust, or Shoah in
Hebrew, people bravely participated in acts of resistance, or Iberleben, in an
attempt to sanctify life. One person who participated in this was Yanuk
Gorchuck, who created an orphanage for Jewish children despite his ability to
flee Poland. Even when the Jewish children were being led to their deaths, he
went with them. Gorchuck ensured that the children could have every last minute
being children, rather than people who must mature to face death. The Nazi’s
wanted to take away from the Jews the experience of being human, part of which
is being a child. While the children were led to their deaths, Gorchuck
successfully resisted against the Nazi’s in that when they died, they still had
part of the experience of being a child- playing with one another, dressing up,
and having a figure to look up to. Without Gorchuck’s brave act of resistance,
they would not have this. Many doctors in the hospitals of ghettos also
participated in Iberleben when they intentionally poisoned children so that
they would not have to go to the chambers. While it must have been incredibly
difficult to poison children and receive criticisms for doing such things,
their actions saved countless lives. This story spoke to me because it made me
realize that doing the right thing is not easily defined, but it is certainly
not defined by what other people believe. Everyone can believe that you are a
bad person, but what matters most is that you actually are a good person. Learning
about these stories gives me, along with an untold number of people, hope that
goodness will always exist. The non-Jews of the Holocaust had extremely
convincing motives to turn a blind eye to the Jews, yet for some, their
goodness at heart was stronger than anything else, even risk of death for their
families. They act as a role model for me. No matter how tempting evil is, I
now know that it is possible to remain good- many in the Holocaust did so.
I disagree with Rabbi Emil
Fackenheim’s 614th mitzvah, “Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler
posthumous victories, they are commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish
people perish.” Rabbi Fackenheim is asserting that Jews have an obligation to
ensure the survival of the Jewish people, in spite of Hitler. However, I do not
believe that we should do anything because of Hitler, especially not create a
mitzvah. Mitzvot are sacred to Jews, and are supposed to be given to us by G-d.
They should not be created because of a man who attempted to murder all of us.
To have humans create Mitzvot, especially Mitzvot born of spite, would lower
the significance of G-d’s Mitzvot. To act
based off of Hitler, would be to give him a posthumous victory, just as
allowing the Jewish people to perish would be to give Hitler a posthumous
victory. Rather, we should care and act about the survival of the Jewish people
because we want to and truly care about it. We can help ensure the survival of
the Jewish people by creating more Jewish programs for youth, such as NFTY and
BBYO. Because of programs such as these, youth will understand that Judaism is
greater than a religion, and begin to understand that it is a people worth
being a part of. People too often abandon Judaism because they believe that
they must believe in G-d to be part of it. However, if we were to educate
people on the actual heart of Judaism, and the importance of the Jewish
community, people will be more obliged to be a part of it.
Going
to Poland was an experience I will never forget. I will never forget getting to
know a bit of those who were robbed of the opportunity of a beautiful death. I
will never forget the individualism of every one of the 6 million Jews who
perished. I will never forget the goodness in people despite almost every reason
to be bad. Constantly I have absent-mindedly listened to the statement “never
forget” the Holocaust, but going to Poland made me realize the importance of
these words. We cannot allow history to repeat itself. I believe that the
Holocaust should attack everyone’s emotions, and the best way that can be done
is by seeing it personally in Poland. That way, no one can forget. I know I
never will.
