Friday, April 5, 2013

Marching for those who could no longer march


Eighteen years ago I took the trip of a lifetime.  I went on a program called “The March of the Living” with 40 Jewish teenagers from around the country.  After I came home, I wrote the following:

 

Lighting a Memorial Candle


Like millions of Jews, I went to Auschwitz.

But unlike the millions of Jews before me, I was fortunate.

I was not packed into a sweaty, hot train leaning on others to keep from passing out.

Nor was I marching in a group like a herd of sheep with a rifle to my head.

I was on an air conditioned coach bus with 40 other Jewish teenagers from all over the United States on a two week journey to Poland and Israel to study the holocaust.

Those two weeks were the most intense and emotionally draining of my life. I spent my time exploring history, exploring my faith and exploring myself.

Poland is a dull, bleak country. The weather was cold and the skies were dark - the perfect setting for a trip back to a morbid time in history. We visited five concentration camps: Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, Plascow and Madanek.  Each was differently set up, but at one time their purposes were equal: extermination.

Auschwitz was the same as I had seen in the movies.  We were greeted by the hallmark slogan “Arbeit Mach Frei,” which means “work makes you free.”  In Auschwitz, the only thing that makes you free is death.

Auschwitz was turned into a museum attraction.  It was very disturbing to see a gift shop and hot dog stand and smiling young children who cannot even comprehend what they are seeing.

We went through the museum and saw ordinary things that I could barely describe: shoes, toothbrushes, glasses, teeth with the gold fillings removed, hair cut off from little girls’ heads still braided with a pretty bow, jewelry, suitcases, photographs of men and women reduced to skin and bones, photographs of small children with rifles to their heads, clothes for adults, clothes for children, clothes for babies.

The program that I was on was called The March of the Living.  The march is from Auschwitz to Birkenau.  It is the same 1.8 miles that prisoners marched to their deaths, because the gas chambers at Birkenau were larger and more accessible than those at Auschwitz. 

We gathered along the streets and met up with other young Jews from South America, Europe and Israel. I draped myself in an Israeli flag.  The head of the march spoke:  “We now march the same 1.8 miles that our people marched to their deaths 50 years ago.  Let the march…March!” 

The street was transformed into a silent sea of blue and white.  I looked straight ahead, marching proudly, never stepping out of line, for fifty years ago I would have been shot for doing so. 

WE were the March of the Living!

We marched for those who could no longer march.

We stayed strong.

We survived.

Am Yisrael Chai – The people of Israel live.

 

That week we also visited Plascow and Treblinka.  Plascow was completely destroyed.  It was nothing but an open field.  Standing in loneliness are two memorial statues to the prisoners who worked and the prisoners who died.

Treblinka was set up as a memorial as well.  There are 6000 stones, each representing a community or town that prisoners were taken from.  In the middle was a mass grave where hundreds of bodies were burned at a time.  We all stood around the site holding hands, singing, crying and reciting kaddish, a prayer to mourn the dead. 

Our last visit was Madanek.

Visiting Madanek was harder than visiting any other camp.  It wasn’t touched since the camp was liberated.  The buildings still stood and the structures were intact.  Madanek is of a main highway.  You could see the chimney of the crematorium for miles.  When we pulled into Madanek, we all gasped to see how obvious the camp was.

We entered a barrack where prisoners slept on wooden risers.  There were prison striped garments still there.  I could still smell the dirty, sweaty men and women who once inhabited that barrack.

In the next barrack was nothing but thousands and thousands of dirty old shoes.  (Mind you, these barracks are the size of several houses). The shoes were piled high – floor to ceiling, behind gates. 

We went into the next barrack – another million or so shoes, again, trapped behind wall to wall gates.

Finally we entered a third barrack of shoes.  This time the setup was different.  The shoes were piled on the floor with a wooden plank down the middle, resembling a boat dock overlooking a brown, dirty, never-ending sea.  These shoes could be touched.  I leaned over and picked up a shoe at random.  It was a baby shoe.  I picked up another shoe.  It was about my size.  At this point I stepped outside and greeted the air and broke down.  I sat down and cried my eyes out.  How could there possibly be so many shoes?

Finally we came upon what I thought to be the hardest thing to see – harder than the shoes, harder than the gas chambers, harder than the crematorium ovens. 

It was a dome, the size of a house, filled with human ashes. 

I cannot even describe what it was like to walk up to this monstrous urn.

I walked closer and peeked in and noticed that someone had thrown a red blooming rose on top of the pile of ashes.  A single red rose.  The rose was beautiful and perfect.  It was so perfect that it was distracting and made me feel uneasy.  How could beauty exist in such a place?  I wondered how long it was there.  Did someone throw it in today, or was it there for a while, cast under a magical spell to remain beautiful for all eternity?

 

Our time in Poland came to an end.  I was so drained both physically and emotionally, and I longed to be home.  Our next destination was Israel, and I didn’t realize until we got there, but I was at home.

The weather was bright and sunny every single day.  I was home.

I got to see my first real life palm tree.  I was home.

I tasted falafel for the first time ever.  I was home.

I swam in the dead sea and gave myself a mud bath..  I was home.

I prayed at the Western wall.  I was home.

I climbed Masada, sprained my ankle, and went to the emergency room.  I was home.

 

Visiting Poland and Israel was the most incredible, life-altering experience I have ever had.  It’s changed me.  I don’t know exactly how, but I know that I am not the same naïve kid that I was when I boarded the plane at JFK airport.  I came home with a different outlook on life, and a new responsibility.  Soon there will be no holocaust survivors living, and my generation is the last to have any contact with survivors.  I was given the responsibility to ensure that the legacy continues, and to make sure that never again will such atrocious happenings occur.

My job is to not allow ignorance to take over the truth.

The people of Israel live.

We’ve survived.

We’ve struggled.  We’ve cried.  We’ve faced death, but we’re still here.  We weren’t beat.

Never again – Am Yisrael Chai.