A 2nd Generation's Journey
Journal: My Journey to Poland Nov. 2007 |
| Date: Nov 2, 2007 8:00 AM Subject: Lublin, Poland Just a quick note from Poland. Finally got to a computer but unfortunately it won't connect to gmail so I am using my yahoo address and don't have everyone's address. (and not sure of some of these addresses so I apologize if I'm sending this to someone I don't know.) We have been 3 days on our journey in Poland and I am so thankful that I have made this journey. My fears of coming to Poland, for the first time, with a group of 16 and 17 year olds has turned to immense pleasure. The kids are absolutely amazing and my most emotional moment was taking a photo of these kids draped in Israeli flags at the memorial ceremony in Treblinka. I thought of my father looking at these photos and just cried, thinking of how happy he will be to see this - young Israeli youth returning to this most horrible place on earth - strong, young - the best revenge to Hitler and those that wanted a pure Aryan race. It has been a mix of emotions from almost terror while standing in a cattle car in Lodz when suddenly a real train passed by as we were in it - to extreme happiness when I saw Poland from the plane and was really excited - feeling my roots as Polish. On Sat I am going alone with Alon to Bochnia, the town where my parents were born and grew up. I met a wonderful woman from Krakow on the plane and she arranged a meeting for me in Bochnia with the daughter and granddaughter of a classmate of my mother. This classmate gave my mother her ID card when my mother became ill in the ghetto with typhoid and had to be sneaked out as a Christian to the hospital in Krakow. This woman actually saved my mother's life and I can't express the excitement - anxiousness I feel to meet the family. We will tour Bochnia with them One computer - many kids waiting in line. Hope to write later. Love, Helen/Oran |
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| Date: Nov 3, 2007 12:47 AM Subject: From Krakow Friday night 11:10 Kids have a 11:00 PM curfew so I can have the 1 computer in the hotel for myself! :-) (Without a group breathing down my neck as I type... sorry for all the previous typos...) Today was a very intense day. We visited the Majdanek concentration camp. Looking at it you would think that you were on a Hollywood movie set for a WW II movie - but this is the real thing. This is the one camp the Germans didn't have time to totally destroy. From a distance you see the chimney of the crematorium and the wooden lookout towers among the barbed wire - electric fences. This camp has barracks, storage rooms, showers, gas chambers and the crematorium. I entered a room that was a gas chamber - but recent research says it was not used for people but for cleansing the clothes. Once in the room I was overwhelmed by this absolutely horrible sadness and deep grief - the most horrible energy I have ever felt. I had to go out and felt close to fainting. I took Rescue and did some tapping (EFT) and managed to calm myself. My feeling was that the horrible pain felt by those that died in this room was still there. It was just overwhelming. I was fine for the rest of the visit (as fine as one can be in this god forsaken place). We ended the visit at the mausoleum where the ashes of those killed in Majdenek are kept. We had a memorial service there that Alon prepared. I sang with Alon the Hebrew song "Le Kol Eesh yesh shem" "Every person has a name" which was so fitting for this place where the Germans tried to dehumanize all the prisoners at the camp. Others read stories and poems written by those who were in Majdenek. In the evening we came to Krakow. Tomorrow Alon and I are on are own to Bochnia. I am looking forward to seeing the town where my parents were born and grew up. I'm also very excited to meet the family of my mother's non-Jewish friend whom my mother studied with in high school and college and who gave my Mom her ID card to get her out of the ghetto and into a hospital in Krakow. It's so amazing to suddenly see these places that have only been names of towns and cities for me until now. Ann - I thought of your parents when I visited Logz (Am I right that your father is from there?) Karen and Gita - Lulek gave me the name of the street your mother lived on (though the house is no longer there.) I will take a photo of the street name for you. Yesterday we stopped in a small town to find the house of one of the kids' grandmother. As we tried to figure out which was the right house, we asked some of the locals. It turned out the person we asked knew the family and brought over his cousin who was visiting for the day to be at his wife's grave (it was the 1st of Nov. - Memorial Day and my mother's birthday - when everyone in Poland goes to the cemetery. They light candles and all over at night you see the cemetery lit up with many colored candles.) This man knew the girl's grandmother and he and all the people in the town were so happy to see the girl (our student.) Many of the older townspeople came to hear the story and see the great-granddaughter of the Cohen family. They were such warm wonderful people who hugged and kissed many of us. This girl's grandmother left with her family in 1934 for Israel, but the rest of the family stayed. The townspeople told us that the girl's grandmother's aunt married and the townspeople hid the couple during the war and they survived. After they went to France this was all a new and surprising story for the girl. It was an absolutely warm, wonderful experience for all of us. So this trip makes all of us feel the full range of human emotions! Again - this trip is an absolutely amazing experience for me and I am so thankful that I have this chance to be apart of this delegation. Much love, Oran/Helen |