Sunday, June 22, 1997

I know I haven't written for a few days, but I have good reasons, getting ready for this trip and all. Now, I'm on an airplane getting ready to take off and will be on it for a long time, since we're traveling from New York to Amsterdam. So, I don't have a good excuse not to write.

Today started my trek to Eastern Europe and Israel. I flew to New York this morning and sat on a bus for three hours as we picked up other people from JFK and Laguardia. After that we went to the synagogue, Temple Gates of Prayer, for lunch, ice breakers, and an introduction to the program. Then we headed out to a kosher restaurant in Queens to have dinner. While we were there, our bus battery died and we had to wait around for an hour for another bus to come with jumper cables. Then we went to the airport and going through check in was crazy, mostly because of the number of people [27 kids plus two counselors] and our heavy, hard-to-carry baggage. We waited around in the airport for about two hours and now we're on the plane, with about six hours to go.

I'm really looking forward to this next week and a half. Our staff is great and it sounds like we're in for some amazing experiences. Most of the people seem nice -- a little cliquey, but that's already starting to dissolve and I think once we start experiencing Prague and Poland together that will disappear completely. I've already met a few people who aren't quite friends yet, but will be once we get to know each other a little better. (After all, in this type of situation you can't be friends after only knowing each other a few hours.) Anyway, I think it's going to be awesome, once we get through this plane ride...

[I'm leaving out some rambling thoughts to myself here]

Monday, June 23, 1997

It doesn't even feel like the day changed. Hardly any of us slept on that plane last night. Plus, we lost six hours, so that messed everything up. Since last night we arrived in Amsterdam and waited at the airport. Now it's Monday afternoon and we're waiting on the plane because of technical difficulties.

[here, I'm leaving out my complaining about the flights]

It's evening now and we're in Prague. The flight went fine once we got in the air and I slept through the whole thing. We had problems at the Prague airport with the baggage claim, but it wasn't that huge [the conveyor belt was broken].

Prague is a beautiful city. It's so laid back and full of gorgeous medieval architecture. I could walk around here for days and still be amazed. We found a place called the Old Town Square which was so awesome. It had an amazingly beautiful gothic church and a statue of some man and a clock tower that was so ornate -- with sun signs and lunar cycles. This is an awesome, awesome city, and I could write about it forever, but I'm going to bed...

Tuesday, June 24, 1997

We toured Prague today. First we went to the Jewish quarter where we saw lots of old buildings and synagogues, with a lot of artifacts [most of the synagogues have been converted to museums]. We also saw an old Jewish cemetery that in some parts people are buried twelve on top of each other because there wasn't enough room -- it's also where the Maharal is buried [a lot of people think he was the Messiah and he'll be back one day; he's also supposedly the guy who breathed life into the Golem]. After lunch we went to the castle...it was a long walk. But, the view from up there was amazing -- you could see the whole city and it's just so beautiful. The cathedral there was gorgeous, really ornate with amazing stained glass. The whole city is awesome, but it's so tiring.

It's such a different atmosphere here. You can walk in the middle of a street and if a car comes by you just move. You can cross the street any time and cars will just stop without getting mad. The best times of today were when we were just walking and the different situations that arose along the way.

It's kind of weird, but I've noticed I don't sound like myself in here since the trip started. I guess it's mostly because I just want to remember every single moment, plus I know I'll probably be showing this to other people to help them know about this too. Oh well, it's not a bad thing to be describing everything that happens moment by moment, as long as I put my feelings in too, and stop feeling so detached...

Thursday, June 26

I'm sorry I missed yesterday. I had a good reason...you'll see...

Yesterday morning we woke up and did our intro for our trip to Terezin. We talked about our expectations of the camps and what we would and wouldn't see. David [Berman], our group leader, told us that when the Russians were coming, the Nazis tried to destroy all the evidence of the camps. They destroyed Treblinka early and planted a field of strawberries over it. I thought that was so ironic and so perfect for a poem, but I don't want to write the poem until I actually see Treblinka. So, I decided I'm going to write at least one poem about each camp and I'll spend the time there taking down images and emotions.

Anyway, the reference groups are so we have a place to debrief after the roller-coaster emotions we're going to experience every day.

Then we got on the bus to drive to Terezin. There were a bunch of detours and the bus driver got lost, so it took us forever to get there.

I wasn't quire sure what I was expecting to see, but I was surprised. There is a town where the Terezin ghetto used to be, with the barracks right there and the graves and crematorium nearby. And people live there. That was perplexing to me. I don't know how they live there, knowing what happened.

A survivor showed us around. We went to the museum first, in one of the old school buildings used for children. It basically gave the history of the camp, and its purpose -- to be a "haven" for Jews.

We saw the burial preparation room, because until 1942 they gave proper burials. We also saw the cemetery -- half single graves and half mass graves. Weeping willow trees surrounded it and it was so beautiful I couldn't believe it had once been a place of horror.

The crematorium was next door and we had a memorial ceremony among the furnaces. We sang "Eli Eli" [English translation of the song, by Chanah Senesh -- "Oh L-rd, my G-d, I pray that these things never end: the sand and the sea, the rush of the waters, the crash of the heavens, the prayer of man."] and it was really chilling.

After eating lunch, we went back to Prague and took a boat ride down the river with the Baltimore Poland/Israel group [they were a Ramah sponsored group, so they followed us on our itinerary, but they had never been to Ramah camps]. It was nice and relaxing on the river. Prague is such a beautiful city, and I miss it.

Then the chaos started. It was about twenty to eight and our train left at 8:36. By the time we got off the bus we had about twenty minutes to take everything up three flights of stairs and onto the train. [We were so late because we had decided to pray Mincha, the afternoon service, by the river. Then, the bus driver parked far away and the counselors spent half an hour trying to decide what to do. The only reason we made it on the train was that the Baltimore group was already on and they helped us.] It was horrible and the last person jumped onto the train as it started to move. At first, we thought we'd left people behind because we were doing a count-off and couldn't find all the numbers. Everyone was freaking out. Then, the bags were all over the place so we couldn't get organized into rooms. Some of us just sat in the back until things cleared out. It took about an hour and a half until we finally got into a room, and it took even longer to get our bags.

After that, things settled down. We stayed in the room with some girls from the Baltimore group, and some of their guy friends came in. We also went to the guys' room for a while to hang out. It was fun. Sleeping was impossible, of course.

We finally got to Krakow, and now we're here, feeling gross and tired, and we've got a whole day of sightseeing ahead of us...

Now it's evening and here's what we did today... This morning we traveled around the Jewish quarter of the city and saw lots of old synagogues and Jewish buildings, along with an old cemetery.

After lunch we walked across the bridge to the section of the city that was the ghetto (it was the one in "Schindler's List"). It was very weird because we'd been warning each other not to wear kipot and to tuck all our necklaces inside our shirts because of all the anti-Semitism. But, as we walked across that bridge, we put on our kipot and pulled out our necklaces and sang part of K'riat Shema -- v'lo navosh..."We will not be ashamed." It was a liberating experience, but we knew not all Jews had such a joyous time crossing that bridge. Inside the ghetto -- people actually live there -- people yelled at us and threw stuff at us, but we brushed it off. We climbed some stairs and overlooked the ghetto the way Schindler did on horseback. After that we saw the small remaining part of the ghetto wall and Schindler's factory.

Then we went to Plaszow [the work camp from "Schindler's List," pronounced Pleshov]. There's not much left of it. It's mostly a grassland, with some steep dropoffs around and a big bowl-shaped impression in the middle. There's a memorial plaque on each side, a small one and a large one. It's very desolate and barren, and the souls of the dead are still there.

But, obviously not everyone realizes that. There was a couple there with a picnic and a little girl playing catch with her mother, while an older lady read the newspaper nearby. They don't know what that place is. As we did our memorial ceremony, they just kept on with their activities, oblivious. They don't know.

We always say "Never forget" like everyone knows, but I guess they don't. We have to tell them, teach them and make them realize this reality, even if we have trouble accepting it ourselves. Especially that little girl. She's part of the new generation, probably already hates Jews because her parents and her country tell her to, because everyone else she knows hates us too. If we don't teach them, who will? We need to make everyone to "Never forget." If we don't, that little girl and her friends will, G-d forbid, grow up and do the same thing all over again...

Off to Auschwitz-Birkenau tomorrow...

Sunday, June 29

I'm on a bus right now. Forgive the handwriting [of course, since this is typed, you all don't care!]. I'm sorry I didn't write the past few nights -- everything has been so hectic, especially with Shabbat. I've got so much to write about...

So, Friday first... After waking up, having breakfast and loading the bus again, we started the drive to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The drive took about an hour and a half and was very tense. It was like we knew what we were getting into, yet at the same time, we had no idea. We arrived at the town -- Oswiecim in Polish -- and again I was appalled that people can still live in that area, knowing all the suffering that went on there. Then we got to the actual camp itself and that was even worse. They made the administrative buildings and some of the barracks into semi-museums, and there were souvenir shops at the entrance. I'm sorry, but some things just shouldn't be made into tourist attractions. They had a sign at the entrance that said to act with dignity to remember the suffering of the survivors. It seems they need to take their own advice.

After a short talk about sticking with the group, we entered Auschwitz. It was chilling to walk under that sign "Arbeit macht frei," and I think all of us did it with a little reluctance and dread. It was so freaky to look down that barbed wire fence and to think this was what determined people's lives. The sun was shining, and it was the hottest day so far on this trip, but I had to put on my sweatshirt -- because of the internal chill and just for a little extra comfort.

We walked through the dirt and cobblestone streets where so many people collapsed from exhaustion, stood for long roll calls, or were shot for no reason at all. It was weird to walk over tire tracks or footprints in the dried mud because it was like we were walking in their steps. We'll never understand what those steps mean.

Of all the camps we've been to so far, this one had the most left, which is part of what made it so hard. Walking into each of the barracks, I got dizzy and had trouble breathing. It was almost as if we were defying the solemnness by just being there, in our comfortable clothes and shoes, clean and with enough to eat, knowing we could leave in a few hours and return to our fancy hotel. And there we were, in a place our ancestors couldn't leave, where they suffered, crowded and tortured, and starved to death in the dirt, if the SS didn't get to them first. It just wasn't right, walking through these museums where their luggage, their shoes, their hair was on display.

The hardest part was definitely the gas chambers and crematorium. The first gas chamber was the prison basement where they did the first experiments with Zyklon-B. During the first time, about 450 people died and those who didn't -- because the basement wasn't totally airtight -- were gassed again. Then we went to the actual gas chamber. The air was really cold and I had a lot of trouble breathing. That was where I really lost it and started crying. Trying to imagine all those people dying there, right where I stood, it was just too much. I couldn't comprehend the horror.

Then we went into the attached crematorium, the only one at Auschwitz [and it was only used for overflow from the four Birkenau crematoria]. Memorial candles burned in the oven, just like the fires that consumed the lives the candles mourned. The irony was so strange, yet touching, and it brought tears to my eyes again.

We ate lunch in the Auschwitz parking lot, which didn't seem right to me, and then we took the short bus ride to Auschwitz II, or Birkenau.

That one has been the worst so far because it's almost totally intact. The only things not there were a few wood barracks the Nazis burned down, and the four crematoria are in ruins. It was hard to walk around because the grass is really high and the ground is uneven, and the sun was pretty hot. Plus, there was this smell, I can't quite describe it. It was kind of like dust and cobwebs, old buildings, and death. We walked through the latrines and washrooms on the women's side, and one of the barracks. The smell was everywhere, making me feel sick the whole time. Also, it was cold inside. It seems to me it must always be cold there.

We walked past crematorium and gas chamber two, which is just a pile of bricks. Even though it was just a pile of rubble, it was still menacing. Then we came to the platform where the trains came in and Josef Mengele pointed right or left. After that we came to crematorium three, which is in the same condition as two. Beyond that were crematoria four and five, Canada (where the Nazis sorted and stored people's belongings), the "Barbecue" which is an open pit where they burned bodies that were overflow from the crematoria, and the pools they dug to throw the ashes in.

After seeing everything, we sat in the forest where people waited before going to gas chambers four and five. We basically talked about how we were feeling, about wondering where G-d was and rejoicing in the fact that we can walk around there in our kipot, proud to be Jewish -- we beat them, we're still alive and going strong.

We had a memorial ceremony in the ruins of gas chamber/crematorium four, the one prisoners destroyed during a revolt. I was kind of wary about stepping in there, but I did anyway. I placed my hand on one of the bricks of the foundation just to see what it felt like, what was left over. It was cold and I felt a tingling in my fingers, like evil trying to seep into me. It disturbed me, that such evil is still around after so many years.

We went back to the front gate and were going to climb the tower to look out over the whole camp, but it was being painted so we couldn't go up. Then we all took a rock from the railroad tracks, another attempt to "Never forget."

After that, we returned to the hotel to get ready for Shabbat. This was one of the most faithful Shabbats I've ever experienced and it's still carrying over into today.

We prayed Kabbalat Shabbat [Friday night service for welcoming in Shabbat] in the restaurant we've been eating in. We used some different tunes, really affirming our religion. David told us that no matter what we have to remember "Am Yisrael Chai" ["To the life of Israel"] -- that the Jewish people are still alive and will be forever. When prayers were over, we started to sing the song and ran outside to dance in the streets of the Jewish quarter. Those streets used to be packed with Jews singing and dancing every Friday night. Now there are none. Yet, our small group danced in a city full of anti-semitism as we tried to recreate the past and the glory of our people who will live forever. We just revelled in our Judaism, our love for each other and G-d.

During dinner we pushed all the tables together into a big table so we could all eat together. We sang a lot, with such enthusiasm we could have broken the walls down with our voices. We didn't get done until about one in the morning and then we walked back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we prayed at an old synagogue in Krakow. It was really beautiful, but kind of annoying because women had to sit in a balcony. After that we had lunch and then went to the Castle Wawel. It was a Renaissance castle for the Polish royalty. It was really beautiful, but our tour guide was a little boring and annoying. We also went to the cathedral there, which was absolutely gorgeous, and there was a wedding going on. I felt bad for the couple because all these tourists were watching their wedding, but it was fun to watch.

After a three-hour nap, we returned to the restaurant for Mincha and a discussion about faith after the Holocaust. It was confusing, especially trying to figure out what happened to G-d during that time.

We had dinner and learned a new Niggun -- a melody without words. We sang it between ten and fifteen times, growing louder each time, clapping our hands and dancing.

We did Havdalah outside the hotel under a tree. It was different from at camp, but it was beautiful. Everyone sang harmonies and swayed together, and the candles seemed to burn brighter and brighter.

Before bed we had reference groups to debrief about our experiences at Auschwitz. And that was Saturday.

This morning we left Krakow. (I'm at the hotel in Lublin now, by the way.) On our way to Lublin we stopped at a few places. In Tarnow, we prayed Shacarit [the morning service] at the ruins of the old synagogue. In Lancut, we saw an old synagogue that is being restored. It was so beautiful, with prayers written all over the walls, amazing illustrations and so much color. We danced around the place and sang the song we learned last night. We also learned a little about the beginning of Chasidism. It was awesome. In Lejansk, we visited the grave of the Chasidic Rebbe Elimelech and learned his song "Aderaba" -- a prayer about loving each other. Then we all gathered around the grave and prayed for his righteous soul to help us along our way.

Then we went to Majdanek, but I'm tired so I'll continue tomorrow...

Monday, June 30

All right, I'm on a bus again. It's not moving yet, but some things are just unavoidable. I tell you, once I get caught up with this journal, I'm never going to get behind again. I have much better things to be doing on a bus than torturing myself trying to hold this pen over bumpy roads...like sleeping.

But, anyway... After a three hour bus ride, we reached Majdanek [pronounced Maidanek]. It's as intact as Birkenau, yet a lot of the barracks are gone. The crematorium in the most intact and -- this is the scary part -- it could be up and running in about 72 hours. The place was huge. It didn't have as many buildings as Birkenau, but it was a lot more spread out and desolate.

First we walked through the gas chamber by the entrance. The day was really hot, so inside was stuffy. We could see the blue stains on the wall, left over from the Zyklon-B. Somehow, that made it all real. The gas was actually in that room and we could see it -- it had left its mark on the walls and ceilings.

The first few barracks had been converted into somber museums, most of which were in Polish, so we couldn't understand them. The barracks had few windows, so the air was thick and it was very hard to breathe. Plus it was really hot. I wanted to go through them as fast as I could to get out into the air, but then I kept thinking, the prisoners couldn't leave -- they had to live like this.

Three barracks were full of shoes -- 800,000 pairs -- and those were just the ones the Nazis hadn't shipped off to be sold. I wasn't going to go in at all because it was too cramped and disturbing. But, I decided to go in one anyway. I was looking at the shoes in one of the cages and noticed some graffiti on the cage. It said "Am Yisrael Chai." That filled me with so much hope -- here among this sorrow, someone was fighting back. I went outside to find David and told him. And there, in that somber place where people almost never smile, we smiled at each other.

Rachel and I continued to walk through the camp. Some of the barracks were open and still had the bunks in them, but most of them were locked.

After that, we walked down to the huge stone memorial at one end and looked around there for awhile. Again, there were kids playing with their parents nearby, totally oblivious to what had happened. I can kind of understand, or at least rationalize it at Plaszow because there is nothing there but an empty field and two memorial markers. But the whole camp is left at Majdanek -- for Heaven's sake, it's still capable of running! That destruction could happen all over again. They should know.

Then we walked over to the crematorium. We didn't want to go in, but felt we had to. It was dark and musty in there and really scary, knowing that with just a little cleaning that thing could start working again. The worst part was that there were still ashes in the ovens.

We got out of there quickly and walked over to the other memorial for the memorial ceremony. It was kind of shaped like a UFO, and from far away I figured it was just solid. But, as we walked up the stairs to it, we saw that it wasn't. In the middle was a huge, deep pit filled with ashes. And if you looked closely, you could see whole bones here and there. It was such a shock that when I saw it I just stopped walking and couldn't stop staring at it, trying to comprehend it. When other people started pointed out bones, I was too disgusted and had to look away.

The memorial ceremony was the most powerful of all those we've had so far. As we sang, our voices echoed through the dome covering the ashes. When we lit the candles the wind was strong and played with the flames, but they never went out...like G-d was letting us know that the light of the Jewish people will never be extinguished.

We all stood up there for awhile longer before getting back on the bus. I looked out over the camp, again trying in vain to comprehend everything. I was looking back and forth between the crematorium and the barracks and just got so angry. I felt like I just wanted to find all those Nazis and punch them. How could they do this to other people? Then a family rode up on their bikes and started playing around the ashes, and of course that only angered me even more.

After Majdanek we went to our hotel in Lublin and spent the night there. We're in Warsaw now and I'll finish this tonight before bed...

Now we're at the Forum Hotel in Warsaw. We left Lublin this morning. First we went to Yeshivat Chochmei Lublin and prayed Shacarit and learned a little Mishnah. Then we went to Gur and ate a snack in the old, abandoned synagogue there. We also visited a cemetery near there and prayed at the grave of Rabbi Altar. Then we went on to Warsaw. First we ate lunch, then we looked around in an old Jewish courtyard in what used to be the Warsaw Ghetto. Then we went to the synagogue there and prayed Mincha. The place is so beautiful. Unfortunately, someone set it on fire a few weeks ago so the back part is damaged. Then we went to Mila 18, which is where the people who started the Warsaw ghetto uprising waited out and eventually killed themselves. We also went to the Rapoport Memorial and had a discussion about resistance.

Now we're at the hotel and have lots of free time and don't have to be a Shacarit until 7:30 tomorrow morning. I'm going to bed...

Wednesday, July 2

Sorry I didn't write last night. It was our last night in Warsaw and we were all running around our floor of the hotel, burning off the extra energy. We didn't go to bed until after 1:30 and we had to get up at 5:30. It was fun, running around in our pajamas without shoes and acting like fools on the phone. It's sad that our time together is over, but we're going to have so much fun in Israel. And it's not like we're not going to see each other all summer.

We spent a lot of time on the bus yesterday. Our first stop was Tykocin. Before the war, it was about 70% Jewish, but now there are no Jews there. We visited their old synagogue, and it's absolutely gorgeous -- just like all the other synagogues here are-- with the pastel designs and prayers all over the walls, the huge, intricately decorated bima in the center. We prayed Mincha there and then started to march through the town just like the Nazis had made the 1600 Jews march during the ar. They had gathered all the Jewish inhabitants of the town in the synagogue and then marched them out to a clearing in the forest where they were all shot. We walked as far as the cemetery -- which is basically nonexistent now because the Nazis destroyed a lot of the graves and the others have sunk into the ground -- then the bus took us to the entrance of the forest. We walked the short path to the mass graves with growing anxiety in our hearts. The last Jews who walked down that path knew they were walking to their death, knew they would never return down that path. I kept wondering what that would feel like -- to know you were going to die within minutes -- but it was just too unreal. At the graves, we read an account of someone who actually survived that tragedy. She was shot in the head and thrown among the corpses, but she crawled out to life and saved herself. It was horrible listening to that, knowing so many didn't survive, and standing among the tall green grass which is their final resting place. After Kaddish, people seemed reluctant to leave. Finally we left, one by one, no one saying a word. I almost felt guilty leaving the place. The Jews of Tykocin hadn't had the opportunity to leave

We got back on the bus, still quiet, and most of us fell asleep. Forty-five minutes later we stopped for lunch at a concrete slab on the side of the road, and most of the shock had worn off by then. Lunch was a lot of fun. We just ate what we brought and were trying to finish everything so we wouldn't have to bring it all to Israel. People were throwing food around everywhere and it was the largest meal we've had in a long time. After lunch, we drove a few more hours to Treblinka. They'd been preparing us to see nothing, but there was so much more that nothing. It was basically a field of flowers and grass, and there were stones everywhere -- 17,000 of them for the 800,000 victims of the death camp. 800,000 deaths in 16 months -- that's just too hard to believe -- so many...and so quickly...

We had a memorial ceremony, around a flat tar monument, meant to symbolize the ash pits. It was hard emotionally -- we were basically walking over a mass grave. They said that after heavy rain, some of the bones still come out of the ground. Clouds were blowing in as we walked around and it started to rain a little during our ceremony. After we lit our candles, we sang "Hatikvah," once again affirming the immortality of the children of Israel. We walked around a little more before returning to the bus. I sat among the stones to write a poem. It was a freaky experience. The wind seemed to keep getting colder, and I kept looking around to make sure other people were in sight, because I couldn't stand to be there alone. Finally, I finished the poem and returned to the bus before I got too freaked.

We ate dinner in Acapulco, and then returned to terrorize the hotel.

We're on a plane to Amsterdam now, and I think we're going to Anne Frank's house. Then we hop on another plane. So, next time I write I'll be in Israel, or at least on the way...

Thursday, July 3

We're in Israel!! I'm still not used to that fact and have to keep repeating it to myself to make myself realize it. The land is even more beautiful than I ever imagined it could be and I just have to keep thanking G-d for making me Jewish and allowing me this wonderful, amazing experience.

After I wrote yesterday, we had a six-hour layover in Amsterdam. We got on a bus and took a tour of the city. It's a beautiful city, with canals running through all the streets and beautiful buildings. We stopped first at the Portuguese synagogue and prayed Mincha there. Then we went to Anne Frank's house which was stupid because it's such a tourist attraction. It was basically one big gift shop. As we waited outside to get on the bus, it started to rain which made me think of Joshua Kadison's song "Amsterdam." "Oh, Amsterdam, can you tell me what kind of man I am? A walker in the rain, a dancer in the sand, or just an insane music man?" That song has always touched me because sometimes I feel like that's my theme song. So, when I was there, the city had such a mystical quality, like it had all the answers to my questions...

The plane ride to Israel was four hours and seemed really long. We prayed Ma'ariv [the evening service] on the plane with some Hasidim. That was definitely an interesting experience.

Arriving in Israel was awesome. Waiting to leave the plane was so intense. Then we finally got off. The air was heavy and damp and smelled of the sea. Plus there was something intangible, like a sense of belonging.

Getting through the airport was hellish. Then we went to the Goldstein Youth Village or in Hebrew Chavat Hanoar Hatzioni [which literally means Zionist Youth Farm, and will later be referred to as the Chava] and got settled in, going to bed around four in the morning. The village is beautiful. There's a wonderful little corner under a willow tree right by a small waterfall, which is my favorite place so far, but the whole village is great.

We went to the Kotel [Western Wall] today. We only spent about five minutes there, but it was awesome. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but it's impressive.

We picked everyone else up at the airport tonight. It was crazy and exciting. I'd write more, but I'm tired and only have five hours to sleep...

(since 15 May 2001)

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