Jedwabne and Treblinka

Hello!  We are in Warsaw now and I am in love with it.  It is beautiful and large and a city I definitely hope to visit again.  I am working hard on my Polish and converse only a little, but I hope to come back when I know more.  Perhaps I will try to live in the Polish section in Brooklyn...or at least visit it often.

When we arrived in Warsaw, by train, it began to snow.  This was their first snow of the year that stuck.  That night we toured around and then had a reflection group about the places we had visited.  Here is some about them.

Jedwabne

the monument where the barn once stood

The first place we went was Jedwabne.  This is a place that is very controversial in Poland and barely known in known in the United States.  I think it would be hard to find someone who would recognize the name, but it was here that a horrible event, called a pogrom, took place.  The Poles of Jedwabne gathered up all the Jews in their town (over 300) who had been their neighbors, business partners and friends and put them a barn and set the barn on fire.  If anyone tried to escape they would cut off their limbs to make sure they couldn't get out.  The memorial is the outline of the barn and a charred door in the middle.  Soon after this they destroyed the Jewish cemetery just a few feet across the street.  Now all that remains is the wall around the cemetery and the trees that now grow in place of the graves.  All of this happened in sight of two Catholic churches. While we were there I kept thinking was the scene in The Patriot.  This is perhaps the hardest scene to watch in any movie and to be standing on a similar ground where so much hate and violence occurred is heartbreaking. 

As I said, this place is not well known.  It has no real road leading up to it and wasn't until 2011 that this event was even brought up in the country, much less the world.  Jan Gross published the book Neighbors that told the story and asked how neighbors could turn so violently upon each other.  Poland was in uproar.  Some people mourned but most were extremely angry, the Pole's were victims and wanted to remain so.  The evil was in Germany, not Poland.  However, looking back at the history of the Holocaust it was very often that people were turning their neighbors in and helping to capture Jews. 

swastika shadow remains from September

In September of this year the memorial was graffitied with swastikas and the phrases, "They were flammable" and "Don't apologize for Jedwabne."  The vestiges can be made out on the back of the monument.  Anti-Semitism is very present in Poland, something I was surprised to hear.  Our Warsaw tour guide, Olga, said it is amongst the uneducated who believe the Jews killed and persecuted the Jesuits and want revenge.  I do not say this as a fact, but it just as the belief of one.

There are many Poles who mourn the event too.  While we were there a man from the town saw us get off the bus and followed a ways behind us as we walked to the site.  I thought he was making sure we did no graffiti, but he eventually came up and asked in Polish for us to take his picture.  We did so and then he began taking pictures using his timer of him and the site.  While we were at the cemetery I looked over and saw him laying on the snow cradling his head and rocking while sobbing.  This was incredibly moving.

Jewish Cemetery that was destroyed 

church overlooking the barn

Treblinka

Never Again

Treblinka has perhaps had the biggest impact on me so far. About 800,000 people died there.  Treblinka was different than the other permanent camps because it was more like an assembly line.  People were put on trains from the Warsaw ghetto and told they were on their way to a better city just for them.  When they arrived they walked into what looked like a train station and were told they were going to take a shower before entering. They took off their clothes and then were forced down an outdoor corridor to the gas chamber and were gassed within 20 minutes of arriving.  No documents were taken they were just gotten rid of.  Instead of Zyklon B, carbon monoxide was used, a much slower death.  Some Jews from Eastern Europe heard of Treblinka and that it was a better place for them to go and bought expensive tickets with them.  They brought their furs and jewelry and all were taken by the camp officers and sent home to Germany.  After they had been gassed the Jews who had been spared because they had professions that would benefit the troops (like Tailors) would gather the bodies and put them on an enormous grill and burn them.  This often wasn't efficient enough and they would dig mass graves.  

extends until you cannot see

It is important to note that there was also a labor camp that was part of Treblinka.  This is where the Poles and POW's went.  Although many still died from the conditions at the work camp, it was only Jews who were sent to the gas chambers and are part of the 800,000 who died.

When I walked to the main part of the memorial my breath was taken away.  It is breathtakingly beautiful. This bothered some people in my group but I actually greatly appreciated it.  The memorial is treated as a cemetery to those who passed.  I found it almost more of a place of hope and a reminder of life.  When you enter there are large coffin sized stones that represent the railroad.  They travel into the distance and you are greeted with a stone platform.  This is where the people would get off the trains.  You turn the corner and the space from the camp appears.  In the middle lies a large stone monument with a part that says in many languages "Never Again" and around it are many stones.  Different communities that people were from have donated engraved stones and they have been placed where the burial pits were.  They total about 17,000 stones.  This is an overwhelming amount to look at and to imagine 800,000 is impossible. It is to me a place of peace and honor and beauty built specificly for the people who passed and whose names are not even known.  I like this idea.  At Stutthof I felt ashamed to be looking at the ashes shown in the memorial.  I feel those people deserve their rest and piece and something beautiful just for them.  If they couldn't have it at the end of their life, it seems important for after they are dead.  I think the feeling of anger and disgust that I felt looking at them is important to feel at these places, but at the expense of the people lost seems a bit wrong.

there are 17,000 of these

shows where the location of the large human grill

As you can see, the site was covered with snow.  Our tour guide at Stutthof said "These camps speak in this weather" and she is absolutely right.  It was so quiet and still and I could almost hear the stones speaking.  Some were crying, some were screaming, some were humming.  This place spoke to me and I was glad to hear them.  Very few people visit any sites except Auschwitz and an incredible number have been forgotten by most of the people in the world.  I wanted to lie down and just be there for a while.  Someday I hope to come back in the summer and do so.