The final weekend... which should have been 3, 4, maybe 5 entries. You may have to read it 'jeszcze raz' (one more time) ;)

On Friday we left Będzin, where we met with Karolina and Piotr Jakowenko, who, through their own grassroots efforts are preserving Będzin’s once-rich Jewish heritage, gave us a tour of the town’s Judaic traces. We then headed back to Katowice (Maciek’s home turf) and visited Nikiszowiec, known as Katowice’s “hidden gem.” Nikiszowiec is a red-brick housing complex built for coal miners between 1908 and 1911. Within this unique complex is also a museum (which we went to), a bakery serving delicious pastries (despite the abundance of wasps on all of them), a post office, the church of St. Anne, and many other shops surrounding a large courtyard where local kids were playing piłka nożna, or soccer.

Jewish Będzin

Karolina and Piotr Jakowenko talking to our group

A red rose mosaic on a typical building in Nikiszowiec

Maciek and Tomek in Nikiszowiec

Friday evening in Oświęcim, may have been one of the most incredible evenings of the fellowship. And it didn’t even involve memorials, museums, or Holocaust history. Simply it involved the strong ties of friendship that had been developing over the last few weeks. While Shelby and Zach went to the Oświęcim synagogue for a makeshift Shabbat service, the rest of us prepared a “Sabbath” meal of our own in the cozy, and surprisingly still-functioning, kitchen of Hotel Pierrot. After navigating the grocery store earlier in the day, which included several attempts at Polish food label translations, we succeeded in purchasing pasta, tomato sauce, bread, salad, and wine for a homemade dinner, including Kosher-friendly items for Shelby. Caroline masterfully (and patiently) cut all of Shelby’s food with plastic cutlery to keep kosher in the very non-kosher kitchen in which we were operating. After what seemed like an eternity, Shelby and Zach arrived back at the hotel where we all yelled in unison, “Shabbat shalom!” (and ‘”Surprise!”) Needless to say, Shelby was very surprised, a little overwhelmed, and very grateful. She said the blessings over the “wine” (grapes had to substitute) and the bread, and we proceeded to have an incredible time, talking, laughing, and eating. There we were celebrating the Sabbath in the town which once bore the name Auschwitz, making me appreciate Jewish life, culture, and contribution all the more. There was honestly no other place I would have rather been than right there.  

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of Shelby and Zach

An incredulous Shelby :)

The Shabbat group 

On Saturday we had a free day which meant a long run for me in the morning along the Soła River in the early misty morning. It was supposed to rain throughout the day, but after two hours in the kitchen of our little hotel, I knew I needed to get out. I looked up the location of Wadowice—the birthplace of Karol Wojtiła (later John Paul II), which was roughly 40 kilometers away. Five of us—Suzanne, Caroline, Michelle, Zach, and myself decided to go. I called for a taxi, understanding only about ¼ of the phone conversation, but in 5 minutes we had a taxi in front of our hotel and a kind Polish man ready to transport us through the drizzle to Wadowice. After an hour of weaving through Poland’s little towns, we arrived in Wadowice and forged our way to the main square, currently under construction, and the heart of this little town. First stop: the Basilica of St. Mary where John Paul II was baptized in 1920, and where the pope came to pray when he visited Poland. Despite the weather outside, this gilded Baroque church was packed with Poles, pilgrims, and visitors alike. Afterwards, we visited his birthplace and childhood home, learning about his life until the outbreak of the war.

Basilica of St. Mary, Wadowice

Inside the church

Statue of Pope John Paul II

 Karol Wojtiła's birthplace and childhood home

My Wadowice compatriots: Zach, Caroline, Suzanne, and Michelle 

Me, Caroline, Suzanne, and Michelle

 Karol Wojtiła was an actor growing up; who knew his museum would have props for visitors? ;)

Our lunch choices were limited in this little town, and after finally settling on pierogi, our lunch quickly turned into a fiasco. Zach doesn’t eat pork and the girls were vegetarian, so they all ordered pierogi russkie (cheese and potato pierogi), but to everyone’s dismay, the pierogi arrived with large chunks of ham garnished on top. If this wasn’t bad enough, even after picking all of the ham off, there were pieces of meat inside—something the menu neglected to mention. After several failed attempts to return the food or have it remade, the group settled for scoops of lody (ice cream). Our taxi driver, who had kindly waited for us for the 2 ½ hours as we toured Wadowice, provided an uneventful ride back to Oświęcim, although a nap was definitely needed by the time I returned.

On Sunday, we left finally said farewell to Oświęcim and drove through Kraków to pick up Tomek before heading toward Tarnów. Along the way we stopped at several significant sites of the Holocaust. First stop: Zbylitowska Gora, a mass shooting site. We first saw this massive sword memorial jutting out from the surrounding forest. This symbol of the sword evokes specific memories of Germans on Polish soil, thus not only reminiscent of World War II, but of the romantic and knightly history of Grunwald where the Poles beat the invading Germans in a major battle in 1410. Within the cleared site at Zbylitowska Gora, there were several marked mass graves; three mass graves of Jews (marked with stars of David) and three of Christians (marked with crosses). One of the Jewish mass graves was only for Jewish children. The plaque commemorating the children made me think of how the language utilized on memorials affects visitors’ interactions with the space and the history. This plaque stated (in typical Communist language) that this grave marked the place where “800 crushed heads of our children by the Hitlerite criminals” lay. We were staring at a small pit not only where a large number of people were murdered, but 800. And specifically 800 children. And not just children but ‘crushed heads.’ I winced reading it.

The sword monument at Zbylitowska Gora : "Glory to the victims of Hitlerite terror"

Christian mass grave site

Jewish mass grave site

Our next stop was Dąmbrowa Tarnowska, located about 10 miles north of Tarnów, which lost the majority of its Jewish population during the war. One Holocaust survivor, Samuel Roth returned to Dąmbrowa Tarnowska after the war and was able to maintain a shtibl (prayer and reading room) in his family’s home. This was the last shtibl in Western Galicia (today it is a museum). Attempts to renovate the synagogue in Dąmbrowa Tarnowska began in the 1970s but were blocked by the Communists. Thus it was not until 2004, after receiving EU-funded support, that the renovation of the synagogue began again. On June 5, 2012 the dedication ceremony for the synagogue occurred, and since there is no Jewish community in the town, the building houses the Centre for Meeting of Cultures, and following the dedication, a prayer service was jointly held by rabbis and priests. Two months ago (in August 2012), some concerned Poles from Dąbrowa Tarnowska complained about their town’s large, newly renovated synagogue. Huge billboards posted along the main road leading to Kraków read, “The Jews have a synagogue, but we got no money.” (for more information, see “Renovated synagogue becomes House of Cultures in Poland, sparking local controversy.” Haaretz. Last accessed 4 September, 2012. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/renovated-synagogue-becomes-house-of-cultures-in-poland-sparking-local-controversy.premium-1.461920.)

The renovated synagogue at Dąbrowa Tarnowska

Note the size of this synagogue (Zach in foreground)

Back in the bus, we drove to Tarnów lunch and to visit the remains of the city’s Jewish sites.  Before World War II, 25,000 Jews lived in Tarnów—about half of its population. We saw the bima—the last remnant of Tarnów’s old synagogue, the location of the former ghetto, former Jewish stores, and this ornate Sephardic-looking structure which used to be the mikveh (ritual bath) of Tarnów’s diverse Jewish community (comprised of both religious Hassid and secular Zionists, who probably weren’t using the mikveh ;p). Deportations of Jews began in June 1942, and by late 1943, Tarnów was considered judenrein (“free of Jews”). Although 700 Tarnów Jews returned after the war, many of them soon left the city and Poland in general, moving to Israel and the United States.

Tarnów's main square

The bima, still standing in its original location, of what used to be Tarnów's grand synagogue.

The former mikveh, a building obviously no longer used as a ritual bath for Jews 

Some festive Tarnów wall art

Next stop: Zakliczyn, a Jewish military cemetery, where 12 tombstones evenly sized and evenly spaced comprised the small area. The site itself was very unique; it had not been desecrated during the war and remains in excellent condition today. Lastly, we headed to Bobowa, home of the Bobowa rabbis and the famed wooden Hassidic synagogue. A barber, whose clothes and hairstyle I swear were taken right out of the American 1970s, looks after the synagogue and opened the gate for us. After our walk through, Mike, Shelby, and Tomek danced in the courtyard which made for an entertaining experience. The Bobowa cemetery was located up on the hillside outskirts of the town, and it was truly a breathtaking sight when we arrived. Corn and wheat fields expanded over the hilltops, and the cemetery sloped down one of the hill. This visit completed our sight-filled day, and by evening we arrived in a small campsite of a town, Niedzica, located on a little lake about 800 meters from the Slovakian border.

 The Jewish military cemetery at Zakliczyn

Maciek in the bima, Bobowa synagogue

The fields outside of Bobowa

The Bobowa cemetery

Shelby and Caroline by the corn fields

Such a pastoral sight

Awkward corn model photo

Chata spiska, our hotel in  Niedzica

Group meal--note all of our happy faces and Tomek at the end. He must be so sad to see us go ;)

Our last day, Monday, was much-needed. Zach and I ran to Slovakia, passports in hand, and proceeded to take a bunch of silly pictures leaving Poland and entering the Slovak unknown ;). In fact, so similar are both sides of the border, that we ran right passed the sign. After running alongside a horse-drawn cart, we returned to our hotel (more appropriately a complex of quaint, albeit modern, cabins), where we met the rest of our group to begin a day of adventures. Across the street was the shack of the notorious “Cheese man” of Poland, who makes fresh, “smoky” cheese famous among AJC fellow alums. Our group was not so lucky since the “cheese man was out” and no one knew when we was going to return. Cheeseless, we returned to the van and headed toward the trail head for what would be a breathtaking trail of the gorgeous Tatra mountains. Surrounded by purple wildflowers, pine trees, and incredible views, the hike was truly a liberating experience. The only downside was that the trail was extremely crowded although one could easily see why on this beautiful sunny day in July.

Starting the morning right: running to Slovakia and racing a horse

Just another day in the Tatra mountains

Such breathtaking scenery

Had to capture one picture of the three of us

Such a thrill reaching the final destination

All of us; such an incredible group of people. I am so very thankful for them, for their knowledge, their encouragement, their laughter, and their enthusiasm.

Not a complete hike without wildlife

After a delicious pierogi lunch (my last one, *tear) at a traditional Slavic tavern in the nearby town and some ice cream, we returned back to the hotel for a brief respite before our late afternoon rafting extravaganza. We arrived at the Dunajec River which forms the natural border between southern Poland and Slovakia. We all fit in one flat bottomed boat, where our guides—decked in traditional Slovak attire, each had wooden poles that they used to navigate the water’s various currents. We followed the river’s path—which once had broken through the limestone mountains—downstream, taking in the sights and sounds of Pieniny National Park. Occasionally our own thoughts and discussions were interrupted as our rafting guide told sporadic (and slightly inappropriate) tales and jokes. Since he only spoke Polish, poor, already-very bored and fidgety Maciek had to translate). While the ride was indescribably stunning, after 90 minutes of sitting cramped with all 12 of us on this rectangular “boat,” and freezing, I was more than ready to conclude the journey, pay 2,50 złoty to use the restroom, and return to the van trying desperately to return the color to my numb fingers.

Have to include a detailed food picture somewhere; seriously some of the best pierogi ever.

Getting ready to raft on the Dunajec

Yes, all of us fit on this little boat

Our quirky guide

Such a view

Limestone rock formations

Our final dinner was both a happy and sad occasion.  I could not believe that this was the last meal I was eating with these new friends with whom I had just spent the last 3 ½ weeks. We concluded our conversation outside, each of us recounting an overall conclusion of the fellowship. Afterward many of us proceeded back into the restaurant to celebrate Sari’s birthday with song and drink. We were able to sing Happy Birthday in eight different languages, which kept everyone laughing. We ended with the ‘Happy birthday’ song of Poland, the lyrics which say, “Sto lat! Sto lat! Niech żyje, żyje nam (x2). Jeszcze raz, reszcze raz! Niech żyje nam, niech ży-je nam!” which translated means “One hundred years, One hundred years. May he (or she) live with us [one hundred years] (x2). One more time, one more time…” I could not help but thinking “One more time, one more time,” I want this meal, this day, this trip, this experience, to continue ‘jeszcze raz,’ one more time. But I knew that in the morning, a whole other adventure was beginning—one that would leave me alone in Kraków for a couple of days, and then take me to the history of Berlin, the hidden beauty of Budapest, and the cobble stone streets of Prague where a dear friend, Tara, and eventually my lovely parents, would join me along the way.

                                              To wszystko! (That's all!)

I purchased this hand-carved Jewish doll from the Isaak Synagogue in Kazimierz at the trip's end. It would travel with me to Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Nuremberg, and eventually back to DC, where it now is on prominent display in my room.

Christianity and Auschwitz?: Part II

After our morning at Harmęże, we returned to the proximity of Auschwitz I to the Center for Dialogue and Prayer located across the street. For me the familiarity of this place was reassuring, one, since our Amizade group spent every day there while we were working in Oświęcim last summer, but also because I feel the very heart of this Center and its focus on interreligious-dialogue is where I am heading vocationally. We met with Father Manfred Deselaers, a German Catholic priest, who, through detailing his personal history and post-Holocaust history in general, discussed what it means to encounter the memory of Auschwitz. He asked us to “listen to the voices of the soil”; visiting the camp complex is not about reliving the experience, but attempting—to the extent that we are able—to comprehend what happened and what it means for human relations in the present.

A litany of both historical and moral questions immediately arose: What should I (we, as outside observers) be learning about this memory? What does it mean? Germans, Poles, and Jews will obviously interact differently with the memory of Auschwitz than (non-Jewish) Americans. But can this “wound in our identity” which Father Manfred termed to describe the German, Polish, and Jewish experience, also wound us too, as we do not necessarily identify as Poles or Germans, but as fellow humans? The wound is not just in our own individual identity; the wound is in our relationships. At the very core of who we are as humans, as Christians, as Jews, as atheists, and so forth, Auschwitz elicits a tantamount moral concern: Can we trust each other after Auschwitz?  Or  can we trust only ourselves? Even if we cannot learn to trust one another again, addressing the consciousness of this memory can at least help us be better.

The Center for Dialogue and Prayer’s mission is to create a place where everybody is welcome with wounds—where no one has to talk about Auschwitz if they do not want to. The Center makes it clear from the beginning that dialogue begins with listening to one another, not talking about the other. Their message is not only about ‘Never Again’ but about respecting the identity (and dignity) of others in the past. For Germans who, let’s say they were 14 at the beginning of the war which would make them 20 at the war’s end, what happened was not their fault—they were not the decision makers. Today these same Germans are in their late 80s; they are very old and they feel like victims too—blamed for the Holocaust and living in post-war German society paying reparations for what their parents’ generation did. Thus the “German wound” is one of guilt, yet it’s confusing guilt, often intertwined by similar feelings of victimhood. Father Manfred, as a German, often reminds non-German visitors to the Center that many German families today do not know what their grandparents or great grandparents did during the war. Germans today are not guilty. The German language is not guilty. Outsiders (and especially the next generations of victims of Nazi atrocity) must understand this.

On the other hand, when Poles, Roma, and Jews come to Auschwitz, they want to remember their people, which is not the case for the Germans. For Poles and the memory of Auschwitz, there are two fundamental aspects in Polish understanding. First, the role of Christianity (with the Catholic Church as the backbone of the state, the tradition of martyrdom in Polish culture, i.e. that it is better to give your life than to become a traitor, and the connection of resistance with Christian values). Whereas in western Europe, Christianity was seen as a hindrance to forward movement, in Poland, freedom and liberty are embodied in the Catholic Church and the politics of the nation were (still are?) often intertwined with the views of the church (especially after John Paul II, more to come on him later in the blog). And second, the two-phase experience of World War II (which deals with the notion that for Poles, the war began twice: on September 1, 1939 with the Nazi invasion from the west and on September 17^th with the Soviet invasion from the east).

Although our conversation with Father Manfred was only an hour, in those sixty minutes the sixty years of post-Holocaust memory and pain resurfaced in an inter-ethnic and inter-faith context. The proximity to the very site we were discussing added to the weight of the conversation, and I walked away with a new-found respect for the Center and for the work Father Manfred and his team have done, are doing, and will do to foster relationships and further dialogue.

View from the ACJ that evening

Beautiful sunset in Oświęcim

Christianity and Auschwitz?: Part I

The next day, Thursday (7/19), we drove to the Harmęże monastery, located in the small town of Brzeżinka (German: Birkenau), to view artist Marian Kołodziej’s “Negative of Memory. Labyrinth” (“Klisze Pamięci. Labirynty”). Marian Kołodziej was a Polish-Catholic political prisoner who survived years at Auschwitz. [**Side note: there is an award-winning documentary on Kłodziej’s life entitled “The Labyrinth”: http://www.thelabyrinthdocumentary.com/] Our tour of his art was led by a Franciscan friar, one of the monastery’s few residents. Kołodziej, who was on the first transport sent to Auschwitz in the spring of 1940 (where he was given prisoner number 432), only began drawing his experiences late in his life after he suffered a stroke. When we entered the exhibit, Kołodziej’s words greeted us: “I propose a journey by way of this labyrinth marked by the experience of the fabric of death” (Ocalałeś nie po to aby żyć masz mało czasu trzeba dać świadectwo). Multiplied through the exhibit space are ghoulish and demonic figures of camp prisoners, all drawn in pencil or pen, juxtaposed with Holocaust, Judaic, and especially Christian symbolism. For instance, Kołodziej turned cement posts from Auschwitz’s electric fence into a cross and drew the crucified Christ on those posts; the figure of Christ is enmeshed in the same barbed wire that encloses the camp.  Truth be told, I had visited last year, and promised myself that I would never return to a place that made me so genuinely uncomfortable. And yet, here I was, exactly 12 months to the date, surrounded by Kołodziej’s hellish portraits on the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor—there was no escaping the repetitive images of torture. But somehow, within my internal chaos of understanding human propensity toward evil, I realized was staring at an amazing exhibit of art—and feeling the inner turmoil that I am sure Kołodziej desired of his audience.

Kołodziej's art

The younger Kołodziej forcing the older Kołodziej to draw his experiences to show the world what happened.

A combination of demons, important figures from Polish history,  a god-looking figure, and a self-drawing of Kołodziej.

            Kołodziej also emphasized the martyrdom of Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest (now saint) who gave his life at Auschwitz so another prisoner could live, in his artwork. Many of the artist’s images display Kolbe as Christ—both as suffering tragic heroes and sacrificing themselves for the ‘salvation’ of others. Kołodziej felt it was his duty to mankind to finally share his experiences as an Auschwitz survivor with the world through his art.

            The Harmęże monastery is connected with the Maximilian Kolbe Church, in which the Kołodziej’s hundreds of drawings are on display in its basement. We all went upstairs to view the church after our visit to Kołodziej’s underground ‘labyrinth,’ and there was actually a shrine to Maximilian Kolbe behind barbed wire, utilizing camp imagery, such as the red triangle (used to label political prisoners in the camp), and Kolbe’s inmate number 16670. Having a shrine to a Catholic priest in a church was already slightly beyond my Protestant understanding, but the narrative is further complicated by the fact the Father Kolbe was the editor of Mały Dziennik, an antisemitic newspaper before the war. Then again many Catholic priests held (what is now considered) antisemitic views before the war. A list of Catholic friars and priests who perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau is also etched on the wall of this church.

The shrine to Maximilian Kolbe inside the church.

While it is imperative to remember Kolbe’s heroic actions, I also feel commemoration can go awry if it appears that the Church and worshippers at this shrine are simply dismissing Kolbe’s pre-war antisemitism (especially for those in the Jewish community visiting the Kołodziej exhibit). Even a simple shrine to Kolbe connected with the art museum of a Catholic-Polish political prisoner made me once again think about the concept of space, how space is used to remember the past, and the complications of commemoration in certain spaces. Offsite memorials (which often include religious overtones) and memorials on the sites where the atrocities occurred, contribute to the narrative of memory and how the viewer experiences the space, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. I instantly think of the Radegast memorial in Łódź, where visitors could walk into the cattle car present on the same tracks that deported Jews from the Łódź ghetto and most likely to their deaths. Our group had mixed reactions over this use of space and one’s chance to “experience” it. For some, walking into the cattle car was disrespectful, for others it was more about the knowledge gained by visualizing the conditions, etc. I did walk into the cattle car at the Radegast memorial and did not feel guilty, but had an emotional reaction at Treblinka, where the absence of everything forced me to dwell all the more on the hundreds of thousands murdered where I stood, is a small, personal example of how different memorials in different spaces can affect different people in different ways… And maybe it is just in these different uses, that the message of the Holocaust can be disseminated and grasped by the myriad of visitors to these blood-stained sites.