Oświęcim v. Auschwitz

I know it has been weeks since I have updated my blog—that is the sad truth of graduate school and part-time work keeping me from doing what I love: blogging about Poland. But I did make potato and cheese pierogi tonight for dinner (ok ok, they were Mrs. T’s), but still the nostalgia flooded over me, and even without the Tyskie, I decided that I must write. Besides, there is still several days’ worth of stories that have not yet been told. So we begin once again.

On Wednesday (July 18), our group left the hotel early to head to Auschwitz I for a morning filled with workshops. It was a little disconcerting to be sitting in the ‘classrooms’ which are located in the former camp barracks themselves. But then again, I was familiar with these reconverted spaces after having worked with the conservation team the year before on shoe preservation—its department located also inside the camp in a building once utilized by the Nazis.

Our first workshop was with Alicja Białecka, curator of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. She led us in a hands-on project/discussion of individual victims of the camp based on the museum’s archival material. It was fascinating to be reminded of the stories of survival from Auschwitz and how (ironically) prisoners who were in the camp longer were more established and thus had a better chance of survival. Individual stories—like the “Romeo and Juliet” story of Auschwitz involving Edek Galanski and Mala (Malka) Zimetbaum, which details how they fell in love (he, a Polish political prisoner; she, a Jew) and escaped from Auschwitz together, only to be caught, interrogated, and killed—put faces, personalities, and life into the 1.1 million people that died there.

            We then made our way to the Archives, located in Block 24 of the Auschwitz I complex, where we met with Szymon Kowalski, the deputy head of the archives. Although the Auschwitz Museum opened July 2, 1947, the museum archive was not established until 1957 with the main task of collecting and preserving all documentation. During the camp’s existence (from the spring 1940 to January 1945) only 5 percent of the records were kept at Auschwitz to be used in the archives since the SS had destroyed most of the documents in an attempt to erase their war crimes, resistance prisoners had tried to save as much documentation as possible (hiding them, sending them outside the camp, etc.) and after the Soviets, after they had liberated Auschwitz, took back a good amount of documentation (including the prisoner death records) back to Moscow. Unfortunately, the documents sent to the USSR were not available to historians or family members until Communism fell in 1989. In 1991 and 1992, the Russians returned the death record album back to the Auschwitz State Museum which provided 68,000 death certificates of Auschwitz prisoners (although many, if not most, of the ‘causes of death’ were Nazi lies). Today, the archives department receives 10,000 requests worldwide each year, people requesting information on their family.

Auschwitz I (just beyond the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' gate and to the left is Block 24 where the Archives are located)

A street view of Oświęcim. 

"Antisemitism is a sin against God and humanity" --JPII

Suzanne, Sari, and Shelby walking in Oświęcim.

Leaving the camp complex, and re-entering the town of Oświęcim (a short, 5 minute drive away) that day, truly made me think about the relationship between town and camp, since sadly the two—Auschwitz, the camp and Oświęcim, the town, are conflated. The question is rightfully asked how a society who witnessed directly the deaths of millions could continue to live without mourning the loss of their fellow Jewish citizens. Although there is no excuse for the anti-Semitism, pogroms, and expulsions that occurred in Poland after the war, it is imperative to comprehend the role the communist government played in separating “Nazi camp” from “innocent (and victimized) Polish town.” In the 1990s, some Poles argued for both the town and the camp to remain ‘Oświęcim’ which specifically connotes Polish suffering (whereas ‘Auschwitz’ connotes Jewish suffering). Polish society in general “still sees the war as a central event embodying national heroism, pride, and victimhood,” and those who are not ready to work toward reconciliation often fall into an older generation of Poles who lived and suffered significantly during the war—Poles who feel that their suffering is both being forgotten and rewritten by recovering and propagating strictly Jewish suffering.  

Yet as we know, and as many, many Poles now are also championing, the memory of the Holocaust in Poland should not focus solely on suffering; it should also center on the rediscovery of Jewish contributions to Polish social life, Polish history, and Polish culture. The point of remembering the Jewish Holocaust is to “bring a sense of community—between camp and town—not rivalry about who really ‘suffered more.’” Only after the fall of communism, was a more truthful portrayal of past suffering obtained. Sixty years had passed before towns (especially those near neighboring camps) began admitting collective guilt and/or complicity in the Holocaust. The town of Oświęcim was no different.  Finally in the past 15 years, Oświęcim confessed relation to the Holocaust sites in its town and is currently attempting to reconstruct its pre-war Jewish history.

Thus this blog entry is not meant to be conclusive; instead it is meant to elucidate the various controversial issues at stake, and that a black and white picture of guilt and “normal” life in Oświęcim should not be painted.  Instead, it is imperative to walk away with the knowledge that the Holocaust did not just suddenly happen, but was a process where ordinary citizens in the towns had choices. And yes, while camps can still be treated as “terror zones,” these zones were also very much part of the community who helped send people to these camps or (fearing their own livelihood) stood by and watched it happened.

Thus the picture of the town must be one that is evolving. May the outside Jewish (and world) community no longer see Oświęcim as an intolerant and insensitive graveyard, and may the citizens of Oświęcim recognize the sacral nature of their town in Jewish history, and by living in this community, do everything they can to respect the victims of the Holocaust and the wishes of those who are remembering the victims’ lives and honoring their memory.

Birkenau (A long entry for a long day)

The morning we went to Birkenau (the extermination camp) was by the far the coldest day of the trip thus far. It was also rainy and windy, and while one can’t complain in such a sacral place of suffering (where thousands died of cold alone), it was so cold and wet, and I had difficulty concentrating on our guide’s 3 ½ hour tour as I tried desperately to warm my fingers from the Renaud’s disease.

View of Birkenau barracks from guard tower

Crematorium ruins at Birkenau. (There were 5 crematoria in total during the camp's history)

On the way back to town, our drivers stopped at the Judenrampe which is located a half kilometer or so from Birkenau, which was where all of the transports arriving in Auschwitz stopped until 1944, and prisoners would have to walk into the camp grounds on foot. (When one remembers those iconic images of Jews arriving in the cattle cars inside of Birkenau with the guard building in the background, those are during 1944, specifically with the transports of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews). Today the location of the Judenrampe has a memorial cattle car on the train tracks, where visitors coming to pay tribute have written notes and prayers, placed under small stones within the various nooks and crannies of the cattle car. That is at least what I remember from last year’s Amizade visit. This year I sat in the van, mostly because I was so cold, and stared instead at the lone yellow house located right across the street—its front door looking right at the site, a child’s play set gracing the front lawn, toys spread on the grass, and a dog house. The shared thought that crossed through all of our minds: “How could someone live so close to where such horrors occurred?” as I imagined the children playing with the toys in the front yard. Then again, that house was there before the ramp, before the Holocaust and one has to think about normalcy and the need to go on living and to raise a family…

The little yellow house next door to the Judenrampe memorial (taken from van window, hence the poor shot).

My question though, is what do you tell your children about the large cattle car across the street? How do you explain the people coming to mourn, pray, and remember basically in your front yard? Does living so close to such a site, desensitize children to other such sites in Poland and throughout Central Europe? Or maybe it’s for the best, if done carefully and right, to be able to teach respect yet move on and live in places or near sites that in the past housed tragedy?

These are questions I have had for some time. In July of 2011, when I spent seven days in Oświęcim, I first realized that the camp is indeed separate from the town but also very present in the community psyche, even if not by choice. On a tour of Auschwitz II-Birkenau led by Wojtek Smoleń, the son of famed Auschwitz survivor (and former director of the museum) Kazimierz Smoleń who recently passed away this year, I asked Wojtek what it was like to grow up in ‘Auschwitz.’ He said that everyone knew the facts, yet the town was also all they knew; the choice to be born in Oświęcim was obviously not theirs, thus to not continue living normally because of the near proximity of the death camp was never a question among him and his friends. They would frequent the restaurants and bars, and even a club off the main street Generała Jarosława Dąbrowskiego.

The local population also lives in the buildings the Nazis built to house their wives and families. Even Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Höss’s home became a private Polish residence after he was killed. Should these buildings have been destroyed and new homes rebuilt (albeit still on the same site) so the present population could live “free” of Nazi crimes? The question sounds silly; if yes, seemingly all of Poland would have to be demolished and rebuilt. So the answer is no; former Holocaust buildings and sites remain in public use, yet even 70 years after the Holocaust, this balance between ‘normal’ living and respect for the past (and more importantly for the dead) has yet to reach equilibrium.

In addition to the ongoing debate between daily living and respecting the past, a very intriguing and important (oh and heated) discussion also arose over how our guide handled the tour of both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau which took up the majority of our group discussion that evening.  We were concerned how Mirosław (who has been giving tours of the camps since 1991) told his narrative which (when I asked him, he reponded) has remained relatively unchanged since his inception as a guide. Well we all know that the past 20 years has brought great changes to Holocaust historiography and to the history of Auschwitz in particular. Yet our guide’s story was very one-sided and it was difficult to ask questions and even harder to disagree. Another disappointing aspect was that both tours (of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau) went all the way to the end of our allotted tour time which left no time for personal thought or reflection or a chance to wander by oneself and take in the sight without the continuous narration of Mirosław’s voice.

Needless to say, after a morning spent in Birkenau and afternoon discussing the experience, we needed a break. After several attempts of asking for a pizza “To go” from the one other food establishment we frequented after Max Café, called Pizza Hit (maybe an attempt at ‘Pizza Hut’?), Chris, Sari, Suzanne, Zach, and I headed back to the AJC to watch the Polish language film “Border Street” about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, quite the serious subject although the mistranslated English subtitles had us laughing.

Spending a Week in Oświęcim

On Monday morning (July 16), after a quick breakfast provided in the communal kitchen of Hotel Pierrot (where I realized that the eggs and milk were not refrigerated, but oddly enough several bottles of nail polish were), we headed to the Auschwitz Jewish Center for our official welcome by the organization sponsoring our fellowships. Maciek led our group in a hands-on workshop and a tour of the synagogue (which was the first synagogue to be reclaimed by the Jewish community after Communism), the museum, the learning center, and of course Tomek’s garden. Despite the pouring rain, we then proceeded outside the Center for a tour of the town—our umbrellas forming a colorful canopy as we moved through once-rich Jewish Oświęcim. An especially significant stop for me was the Jewish cemetery where I worked in July 2011 with the Amizade group cleaning the grounds. Sadly much, if not most, of our work from last summer was overgrown, but it was still incredible to be standing in the same spot I stood the year before—when I had no idea about graduate school at Georgetown, when I had never heard of the Auschwitz Jewish Center fellowship, and when I hadn’t met all of the amazing people who were currently with me.

Touring in the rain

The Oświęcim Jewish cemetery

The Oświęcim synagogue (left) and the Auschwitz Jewish Center (right)

I learned several important facts over the course of the morning. After the Holocaust there were only 200 Oświęcim Jews who survived, most who survived in the USSR. Many proceeded to move away during the post-Holocaust years, and the last Jew of Oświęcim, Szymon Klüger, died in 2001. Today there are no Jews living in the town.  Yet Jewish heritage continues in Oświęcim through the local efforts such as the Auschwitz Jewish Center which is very involved in presenting the history of the town to visitors and locals alike. I was particularly fascinated by how various organizations, schools, and local leaders throughout Poland are taking it upon themselves to educate their towns’ children about the Jews and the inseparability of Jewish and Polish history since the 15^th century, to truthfully disseminate about what happened during (and after) the Holocaust, and to encourage participation in Jewish cultural activities, festivals, and preservation efforts of Jewish sites. Thus the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Poles who lived through World War II know much more about the former Jewish communities in their towns and surrounding areas than their parents’ generation (who grew up under Communism) and can be the teachers at home.

            In the afternoon, we made our first trek to Auschwitz I (the labor camp), where we had a guided tour by Mirosław Obstarczyk, who has been giving tours of the Auschwitz complex for 21 years. Mirosław was quite knowledgeable. He was also equally stubborn in not budging from his viewpoints, even when questioned by young scholars who had more recently completed research in the field.  Nevertheless, the tour remained informative despite feeling utterly out of place as we were herded in an out of buildings, between large tourist groups, mothers with strollers, and teenagers posing for the camera. Maybe the pouring rain (especially as we stood between Blocks 10 and 11 and stared at the Death Wall where the majority of executions in Auschwitz occurred), constant throughout the tour, was appropriate.

Staring at the Death Wall, at Auschwitz I

Inside Block 11

The electric fence and the guard tower

After our visit to Auschwitz, I sought some release from the thoughts, questions, and emotions that were racing through my head. I needed to run. Vaguely remembering seeing the location of Auschwitz III (Buna-Monowitz) on the map during our tour, I decided to try to run until I reached the location of this former factory where political prisoners performed forced labor for the Nazis, and 30,000 of them died.  It was actually relatively easy to reach the memorial, although I did receive several stares as I ran down the quiet streets of Oświęcim (running “for fun” or to work out is not a past time for Poles, and especially not for Polish women. Hence the invisible label of “foreigner” was also running with me).

In the evening we watched the short, albeit powerful, 1961 film clip Ambulans by Janusz Morgenstern. The film, made only 15 years after the war’s end, is full of symbolism yet the message is clear: Holocaust victims knew they were going to their deaths. But what could be (should have been) done? The foreshadowing was almost unbearable. If you have 9 minutes to spare, I highly encourage it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc1d1eDcUlk

At last: Oświęcim

Where I am writing from now is by far the most uninteresting location of the entire blogging saga. I am sitting, crammed between commuters and juggling a backpack and laptop on the D6 bus heading from Georgetown University across DC during Friday rush hour. Why blog now you ask? Well, I just finished my first week of the new semester and my head is already swimming. Strangely, returning to the memories of the summer reminds me of the greater purpose beyond grad school and is quite therapeutic.

On Sunday evening (July 15), after a long day on the road, we reached the town of Oświęcim (German: Auschwitz). This is where we would be staying for the next week and where the Auschwitz Jewish Center is located. After our group had taken over the Hotel Pierrot and settled in, we headed to the neighboring Max Café, the only place in Oświęcim still open around 8pm on a Sunday night. Although we had the handy Maciek at our table to translate, our server was least impressed with our loud and laughing group of English-speakers. We should have warned them then, for over the next 7days in Oświęcim, we all trickled in and out of “Max’s” whether for lunch, coffee, dinner, beer, and icecream. While very accommodating, my guess is the serving staff wondered when the Auschwitz Jewish Center folk would be leaving ;). But alas, it was only the beginning.

To begin with, I feel a little background of the town is necessary. Oświęcim has an 800 year history. Yet to the average person, this history has sadly been condensed to 1939-1945, and the Polish name for the town, Oświęcim, has been usurped by its Germanized counterpart: Auschwitz.  As the singularly most recognized name of the Holocaust, Auschwitz equates the Nazi extermination camp; less known is that ‘Auschwitz’ is simply the Germanized spelling for a community of 40,000 people today. Ironically, the name ‘Auschwitz’ has also replaced the rich Jewish history of the town.  Jews first settled in Oświęcim (Yiddish: Oshpitsin) during the 15th century, and 7,000 Jews (more than half of the population) lived there by the beginning of World War II and were and integral (if not main) part of the town’s traditions and economy. Most of Oświęcim’s Jews were killed in the Holocaust and today no Jews live there.

In recent years, public officials have tried vigorously to separate Oświęcim, the town (with all its history, cultural heritage and traditions), from Auschwitz, the camp. Yet to what extent should they be separate entities? Should the town (representative of hundreds of Polish towns) also be scrutinized for its role in the Holocaust or should its story, as historian Simon Bronner aptly described, continue to “escape public notice”? In 2000, Fred Schwartz, founder of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, reported that a “major issue is how to preserve the sanctity of the camps along with the requirements of a significant population trying to live respectable lives and feeling that they are bearing the burden of a past that they did not take part in.”  Although I would say that the most heated discussions of the above-mentioned debate are over, issues still remain over Jewish and Polish memory of what happened, the presence of crosses at Auschwitz, and the ways in which outside (most likely uninformed) visitors negatively view Oświęcim, to name a few. As representatives of the Auschwitz Jewish Center we had a lot to learn and discuss over the next several days.

View of  Oświęcim from my balcony window (to the left).

View to the right of balcony.

            

‘Hollyłódź’

Sunday morning (July 15) began early as our suitcase-clad group loaded onto the van to travel to Łódź (pronounced ‘woodge’), the third largest city in Poland. Łódź, which means ‘boat’ in Polish, is about 85 miles southwest of Warsaw and the journey was uneventful (except for me having to stop the van to pee. C’est la vie. Actually, ‘such is my life’ would be a more appropriate phrase.) When we arrived, we immediately went to the Łódź cemetery which is either the largest or second largest Jewish cemetery in Europe (after Salonika in Greece) with 200,000 tombs. Yet the largest Jewish tombstone in Europe is in this cemetery belonging to Izrael Poznański, the world famous textile factory owner. Poznański, who one of the most influential and successful Jewish businessmen in Poland (and Central Europe) during the turn of the 20^th century, established his factory in 1892, and this multi-building complex grew to encompass several acres. (Today the red-brick buildings have been turned into a grandiose shopping complex called ‘Manufaktura’ where we went for lunch. Our visit to the Poznański Palace, aka his “house,” located next door to the ‘Manufaktura,’ solidified our raised-eyebrow impressions of Poznański if his mausoleum of a tombstone wasn’t enough.)

Izrael Poznański's tomb in the Łódź cemetery 

Poznański's home, more appropriately called the  Poznański Palace.

            ‘Impressive’ is not the correct adjective to use to describe a cemetery, I am well-aware, but the sheer magnitude of the one in Łódź was truly impressive. Back on the van, we headed to the Radegast Holocaust Memorial (Radegast was the German name of the train station in Łódź where Jews from surrounding areas were dropped off to be herded into the Łódź ghetto). The memorial was completed in 2004 by a right-wing artist when Łódź also had a conservative, right wing mayor, thus (generally speaking) visitors sense the spirit of Polish suffering and victimhood throughout the site. The message is clear; what happened in Łódź was done by the Germans, thus in attempt to dissociate the Polish name of a town only German labels are used. Thus Łódź during the war was no longer Łódź, but Litzmannstadt, and the horrors that Litzmanstadt witnessed from 1939-1945 were German-instigated horrors (even though every occupied town, city, and region had its own collaborators—called shmaltzovniks in the Polish case). This emphasis that these places belonged to the Nazis even though they happened to be built on Polish soil quickly become a powerful movement since the fall of Communism; when any leader misspeaks and says ‘Polish death camps’ or ‘the Polish ghettos,’ representatives in the Polish government, embassies, powerful organizations etc. are quick to demand a correction (to ‘Nazi death camps in occupied Poland’) and an apology.

The Radegast memorial, est. 2004

The Radegast train station

At the gate.

            From the Radegast Memorial, we proceeded to the Park of Survivors where the Jan Karski mound is located with a statue of Jan Karski seated on his bench in the same style as the statues in Georgetown, New York, and Kielce. After hiking the mound, I was greatly saddened that the statue had been defaced with permanent marker. Karski’s kind, yet stoic face, had been blackened with a mustache and side-burns. Looking beyond the statue (and its unfortunate graffiti) one had a perfect view of several large concrete slabs that formed the shape of the Star of David and listed the names of the Polish Righteous Among the Nations (Sprawiedliwi Wsród Naradów Świata) who helped and/or saved Jews during the Holocaust. The names of thousands of Poles are written on those walls.

The Jan Karski Mound

Karski and I

From our successive visits of the morning, I think many of us were feeling the ‘weight’ of this recent history. Thus when it was finally time for lunch and I noticed a nearby sign labeled ‘Hollyłódź’ which sounds very similar to ‘Hollywood’ when pronounced in Polish, I instantly laughed at the intentional pun—glad that someone’s sense of humor could elicit one of the first genuine smiles of the day from me. It felt good to have a much-needed light moment before our journey continued to the town of Oświęcim, or Auschwitz in German.

Hollywood anyone?

When in Warsaw

Where am I now? I am riding a train from Nürnberg to Frankfurt am Main, after saying a sad farewell to my parents, who, waving goodbye on the platform opposite, are on their merry way to Salzburg and full Sound of Music glory. Yet for me, today marks the end of indescribable journey through time, history, and memory. The skies are a dull gray and the rain blurs the train windows as I look outside; I feel that the weather is indicative of my own feelings…

And yet continuing my blog—on Saturday in Warsaw, July 14^th—is truly a perfect way to revive me from my end-of-journey slump, for that Saturday was truly a fun-filled, memorable day. Because it was the Sabbath, we had the day to ourselves which was a much-needed after the fast-paced and stressful week. Zach and I ran to Łazienki Park (Park Łazienkowski or Łazienki Królewskie in Polish, which literally means Baths Park or Royal Bath). It is the largest park in Warsaw with Baroque palaces strewn among the park grounds. There were beautiful marble statues, gravel walkways, grandiose fountains, serene waterways, and so any flowers and sculpted landscape as far as the eye could see. Oh and peacocks! How could I forget the peacocks? It truly was surreal, I felt like every turn we took, there was a new garden or statue or palace or fountain. I decided that anyone who has any doubts about Poland’s beauty, I am going to drop them into this park and let them find their way out.
 

One of the many palaces in Łazienki Park

My running partners (kidding)

Taking a running break

For lunch, a few of us met up with Dara and her brother and then headed up the café-lined Nowy Świat and then to the Frederyk Chopin Museum. I did not realize how much I needed to go into a non-Holocaust related museum until I was inside. Chopin’s masterpieces flooded this interactive space where we learned about his life, his romances, his talent, his works, and his early death.  I had to leave the group early for I had a date 5 years in the making. My friend Piotr—who I saw last when I was in Warsaw in 2007, but who I met randomly at Disneyland when I was there with Carolyn in 2006—was supposed to meet me on the steps outside the museum. I anxiously waited while dark clouds had filled the sky and a gusty wind had picked up, looking around for the familiar face I hadn’t seen for quite some time. Few people were outside. Yet sure enough along came Piotr. And sure enough it did rain ;).

Nowy Swiat street, on the way to the Chopin Museum

Chopin Museum

Piotr and I

Piotr and I went to a café and caught up and then he took me to Warsaw’s finest Fotoplastikon Warszawski which displays three-dimensional images from the turn of 20^th century Warsaw through present. After a quick dinner at this little Italian restaurant close to my hotel, we parted ways for a few hours before meeting back up later for drinks. This time I persuaded Zach to come with us and Piotr quickly took us off the tourist track and into these hidden local bars. In the few hours hanging out with Piotr, I quickly realized how much more enjoyable it is walking around in Warsaw, ordering food, buying tickets, asking for someone to take a picture of us etc. when the person you are with speaks Polish. If someone had told me six years ago that the guy who randomly talked to me while watching the fireworks at Disneyland, I would be sitting at a bar with in Warsaw practicing Polish in July 2012, I would have laughed at the absurdity.  Na zdrowie!

A Friday evening in Warsaw...

I feel like I need to begin a separate entry for what came next which was 180 degrees from what we just experienced at Treblinka. On the van, Maciek and Tomek could barely describe our next destination without interrupted giggling. Needless to say, our curiosity was piqued by their English translation of “Salty Sizer stations” (and which Maciek would later declare, as the official English name giver of this site, should be spelled “Salt-ee Sizer”). When our guides continued to describe where we were going as “big, beautiful and wooden” and the “central attraction” of Konstancin, a little town just outside of Warsaw, they had us guessing until we reached “it.”

Basically the ‘Salt-ee sizer station’ reminded me of the Globe Theater in London, without the seats, without the stage, and with the walls filled with piles and piles of branches instead of wood. The structure is roofless, and inside is a faucet that sprays outwards in all directions this salty, mineral mist. Apparently it is becoming a trend in Poland, especially among the elderly to frequent these ‘stations’ and better their health. I am sure these regulars did not appreciate 10 laughing Americans walking around their salt spout trying to make sense of this structure. Oh well ;).

Entering the Salty Sizer station...

Tomek leading the charge in taking a walk around the mist sprayer.

 After our salty sizing experience, we sobered up to meet with a Polish political prisoner of Auschwitz, Zofia Posmysz, who lives in Konstancin. Zofia made a movie based on her experiences in 1963 called The Passenger, which are group had collectively watched crammed onto two beds in a hotel room in Warsaw, with the movie playing in Polish on one computer (my tiny netbook to be more precise) and the English dialogue in a Word document on another computer. Miraculously, I think many of us, maybe with the exception of Chris who was outside the viewing of the English text, understood the plot. When we arrived at the retirement home, where Zofia currently resides, she came out and greeted us in English, smiled warmly and apologized for going back to her native Polish. We were well used to translators at this point but her genuine effort and kind welcome were just the beginning of a very pleasant conversation with Zofia despite the horrible memories of the topic at hand. She recounted her experiences in the camp in response to our questions, and her vivid memory recounted details that made one cringe. Since she was a non-Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, I was interested to know if she was aware of how the plight of Jews differed during the war than the plight of the Poles, but I did not have the chance to ask.

Our Friday evening concluded with Shabbat services at the Nożyk synagogue in Warsaw, led by Rabbi Schudrich. I thoroughly enjoyed this service because I had a prayer book with Hebrew on one side and English on the other so I could at least follow the verses from the Psalms and Deuteronomy which uniquely brought me into a familiar faith setting of my own. Most of the people present at the service were visiting and there still were not many of us, so it is difficult to imagine the size of the Warsaw Jewish community.

After the service, Zach and I explored Warsaw, trekking to the old town for dinner. Despite the emotional weight of the day, I was able to experience a much-needed respite in eating meat pierogis for dinner, watching a flame throwing performance on one of the squares, and of course laughing with good company. We ended our Friday with drinks on Warsaw’s famed Nowy Świat (New World street), experiencing the vivacity Warsaw has to offer.

Flame thrower in the Stare Miasto

Empty alley in old town. Photography credit: Zach Albert.

This statue and I meet again on Nowy Swiat street. A discussion under this same statue in October 2007 was the starting point for what I am pursuing today.