Last night we had the opportunity to attend a piano concert at the Minister of Health's palace in Warsaw. It was a beautiful evening and we all dressed up for the event. The music was divine and we then drove to newer restaurant in the older section of Warsaw for a meal of herring, beef with gravy and polish potatoes. We all questioned the ingredients of the dessert which was spongecake with fruit topping - we're still unsure!
We rose early for a three hour bus ride to a small shetetl named Kazimierz Dolny. We first stopped at a hillside cemetery that had been vandalized by the Germans. They had taken many of the stones to pave local courtyards and roads. After the war, the Warsaw community helped to find the stones and constructed the wall you see above made from broken stones. One of our directors, Elaine Culberson, who is Jewish, met a Canadian gentleman there who asked if she would help him say Kaddish for the dead there as he had been travelling from the Ukraine, he noticed cemeteries such as these and wanted to say Kaddish, but had been unable to get through it as he got too emotional. She was touched, as were all of us.
We continued to the shetetl of Kazimierz Dolny whose Jewish population had been totally eliminated. Though much of the village had been destroyed, the stone synagogue (it was used as a warehouse by the Germans) was still standing as well as the slaughterhouse - a long wooden building that had four doors and windows on one side. Jewish women would bring their chickens to the doors, the shochet would kill the animal following Jewish laws, and then hand the chicken back through the window. We walked around the quaint touristy town, and many of us were taken aback by the Jewish music that floated out from the old synagogue as some students were practicing for a performance. Most group members took advantage of the ability to purchase a lunch of pierogis - cheese or meat! They were homemade, light and delicious.
Our bus then continued into the city of Lublin, which had 120,000 citizens in 1900, one-third of which were Jewish. Now there are over 370,000. As we drove by the yeshiva, the rabbinical school, that was built in 1930, it was evident that the Jews were sure of a future in Lublin - this didn't happen. In 1941, a ghetto was created , and in 1942, deportations to Treblinka and Belzec were conducted. We had a tour of the old city, which was very quaint, though it had been reconstructed after the war by the Soviets, and now was slowly being reconstructed again. The Jewish quarter around the beautiful old castle is gone.
After dinner tonight, we met as a group for reflection - a thoroughly draining experience for most of us. We shared some of our thoughts from our different destinations so far. One of our members, an African-American teacher from North Carolina talked of his visit to the Berlin Stadium - because he wanted to see where Jesse Owens won his medal - he had promised his father that he would. Others reflected upon areas or events that had changed their thinkings, or confirmed their ideas. Many reflected on their teaching. We cried and laughed - what a wonderful group we have to be able to share our feelings in this way. I commented on how strongly the loss hit me at the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, especially after working with survivors, it really hits home how few actually survived to carry on their family name and traditions.
The temperatures continue in the 90's and we tend to melt early so we are packing up and leaving for Majdanek early in the morning.
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