Our agenda for today was to see what little there was left of the Warsaw Ghetto. By the way – the Nazi’s never called them “ghettos,” they were called Jewish Settlement Districts (much nicer to the average citizen who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on).
We first went to see remnants of the Ghetto wall. There are no signs, no markings, nothing to lead you to the site. You have to weave throughout apartment buildings to get to the area. When we arrived we could see part of an old building who’s rear wall was one boundary of the ghetto and then portions of bricks running at a 90 degree angle from that wall.
There is a 90 year old man who lives right by the wall who has done some extensive research into the history of the wall. He even created a map that has been put on a metal plate and affixed to the wall so you can see exactly where the original ghetto was inside Warsaw.
He brought out a few books that he had put together – scrapbooks, mostly – with certificates from Yad Vashem and other Holocaust organizations who honored his work. He also told us that he chose that apartment on purpose when he moved to Warsaw after the war because he wanted to see for himself where all this had happened. He said he was sympathetic to the Jews (not being one himself) because of the 3 years he spent in a gulag (prison camp) in the Soviet Union. He said the conditions in the two (gulag and ghetto) were pretty much the same.
After kissing a couple of the young ladies in our group on their cheeks (one called him a “sniper” because of his speed in going in for the kiss) he asked us for donations in keeping his history going (we happily obliged with a few Zlotys) and then went back in the house.
The "Sniper" :)
Jews made up 33% of the population of Warsaw – the ghetto began with less than 10% of the territory of the city. And, it was reduced in size periodically from there. There are only a couple of buildings in the entire ghetto that were not totally destroyed when the German army came in to stop the Jewish uprising. But, most of the ghetto was burned and then razed.
Next, we went to the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw to see a couple of things. First, we saw the graves of prominent Jews who contributed significantly to Jewish and Polish culture. Playwrights, authors, doctors, etc. Our second purpose was to see the graves (or memorial stones if their bodies were not recovered) of some of the Warsaw uprising fighters.
I was really intrigued by this cemetery. During its 200 year use, in a few areas (very prestigious areas) they had put more earth on top of the existing graves in order to bury even more people – on top of them! Then they built a retaining wall and used the headstone fragments of broken and deteriorating headstones to create the outer coating of the wall – no disrespect at all.
We saw the memorial stones for Vladka Meed’s family (read her book “Both Sides of the Wall”). They perished in Treblinka so no bodies are there. We saw memorials to other fighters in the uprising of 1943 as well.
My favorite memorial was to Janus Korsach (I’m sure I’ve spelled it completely wrong). He was a child psychologist and educator who advocated that parents treat their children more kindly and more as individuals rather than little kids who need to be told what to do and not heard from otherwise. It was very revolutionary at the time. He wrote several books and even had a regular radio broadcast in Warsaw. He also started a couple of different orphanages where his theories were put into practice.
Once the ghetto was established, he organized an orphanage. He did all he could to make sure the children were protected and had enough food. Friends repeatedly tried to get him to leave with them (as such a prominent individual he had a good chance of getting out of the ghetto, out of Poland, and away from Nazi controlled territory), but he refused each time.
Eventually, the children of his orphanage were chosen for “deportation.” Rather than let them go alone, he told them to put on their best clothes, walked with them hand-in-hand toward the Umschlagplatz (gathering place) where they were put on train cars and sent to their deaths in Treblinka. He refused to leave those children even though he knew exactly what would happen. Word of the death camps had been brought back to the ghetto by an escapee, so there were no real secrets – only unbelief that this kind of thing was possible.
We also went to the portion of the cemetery that was used as a mass grave. As people began dying of the horrible conditions and of starvation in the ghetto, their bodies were brought to the cemetery and placed in huge mass graves. Thousands were brought there. Approx. 5,000 were dying each month so they were placed in a large pit and then covered with a little paper or earth, maybe some lime (as in pulverized limestone – to absorb odor) and then another layer of bodies were placed in the grave.
Photo showing how deep the mass grave was when first dug
After the grave was closed and the war ended, the bodies decomposed so the grave began to sink into the earth. Today there is a large depression where the mass grave is located and white markers are placed around the perimeter of the grave.
Our final stop of the afternoon was a Jewish museum next to what used to be the most ornate Synagogue in all of Warsaw. The Synagogue was destroyed during the war and an now there is a large office building standing on the site.
After the museum, we went to the only Synagogue from before the war that is still standing. The Germans used it as a stable and a storehouse so it was spared total destruction (yet another way to degrade and humiliate the Jews – using their Synagogue in this way).
Today (Sunday) my thoughts have often turned to my church duties as a Bishop. I feel bad leaving my counselors to do all my work for such a long time, but I’ve also thought about the religious leaders of the Jews and what they went through at the time of the Holocaust.
Many of them were killed quickly by the Nazi’s, but they were also often used in the Judenrat (Jewish Council) and they had to make “unmakeable” decisions. They were the ones who had to decide who was next for deportation, they were the ones who distributed the ration cards entitling Jews in the ghetto to 184 calories per day (pick up a candy bar and compare). They were the ones who had to implement the decisions of the Nazi’s. How do you make those decisions? How do you do that to your own, the people you love?
The first Judenrat leader in Warsaw did all he could to help his people (I believe his last name was Czerniakow), but in July of 1942, the deportations began and he was ordered to select the first several thousand. The next day he wrote, “They want me to kill the children of my people with my own hands. There is nothing left for me but to die.” With that, he committed suicide.
I cannot seem to get this out of my head. How do you make those decisions? How do you escape those decisions? How do you protect your own family while looking out for a congregation of 400 (the size of my ward)? I don’t know how any of these men could do it. These situations seem to be nothing but a series of “unmakeable” decisions.
After the cemetery we drove back to the hotel for a little rest and some time to freshen up for our Chopin concert this evening. Chopin was Polish and it will be nice on a Sunday evening to sit in a church and listen to an accomplished pianist play selections from Chopin. Two years ago in Germany we went to the Berlin Philharmonic play Beethoven and I just kept thinking, “I can’t believe I’m in Germany listening to a symphony play Beethoven!” I’m sure tonight’s experience will be similar.
Tomorrow we leave Warsaw for a few days to go and visit more concentration camps. I’m going to need some rest and preparation.
Till then. . . . . J
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