Back in Israel and Back at Tuba

Its been a while. And my two and a half weeks were action packed. I don't want to say every little detail that happened because that would take somewhere around 5000 words to say so I'll hit the high points. 

Poland. Everyone, remind me to never go back to Poland again. Its not that the country is terrible itself, its just that, for me, as a Jew, I can't escape the feeling of the Shoah. Poland has this odd spook. Its a giant Jewish graveyard. Judaism was there for centuries, flourished there for centuries. And in a matter of a few short years, Judaism was extinguished. Judaism in Poland is a museum. A museum not only to the Shoah but also to the way Judaism was before the Shoah. And now its gone and its not coming back. No one really wants to being it back either. And I don't blame anyone. The Jews that survived left because they couldn't stand to be there anymore. They went to Israel and to America and anywhere they could because they felt the same feeling that we did. So now there are about 4000 Jews in Poland, depending on how you define a Jew. Thats under the number of members of my synagogue in Dallas Texas.  So there's Judaism in Poland. Its a memory and a graveyard. 

In Poland we went to Majdanek, Auschwitz-Berkenau, a remake of a shtetl named Tikochin, Krakow, Lublin, and Warsaw.  Like I said, I would love to give all the details of every place but its been a while since we've been back and my fingers would probably fall off. So, I'll start with Majdaneck. Majdaneck was the first camp to be liberated because it was so far in the East and was easily reached by the Soviet troops. As a result the Germans weren't able to hide and destroy as much as they could have. The gas chamber is still there, the crematorium is still there, and I think almost every building is. There are no crumbling buildings like at Berkenau. As a result Majdanek is much more raw. Its in the middle of Lublin which is weird. It was built to be on the major road in Lublin. That kind of disrupted the mood because there are people that walk their dog past a death camp every day. But thats the way it is. The most overwhelming part of Majdanek was the massive, inconceivable amount of human ashes, all from bodies cremated at Majdanek. Majdaneck only killed about 78,000 Jews (Majdaneck was for Jews especially) and that pile was ridiculous. It was about the length on a basketball court in diameter and I don't know how deep it was. Easily over ten feet I could see. We had a small ceremony there and said kaddish.  Since Majdaneck was the first camp we visited, it had a different feeling for many of us. 

Tikochin, the shtetl, was very powerful. Before the final solution was brought up, Nazis had special squads that would take all the Jews of an area have them dig graves and then shoot them into their graves. This is what happened in the town of Tikochin. The city was reconstructed to remember the Jews and be as a museum. The synagogue is reconstructed and its very strange. The Polish people who lived there decided to do this. Then a quick drive into the forests outside the town are two mass graves and we had a ceremony there too. Tikochin was very eerie. The one good part was when we had a song session in the synagogue and in a way revived the Judaism there. 

A couple days later we went to Auschwitz-Berkenau. The camp is near the Polish town of Oswicien. Berkenau was the death camp built for the Jews and Auschwitz was the labor camp that held Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and other minorities. The weird thing about being at Berkenau was that we all picture a windy, cold, overcast day every day at a death camp. People are cold and are needy warmth. But it was an ironically nice day when we to Berkenau. The grass was green, the trees behind were pretty. It could have easily been a park. Nonetheless it was depressing and powerful. There's nothing that can be done to escape the feeling of a death camp. We went and saw the barracks and the remains of the gas chambers. The Nazis had time to destroy them before it was liberated. When we were walking, there was a pool of water and David Solomon, our vice principal, reached down and we all gathered and he reached down and picked a small white rock. He said, "This is what is left of European Jewry." It was a piece of bone.  

Auschwitz was the labor camp about a mile away from Berkenau. Its hard to be at Auschwitz because its hard to be in a death camp and a museum at the same time. Everything is in glass cases and guides take you around. It threw stuff off but it was still powerful. We were also all really tired and out of it because we had already been to Berkenau and woke up really early. It kind of looked like a college campus with the big buildings and the grass and such. Not how I pictured it at all. Auschwitz has the entrance sign that we've all seen with he German writing at the top. Berkenau has the train tracks that lead to the entrance. 

We're done with the camps. Krakow was a pretty cool city. We spent a couple days there and we walked around the town square and stuff. Warsaw was alright. We didn't really go out into city. The country side of Poland is kind of depressing. Its barren and could have been the exact same from the times of Communism. In Warsaw we saw the old Jewish cemetery that survived the Shoah and learned about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. By the end of the trip we were all pretty Jewish history and emotionally drained. 

The best part of Poland was probably leaving. Our plane was EIE and an Israeli tour group that we saw a couple times in Poland. When the plane left we all started yelling and cheering. The Israelis were really nice and cool and we all got along really well. When we landed we started cheering and sang Shalom Alechem. That was really cool. We were all ready to be back in the homeland after a week in Poland and it was so good to be back.

We stayed in Jerusalem for two nights, mostly just resting once we got back from Poland. Then we all went to different families for Pesach. People have family and friends and if someone can't find anyone to go with then they go with a host family. I went with my friend Jordy's family friend in Ranana. They were really nice and interesting. The dad had been in the peace core and the mom was Filipino and the son had just gotten out of the army and the daughter is going to enter the draft in July. All the dad's stories started like, "Back in 1985 when I was in the jungle in Borneo....." I laughed every time he started a story. Anyways, Jordy and I slept and ate for most of our two nights there. We were really tired from Poland and hadn't had a home cooked meal since we've been in Israel. The food at the seder was so good. I ate so much. And the seder wasn't too different. We were all really hungry so we kind of rushed though it. The two families there speak English perfectly. Like they speak it in the house. The weirdest thing about Pesach was being away from the same 118 people I'm with every moment. We talked about the people the entire time. We are all kind of in love with each other. But not being with everyone was weird. I can't imagine how weird its going to be to leave for good. 

From Pesach we went to the Kinerret in the North to start yam l'yam. I thought we were going to leave form one yam and walk the entire way to the other. But we took buses twice and it wasn't quite what I wanted it to be it was a lot of fun nonetheless. A lot better than Gadnah. We did hike a whole lot though. the first real day of hiking was pretty long. We hiked up to the top on the second tallest mountain in Israel. The second day was mostly downhill. And the third day of hiking was a bike ride all downhill to the Mediterranean. Everything was so pretty and this was one of the weeks that the North is still in bloom. I always talk about the North being really pretty and green and pretty soon, when it stops raining and starts getting hot it all turns brown and dry. But the flowers and the landscape and everything was so pretty. I would totally do yam l'yam again. And my group was really good. There were people that I usually don't spend a lot of time with that I got to be closer with. 

Getting to the Mediterranean was glorious. We were all disgustingly dirty after not showering for a couple days and sleeping (if you call it that) outside. We all went into the sea and splashed around and then went to Haifa. Haifa is really pretty and the shower was awesome. Probably the best shower of my life. We all hung out and rested after the hike. We also went to Bahai gardens which were so pretty. And one more thing. There is this game called assassin where each person is assigned to kill another person by whispering something in their ear with no one around to see it happen. The winner is the last person standing and you are supposed to be all secretive about it. We played that game in Haifa and it was a lot of fun. I killed one person. 

We were only in Haifa one night and then got back to Tzuba. We had classes on Thursday and today was the ACT and we've all just been getting readjusted. Unpacking, getting back in the swing of things, school. Me and my friend Josh pillaged the girls rooms for extra cubbies for our room. Nothing ground breakingly exciting here. It is 3:19 AM though and I should be asleep. So, good night everyone. This has been my longest post so far. Sorry, a lot has happened and I had a lot to say. I have one more comment on the Shoah that I wanted to save. The difference between this genocide and others is how it was carried out. Genocide is always terrible but their is a difference between people going around and shooting people as ethnic cleansing and a superpower using all of its resources and energy to carry out the systematic and organized extermination of a culture. Its what separates the Shoah from other genocide. 

Anyways, happy late Easter and happy late Pesach to everyone. I lost my phone and will be getting another soon. And everyone be good!

Joey B.