Sorry it's been so long since our last update. Things have been hectic. On a bright note, we've added relevant pictures to all of our previous blog posts. Additionally, tons of pictures we've taken during our adventures can be found by clicking the links below:
Przemysl, krakow, auschwitz:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107336891457893113809/PrzymesylKrakowAuschwitz
Drogobych:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107336891457893113809/Drogobych
L'viv:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107336891457893113809/LVivUkraine
Lublin:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107336891457893113809/Lublin
Warsaw:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107336891457893113809/Warsaw
We hope you enjoy the pictures and the following blog update. As always we appreciate any feedback, questions, or comments.
Jon: In 1942, following Hitler's Final Solution, and the first wave of mass killing of Jews in Drogobycz, life was becoming increasingly perilous for my Dziadzu and Babcia. They decided that their chances of survival would be greater in the big city of Warsaw where they hoped to conceal their Jewish heritage and blend in to the masses. But getting out of the small town where everyone knew them was no easy feat. From my Dziadzu's memoirs:
"my father in law arranged for us to be driven to the railroad station in Przemysl, about 60 miles from Drogobych. This station appeared to be safer since in the drogobycz station halina and I could be recognized by Ukrainian militia men. Late in the evening of November 11, 1942 we threw out our armbands (and) entered the railroad station in Przemysl. That was...the first step in independent life...we had (forged) papers stating that we were going to Warsaw for a funeral and halina wore a black veil. This was my idea of distracting suspicion of our Jewishness by diverting the attention of everybody to her mourning dress. We bought the tickets to Warsaw and sat in the hall waiting for the train. I cannot find the words to describe how frightened I was."
Some passengers were pulled off the train but my Dziadzu and Babcia's papers served their purpose and they were on their way. Their train took a round about route to Warsaw via krakow so Amanda and I figured we'd go to the station in Przemysl and catch the train to krakow.
Amanda: We began in Drogobych, with the intention of going to Przemysl, the town that, since the end of WW II, is just over the ukraine border in Poland. In Przemysl, Jon's Dziadziu and Babcia caught a train to Krakow in order to avoid being recognized at the train station in Drogobych. We envisioned ourselves taking the same train from Przemysl to Krakow, our final destination. Finding Przemysl, however, proved harder than we imagined.
Jon: We started our day armed with a small peice of paper containing only one word that neither of us could or can pronounce and both of us still have trouble spelling-- "Przemysl". We showed this paper to our hotel receptionist at the putrid hotel we were thankful to be leaving. With hand motions and the word "autobusowy" she pointed us in the direction of the local bus station to hop on a bus to the small town of Sambir from which, she attempted to assure us using only written symbols and lost Ukrainian words, we could catch a bus onto Przemysl. When we arrived in Sambir, we presented our paper--Przemysl--to the attendant in the bus station. Once again, through the passage of written symbols and lost Ukrainian words, she established that no such bus existed. A few folks began to collaborate with the bus woman and together, they seemed to come to a consensus. Without the ability to understand anyone, we blindly followed a kind man who was part of that coalition. He led us by the hand to another crumbling bus in the unpaved bus station parking lot and signaled fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes later, we were on our way to another town whose name we only learned after we left. It was at this then nameless town that we were required to cross the Ukraine-Poland border on foot.
(The parking lot)
Amanda: Crossing the border was an...interesting experience. Upon arrival in the mystery town, we communicated our intentions to go to Przemysl with the Ukraine-speaking bus driver via our priceless slip of paper. We have no idea what he understood but he sent us along with a kind man willing to lead us. Again, we followed blindly with little idea of where he was taking us. It soon became apparent that we were crossing the border. Our fellow bus passenger and guide spoke very little English but we exchanged a lot of smiles and a few words. He had an electronic pocket translator and Jon typed "where are we?" As it turned out we were in- passing into- Getting out of the Ukraine was quite simple, but crossing into Poland was another story.
In "no man's land" between passport controls, we were ushered between two tall fences through what could have been a cattle run. This abruptly ended in a sea of people controlled by Polish federales with guns. We were split into groups and forced to wait. By this time, my pack was feeling quite heavy and I began to resent the crowded, pushing Poles and Ukrainians who carried only purses and shopping bags. But our friend and guide appeared calm and so were we. However, this calm did not carry over to the rest of the crowd. Very soon, individuals began to squeeze their way up to the front in successful attempts to cut the long line to the front. This continued for over an hour and the masses became angry. They screamed in angry Ukrainian, their voices rising over the hum of the crowd at large, shaking their fists at the cutters and making threatening gestures. I felt a bit vulnerable, surrounded by what was quickly appearing to be an angry mob in a small and enclosed place. Then it got worse. We had been waiting for an hour and a half when our friend and guide looked behind and gestured to us to move to the front. We smiled but quickly shook our heads no; neither of us liked the idea of the crowd's wrath aimed our way. Eventually, after he told us to show our passports the small group around us they too were encouraging us to move up and so...we did. As expected, the angry crowd turned to us and began to yell, but our friend said something to them in Ukrainian that seemed to appease the angry masses and we were left alone. Up at the front we made it through after another half hour of waiting and discovered that the back up was due to the smuggling of vodka and cigarrettes. These commodities are much less expensive in the Ukraine and many people, especially the small frail-looking ladies, make their living by smuggling them into Poland. Not surprising then that these little old ladies were the most ruthless of line cutters. On the other side of passport control, these old ladies greeted us with vodka and cigarettes for sale.
Jon: Now in - Poland, a mere 20 kilometers from Przemysl, we asked a nice lady where to find the bus station. She pointed us in one direction. Exhausted from standing in line with our packs during the border crossing, we tirelessly trudged to the area she had delineated. After perusing the grounds thoroughly we found no trace of any bus station. We asked a gentleman in the area where to get the bus to Przemysl. He sent us right back to where we'd previously asked the woman. She saw us walking back slouching under the weight of our packs and seemed to take pity. She asked in broken English "I go Przemysl. You ride?" we graciously dropped our packs in her car and 15 minutes later she dropped us off at the train station. It was at this same train station that nearly 70 years ago my Dziadzu and babcia took their "first step in independent life." I wanted to stick around and take some pictures but nearly the exact moment we arrived our train was leaving. The next train wouldn't be leaving for around 7 hrs. We hurriedly snapped a couple of pictures as we ran across the platform and boarded our train bound for krakow.
(Przemysl train station as run for our train to Krakow)
Amanda: We made it to Krakow, a beautiful city full of old architecture. We spent a day or two of wandering and visiting the Old Jewish Quarter,
Kazimierz.
(In front of Wawel, the palace.)
Then we visited Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp. We chose not to hire a guide, per Jon's sage foresight, because it turned out to be a wise and economically savvy decision. The tours were large and rushed and the guides themselves appeared dispassionate. At one point Jon asked one of them what a sign in the distance said. Entirely disinterested in the question, the guide replied "it has information about Auschwitz. I have a tour and I need you to move along."
In order to enter the camp without a guide, you must arrive before 10am. Jon and I arrived at the train station on Oswicem just after 9am, leaving us plenty of time to walk the 1 km to the camp. We trekked with our heavy packs, stopping only briefly to buy delicious sesame pastries and apples for breakfast.
I was expecting our visit to be sad and emotionally difficult, and at times it truly was. The most provoking exhibit for me was a large window behind which were thousands upon thousands of children's shoes. The shoes brought to life the reality of how many innocent children suffered in these camps.
(The shoes)
The large photographs of the extremely emaciated victims of the camp also brought tears to my eyes. I was aware before I visited that many people starved to death in the camps, but I found there is a difference between knowing it and seeing it. The bodies of those who and died of starvation didn't resemble the bodies I know. Thighs were concave and ribcages were barely draped in skin. I can't believe a body can survive like that. But the photos of the mass graves filled with starved, dead bodies is proof that it cannot.
Other than extreme sadness, my secondary feeling was disbelief. Disbelief that a human being could inflict this sort of inhumane treatment and suffering on another. Jon and I both felt stunned. It's hard to swallow.
The camp is laid out exactly as it was in it's existence between 1940-1945, when the victims were liberated by the Red Army. You walk in through the main gate, with a sign above it which says (in German) "Work Brings Freedom." I can't imagine more bitter irony. Ahead are two rows of barracks where the prisoners lived, if you can call it that, and which the museum has converted into exhibits depicting the daily lived of the prisoners as well as Auschwitz's history. It was in one of these barracks that presented the valuables and possessions that the Nazis confiscated from the Jews, Poles, Gypsies and many other nationalities when they arrived at the camp. The Nazis often told these people, especially the Jews, that they were boarding trains for resettlement purposes so as to avoid panic. Those people would pack up the belongings they believed they would need to start over. When they arrived at the camp, Nazis took it all and stored it in warehouses to be shipped back to Germany. The exhibit included vast displays of suitcases on which were written the original owners' names, eye glasses, shoes, hair brushes, shaving brushes, shoe polish, bowls (thousands upon thousand of bowls--it was incredibly moving to imagine these people packing such a useful and mundane object believing it would be so practical when it really they had no need for a bowl where they were going), children's clothes, and most disturbing of all, human hair. Nazis would cut off women's hair and sell it to textile factories in Germany.
(Combs)
(Bowls)
(Crutches, leg braces and prosthetics)
(Human hair)
Another barrack illustrated the living quarters of the camp, including sleeping rooms with bunk beds stacked three high and each bed sleeping two persons. Rooms just large enough for fifty people would sleep 700-1000. The "bathrooms," if you can call them that, were just rows of toilets, with no dividing walls. Same for sinks.
We visited the gas chamber and the crematorium, just outside the main gate. Those sent to the gas chamber, mostly Jews because it's purpose was to facilitate the Mass Extinction, would be told they were going to take showers. There were two bare rooms before the chamber, one for men and one for women, where they would stop and undress before entering the chamber. The Nazis did not waste anything. The chambers were equipped with showers, although these showers had never been connected to a water supply. After shutting the the door, the Nazis would open small windows in the ceiling and pour Cyclone B down the holes. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, everyone would be dead. The adjacent room was the crematorium, where large oven furnaces made of irons stood in rows. The bodies would be burned two at a time in each oven. Even more horrific, those burning the bodies were prisoners themselves, given the choice to burn bodies or be killed. To be honest, the atrocities that occurred in that room were so vast that it was difficult for me to even comprehend them. Standing in what was once the gas chamber, I could not imagine what had taken place. Maybe it was my brain's own manner of self-protection.
One barrack was devoted to the different peoples brought to Auschwitz, and how central this camp was to the Nazi mission. The camp housed between 15,000 to 20,000 people at a time and around 1.5 million people lost their lives at Auschwitz. These people came from all over Europe, including the Netherlands, France, Hungary, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Soviet Union, and of course Poland. Jon and I read an information sign that informed that after the Warsaw Uprising of 1943 in Poland, the survivors were brought by train to a holding area and then on to Auschwitz. Upon reading this, Jon's face shifted. He whispered to me, "I think my grandparents were on that train." After the Uprising, his Dzadziu and Babcia were put on a train that they never learned the destination of. They jumped off that train in Koniecpol. A large map above the sign depicted Europe and the routes taken to transport people to Auschwitz. The route from Warsaw to Auschwitz went straight through Koniecpol. This was an awing and horrific realization, and I think it brought our visit even closer to home.
The final area we visited was a series of museums, each created by one country whose people were at Auschwitz. The majority of these museums were dedicated to paying tribute to those who and died at the camp, as well as documenting the sometimes painful history of its country's political and cultural actions leading up to and during the war. The Netherlands' museum was full of light and easy-to-follow plaques and photos. In contrast, France's museum was dimly lit and presented in an underground artsy fashion that required us to pass around many turns and flinch at shadows on the wall while the ominous sound of a train played on loop in the background.
(Wall of names of Jews deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz.)
Hungary's museum was not done yet, but the completed section was open for viewing. This was a multimedia presentation with the constant sound of a beating heart. The floor was made of sections of frosted glass interspersed with sunken sections filled with rocks. Neither Jon nor I could quite derive the meaning behind it, but it certainly set a somber and complex tone with which to experience the exhibit.
It was interesting to see the different tones of the museums based on whether the country had sided with the Axis or the Allies. Of those who sided with the Axis, like Czechoslovakia, its museum was dedicated to the remembering the Slavic, primarily Jewish, prisoners. It seemed almost apologetic. In contrast, Poland's museum highlighted the nations' courage in standing up to the Axis and never surrendering, even after its government was dismantled. It spoke of the underground government that was created and the underground military called the Home Army. It presented the various ways in which the Axis tried to terminate Poland's existence and every way in which the people of Poland resisted, maintaining their education system, language and even government. Jon and I really enjoyed these museums as a conclusion to the camp. It gave the experience a certain closure that tied the victims of these atrocities to a remembrance from their homes. We somberly left Auschwitz and walked back to the train station for the next leg of our journey.
Jon: Sitting on the train from Auschwitz, Oswicem to Kitowice, I had time to reflect on what I'd seen. The profundity of choices that individuals were required to make in a split seconds time struck me deeply. Either burn the corpses of your friends and loved ones or we'll kill you. Either out your Jewish friend or we'll shoot you in the head.
Sometimes I just want to stop. Sometimes it just gets so real that I want to cry, or puke, or purge all of this from mentally exhausted brain.
"You cannot know how it felt to have to hear these things and then repeat them, because when I repeated them, I felt like I was making them new again."
- Jonathan Safran-Foer
We bury the dead not for them but for ourselves. So we cannot see them, cannot feel them anymore. Then, on occasion, we revisit their memory in any number of ways and reopen the wound. We remember what it is to feel and, although it is unpleasant, it is the only path that can lead to healing and growth. There are no more memories of so many of the atrocities and the victims of this war; and the older generation, understandably, is disinclined to talk about it. They have buried their dead, and it is painful and tragic to revisit their terrible memories. But, it is necessary because once the memory dies, there is truly nothing left.
