Learning Love in Difficult Places

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve come back  from Poland.  I took part in the Zen peacemakers Bearing witness retreat in Auschwitz .

We started in Krakow with a trip to Jewish quarter  kazimierz  and the area which still holds a bit of the old feel from what we imagine. Close by is Shindler’s factory where they were just opening their museum to the shoah and the heroic acts of Shindler that happened there. It was a little too renovated for some of us , and for those that saw the movie, but nevertheless they are preserving it. which should be commended. We visited a concentration camp right in there heart of Krakow, and saw how people are living just where the Jewish ghetto walls were. Strange to think how it must be to live there. In one SS officer’s house where many of the torturing was executed ;currently it an active  apartment house, called the grey house then. Across the street is a colorful apt building with flower pots on the balconies.Many of the places that once were ghettos or camps were left as grassy area , most with some type of monument.

there were some delightful restaurants  there in this quarter, where ironically I had the best pirogies of my life.and we were serenaded by a sweet man playing klezmer. One needed to find the moments of peace and beauty in this trip. Krakow is a beautiful, very youthful lively city.

My trip to Auschwitz was moving , I had a lot of time to meditate, remember and say prayers  and light candles for all of those that requested, as well relatives of mine that had perished there. I was amazed by the sheer massiveness of the place, and the efficiency and propaganda ,and deception with which they carried out their massive killings. I always wondered how the Jews barely reresisted. They really believed that they were going to a better place or if they behaved they might actually be saved; really till the last minute as evidence by the massive number of personal belongings that are in Auschwitz. It is now set up as a museum, where the famous sign of work will set you free is posted above the entrance.I tell you it’s such a strange feeling to willingly walk in through those gates. As a Jew you are saying how could I enter this place where we tried so hard to leave? There was a lot of fear that arose in me my first time , till I realized the Nazis weren’t there anymore to harm me.  Although these fears were allayed something still was nagging at me knowing that other such terrible atrocities, unfortunately are still  happening  in this world.

Most of the buildings and barracks,and one remaining gas chamber are kept as is. Even the buildings that the Nazis tried to destoy and remove the evdence are left just as it was in many ways when they found it. When the Russian army came in afterwards, they did what they thought was good by helping to clean the place up and create massive graves for the bodies, instead of proper burials, although to identify the bodies was nearly impossible. Upon arrival we see very disturbing movies to this affect, then we went on to a tour where we saw the massive personal affects such as shaving brushes and mugs,pots to cook in, shoes, hair (which has lost its color over time,and will eventually turn to dust they say for lack of proper compounds known to preserve it ).

There are many building dedicated to all the different groups that lost lives there. French, Poles,Roma/Sinti commonly called gypsies.Such a vibrant and lively group nearly destroyed.I was struck at the beauty and the color and the vibrant life that virtually popped out of those pictures.

After some spartan soup and bread in their cafeteria. There is no food permitted on the grounds; we go to few minutes away Auschwitz/Birkenau where the train tracks ended and so many people are seen arriving on the platform. I am struck by the lush green of these hot June days against what was at one time so barren of any vegetation.

There is a very moving gallery called the sauna (in Birkenau)where many pictures are displayed there in a endless wall of beautiful faces, brides, babies, grandparents..

The days were spent mediating, reading names of those that perished and simply bearing witness.The mornings we had council groups,our group had ,a mixture of poles, Germans, Americans, people whose families had been Nazis and victims. it was a strong meeting. One night we saw the art of a beautiful man that passed on last year.

Marian Kolodziej who was #432,and went into the camps in ’41 and out at the liberation, He had been arrested as a Polish resister, so was not immediately killed. Afterwards  He became a very known set designer  for theatre, and at 80 he had a stroke,and with the advice of his DR and the help of his wife started drawings . What came out was what had been held in him all these years, the faces and eyes and the amazingly detailed and beautiful pictures that he continued incessantly drawing till his passing . The pictures are in oswiecim (the town  in which the Germans changed  to Auschwitz )in a Franciscan monastery displayed in a striking and dramatic way by him.

We extended the trip to include a teaching at a dominican monestary in Lublin ;Ohad  was asked to teach chasidut.It was an amazing  opportunity- very unique, young students plagued with questions of evil ,and its existence.We visited a theatre/museum TEATR NN there dedicated to memorializing the lives of those  who past in the shoah and those who helped them with amazingly  precise details of the life and the Jewish life in Lublin before. They deal with the difficult subjects with inspiration, creativity and love.

We ended the trip in Warsaw,there I had one of my stronger prayers in the place where the Warsaw ghetto stood, and was completely demolished. My grandpa Max Mandelbaum lived there, and Sophie, my great grandma ,before coming to Ellis Island in 1911. I imagined what he looked at and saw when he was there. The old city was destroyed but the European community was so devastated by this loss to the great Warsaw, it rebuilt this area for the 3-4 years after the war. They tried to replicate it in as much of the exact detail that it once stood.Something made me feel a bit like walking through a movie set there. but the effort is so great, and the fact the you can walk there in what it once was like is amazing.

Well that’s it, for now I bless you all with love , happiness and aliveness. one thing I saw there was the preciousness of life,and how we have been granted life, let’s live it fully with love and open heart.