Poland Day 2: Tykochin and Treblinka

Yesterday was a very intense day. We started in a quite Polish town called Tykochin, which was once a thriving Jewish shtetle. On the way there we watched the opening scene to the movie the “Fiddler on The Roof”. Tykochin was much like Anetevka. We went to a beautiful old Shul, which was used by the Nazi’s Yemach Shemo(May their names be obliterated) for storage during the war. We then walked through the town to the forgotten old cemetery. Many of the headstones were buried in hay, so we set out to overturn and right them.

 Almost the entire Jewish population of Tykochin (2,000 people which was roughly half of the towns population), were taken to the forest in August of 1941, and were killed in mass graves. We visited these two mass graves, along with two other Israeli high school groups who were also there. Here is an excerpt from my Journal.

“We just left the site of a mass grave, where the entire Jewish population of Tykochin was massacred. Why did this happen? They were smart Jews. They had decent lives. But most of all they were just people.

 We read an account from the Nuremberg trials. A woman was stuck in the death pit, with dead and living people all around her. When she got to the surface of the pit, she yelled for her family. What love, even in the worst moment. I imagined the people made from clay, clawing, swirling, and evolving in the pit, as the woman struggled for a gasp of air. Maybe I imagined this because that’s what those people are now: just clay.

 I was so angry at one point. A voice was screaming in my head saying something like “who would do this? This didn’t need to happen. This never should have happened.”

I’m joining the IDF. I can’t let this happen again. If I can’t personally stop terror, I will help to try.

The Poles did little. They were passive. We can’t be passive. The torah teaches how important a sing life is. We can’t pass that up. No matter what.”

 Next we visited the death camp of Treblinka, where 850,000 Jewish people were killed in one year. Thank god it is no longer standing. Where it stood is now a memorial located near the Lithuanian border. There were many other Israeli groups when we got there, as well as very high security, because the Israeli and Polish Ministers of education were there for a ceremony. The most incredible part of this visit was being able to walk out of the memorial, something so many Jews before me were never able to do.

Here is an excerpt from my journal:

 “There is nothing left of Treblinka. We can go there and try to remember, but it’s all covered up. The death has been masked by the evil creatures that were once the body parts of the well-oiled machine that once stood in the gray Polish forest. I read a poem to the our group called “I am remembrance”, which was written by the son of a holocaust survivor. It was very difficult to read the poem, both because the wind was howling in my face, and because the contents as very intense and emotional. After we finished I was relieved to walk swiftly out of the camp and on to the warm bus. What a strange and terrible place. Thank god the holocaust is over.”  

  It was a very challenging day, but it was important in understanding what happened in Poland. A fair question is “why go all the way to Poland just to see these terrible places?” To contextualize, before WWII Warsaw had the largest population of Jews second to New York City. We are talking about a gigantic, thriving, and intelligent Jewish communities, which were essentially wiped off the face of this earth. We have to come here and commemorate those people. We have to. 

Uncovering a headstone.

I AM REMEMBRANCE 

i am
blue and white striped
with a yellow star and a tattoo
of death
i
shower in fire
with my brothers hand in mine
he knows of no jew or catholic
muslim or christian
he knows only
that he wants to live
and i
i cannot comprehend
i cannot understand
i cannot forget what i have never known
i shovel the ashes of the death
with the "why" tearing at me
with the "why" burning me
with the "why" tattooed in the fire
of my
mind
and what have they known
but pain and suffering?
what have they become
but hunted and afraid
what will be left
but ashes and debris
if
they
forget
i wear the blue and white stripes of persecution
i shovel the ashes of the dead
i carry the tomorrows
that were burned
the hopes
that were shot
the dreams
that will never be
and i am a prisoner to what i have never known to the gate of that eternal night
born to chains, born to suffer
born to 1000's of years
of containment
exclusion
restriction
haunted by the agony
of the dead
and
the guilt
of the living
i am
remembrance
forsake me not
for it is the doom of man
that he forgets 

(c) 1993 Eric Sander Kingston