I haven't been on the forum a whole lot in the past fews months, mainly due to obligations in my professional life that now encompasses much time out of school. I am currently teaching two seperate classes on the Holocaust at work and do a lot of professional development outreach outside of work for other teachers in the state and regional area. I recently returned from three weeks abroad, spending time in Poland and Israel with 31 other teachers on this topic and some top level scholars. It was certainly a trip of a lifetime and while I was unable to post my updates on here during the trip, I was told that some of you are interested in hearing more about it so I figured I would post them in sections on here for all who are interested to read. I will also try to add pics at some point too but my laptop is currently misbehaving! :-)
Here goes!
First Day (7/6)
Afternoon (U.S. Time)
I have arrived safely in Warsaw and am getting ready to tackle my evening reading. Last night's flight from Newark was fairly uneventful though rather turbulent at times. I honestly have never really been sick on a plane until this morning but fortunately I recovered pretty quickly. Flying out at 11:25 at night was nice because security was a breeze. This was preceded by a dinner with the participants and people who were integral in putting the trip together..
Our group is quite diverse and a little larger than I had initially expected. There are 32 teachers plus our two group leaders and the wife of one of the group leaders. People are with us from as far west as California and as far south as Florida. There are several from as far north as Mass. and we stretch across the Midwest and down to Texas. My friend and colleague, Elaine Culbertson, was supposed to be one of the leaders but had a change in plans at the last minute so a teacher from Texas and alumni of this trip filled in for her. The other group leader is Stephen Feinberg from USHMM. So far they have both proven to be incredibly knowledgeable. Our tourguide, Vaslov, is a native of Warsaw and is very well versed on the history of Poland, as well as the history of the Holocaust.
We arrived in Warsaw around 1:30 but traveling in a large group it took until about 3:00 until we actually made it to the hotel. My roomate, Cynthia, from Harrisburg is really great and we get along superbly. After getting much needed showers we set off to explore "Old Town" in Warsaw which was very beautiful, but unfortunately not so old. If you don't know much about the history of Warsaw a short summary is that it was largely rubble post WWII as a result of two uprisings that took place. The first was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943, which resulted in the Nazi's leveling the ghetto after a standoff that lasted 18 days. The following year the citizens of Warsaw took up arms against the Germans which again resulted in widespread German retaliation and nearly complete destruction of Warsaw. As a result, "Old Town" consists of very few original buildings and instead mostly rebuilt structures during the 1950s that attempt to emulate what was originally standing in their place. Most buildings have two dates on their cornerstones - the date they were originally built and the date they were rebuilt.
Our hotel is beautiful - and pricey. It is called the Hotel Bristol and located next to the presidential palace. We had a wonderful group dinner this evening where we continued to get aquainted with one another and then had a lecture by Stephen and Vaslov about putting the events of the Holocaust in proper context. It was a very thought provoking discussion and I even learned many new things of great historical value that I will be able to bring back to the classroom and the community. Tomorrow we are going on a large tour of sites in Warsaw and then tomorrow evening we are going to a Chopin recital in a former royal palace.
Day 2 (7/7)
Good Afternoon, (U.S. Time)
Today was our main day of touring Warsaw. We had a very busy but wonderfully informative day. After a fantastic breakfast at the hotel (every imaginable breakfast food!), we boarded our coach and set off for the All Saints Church. This Church was actually located within the confines of the ghetto and ministered to Jews who had converted to Catholicism. The clergy with this church made every attempt that they could to save the converted, but the Nazis (as some of you know) viewed being Jewish as a race and not a religion; therefore, conversion seldom saved you.
Located across from the church is a Yiddish theater which is staffed by Polish actors who do not actually speak Yiddish and instead memorize their lines. There are some Jewish actors who speak Yiddish but the Jewish community is quite tiny in Warsaw today. It is estimated to be anywhere from 8 - 20 thousand, including some people who may actually not recognize their own Judaism because they were children who were smuggled out of the ghetto and hidden with Christians. When their families did not return after the war, they remained with and were raised by their Christian families. The pre-war community was 30% Jewish and was only exceeded in Jewish population by NYC.
Behind the theater is the Nosyk Synagogue. Prior to the war it was not a major synagogue but it was the only synagogue that survived the war. It has been well restored and offers daily services to the exisiting Jewish community of Warsaw. We were also able to see some remnants of the ghetto buildings in this area. They have sepia colored photos displayed on them today to commemorate those who were in the ghetto.
After leaving the synagogue we ventured to the portion of town that is near the railway station. It is in this area that the last major pieces of the ghetto wall remain. I visited this area briefly last summer and actually missed some major portions of the wall so I am happy that I was back with a well educated tour guide. It is hard to believe that so little remains of an area that once housed 400,000 Jews during the Holocaust.
From the wall area we ventured to the Jewish cemetery. I think this was perhaps the part that affected me the most today. The cemetery was very large but incredibly dilapidated and overgrown in most areas. There is such a small Jewish community in Warsaw that it is difficult for them to maintain the cemetery. Tombstones and memorials are broken and litter the area in spots. It also contains several mass graves in which people were buried during the ghetto period. There are also several memorials within the cemetery for those who perished including a memorial for the children, a memorial to Janus Korczak - a Polish educator and expert on child care who ran orphanages both in and out of the ghetto and ultimately perished in Treblinka with his orphans, and also a memorial for the family of Vladka Meed. (Vladka was the founder of this trip along with her husband Ben. Both were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and members of the resistance).
After the visit to the cemetery we visited the memorial to the Ghetto Uprising (discussed briefly yesterday). We had a group picture taken that will be featured in the Alumni Newsletter for the teachers who have participated in this trip. The alumni number in the 800's which is incredibly amazing. At the memorial we laid roses for Vladka to pay tribute to those who participated in the Uprising. Most were very young people, younger than myself. Vladka herself was in her late teens/early 20's during her years in the Ghetto and as a member of the resistance.
From the memorial we walked to the memorial at the bunker of Mila 18, where some of the leaders of the Uprising committed suicide to avoid capture by the Nazis. We then walked to the Umschlagplatz, which served as the major loading area for the mass deportations from the Ghetto during July 1942 through September 1942. There is a beautiful memorial there now. Apparently when Ben and Vladka first visited after the fall of Communism they were disturbed by the fact that a modern gas station had been erected on the Umschlagplatz. Fortunately, Ben was able to arrange to purchase the station and its land, on which he tore down the station and erected this monument.
For lunch we were on our own. I went with a group to a Vietnamese restaurant. It very good. I was hoping for ethnic Polish food but there wasn't any to be found easily within the area we were in so I chose Vietnamese over KFC. We had a great discussion about religion over lunch. The people I am traveling with are so amazing to talk to and everyone's varied background brings tremendous discussion topics to our time together.
After lunch we visited the Jewish Historical Institute. This building was originally attached to the Great Synagogue and served as a place to record Jewish history in Warsaw. The synagogue was destroyed at the end of the Uprising by the Nazis but the building that housed the Institute survived. We watched a very informative and thought provoking film on the ghetto. The images were mainly gathered by the Nazis for propaganda purposes but the voiceover consisted of people reading accounts of people who had been in the ghetto. Following the film we toured the exhibit on the ghetto. This will definitely enhance my teaching on this topic as I was able to get further detail on some of the photos and primary source documents I am currently using. I also have some ideas to expand on the things I am already doing in my classroom.
A brief rest and change at the hotel was followed by a bus ride to the former royal palace of the last king of Poland. We were treated to a private piano recital of Chopin music. For anyone who has ever seen the film "The Pianist," many of the pieces played were also featured in the film. It was an amazing enriching experience and a nice, but paradoxical change of pace from our topics of the day. Following the recital we dined as a group at a local Polish restaurant in Three Crosses Square.
Tomorrow we are departing for Lublin. En route we will tour the Majdanek death camp. Dr. Delaney spoke very highly of Lublin so I am looking forward to it. I believe I will have wireless access and will make an attempt to send another update.
(ya do know the holocaust never happened don't ya)
/\ just being a bit sarcastic regarding those few idiots who still believe it was all made up.
I was actually going to put that in my description...that I teach classes about something the "never happened." Fortunately, I haven't had to deal with too much of it directly but many of my colleagues have.
Thanks! I am hoping to get pics up soon but they are on my laptop and it is currently not happy with the Internet. I have to wait until Matt gets home to remedy that!
Day 3 (7/8)
I apologize for not getting an update out yesterday. It was a very bad evening for me with technology and phone service. My laptop died and I was unable to charge it and use it at the same time because the Internet was not working in my room for some reason or another. On top of that, I was having difficulty calling home. Between that, repacking and doing the assigned reading it was past midnight until I went to bed and we had to be ready to leave by 7:30 this AM, so I'm sure you can understand the delay!
Yesterday, we left the hotel after another great breakfast and headed to Majdanek, which is located outside of the city of Lublin in southeastern Poland. Majdanek was considered to be a death camp but it also served as a concentration camp and forced labor camp for Poles, Soviet POW's and others. The camp was smaller than Birkenau but still substantially sized. Like many other camps in Eastern Europe, much of it had either fallen down or was dismantled by the Soviets to avoid upkeep. Some of it was also destroyed by the Nazis before they fled.
The two gas chambers were still standing. One was open for display. It had two chambers. One was used for CO2 poisoning (exhaust from a truck was pumped into the chamber) and the other utilized Zyklon B (the pesticide that was also used in Auschwitz.) The blue stains that occurred when Zyklon B was used still remained on the walls and this really was disturbing. I was also really unsettled by the fact that the CO2 room had an operator who watched through a window and adjusted the flow of the CO2. You can't tell me that someone like that can really function like a real human being.
Majdanek was the "warehouse" camp for the three Aktion Reinhard facilities (Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor). Aktion Reinhard camps were specifically death camps - nothing else. The main operations for Aktion Reinhard were based in the city of Lublin so it made sense that Majdanek was chosen as the warehouse camp. All of the belongings from the Jews who were killed in those three camps were brought to Majdanek and sorted and then distributed to Germans who had been relocated throughout Germany and Poland. The warehouses are still standing and several were turned into exhibits that we toured.
Of the six "fields"/sections in Majdanek (5 that contained permanent housing - 1 temporary) only 1 field still contained barracks. There were a few exhibits spread throughout this area. After leaving the "field" we approached the second memorial established by the Russians. The first was at the front of the camp and it was absolutely hideous. It honored the Russians who fought in the Great Patriotic War. The second memorial was for the victims of the camp. It was a big concrete dome that loomed over a huge pile of ashes. Out of everything at this camp, that disturbed me the most.
From there we went to crematorium. It contained five "ovens." The exterior structure was burnt down when the Nazis fled the camp but the interior was intact. The Polish Govt. (under the Soviets) rebuilt the exterior. This was also unsettling. I found this to be even harder than Auschwitz because in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) the crematoriums had been blown up and are just rubble and in Auschwitz I, it is smaller and not really reassembled, but more on that tomorrow.
We returned to Lublin and had a nice decompressing lunch hour of local beer and pierogies. They were excellent but a little greasy. After that we went on a short walking tour of Lublin including the Old Town and former Jewish Quarter to the castle in Lublin. It was very nice. They are starting to restore the town area and are doing a really great job. We broke off the main group after that and had a great discussion over coffee about the use of Holocaust-related films.
Dinner at the hotel was okay. The first course, brocolli soup, was great but the main entree (sole) left a bit to be desired. We had a personal and professional discussion after dinner about what we had seen over the past two days. It was a good discussion and very indicative of the quality of our group. After dinner I spent time looking over some related technology with some of the other teachers. I then fought with the computer and phone, took a relaxing bath and read the assigned readings for today's trip. I finally went to bed at 12.
Day 4 (7/9)
Good Evening!
I believe I will have time to get in another update now that I hand washed some laundry. Today we left Lublin early and headed to Belzec, another death camp referenced in yesterday's e-mail. Fortunately today I did not get bus sick like I did yesterday. One of the teachers gave me some awesome anti-motion sickness wrist bands. I also took a full tablet of the anti-naseau (sp?) medication that I have. Both together worked great!
Belzec was quite different than Majdanek. It was only used as a death camp and therefore, the Nazis dismantled it completely when they shut it down in the latter part of '43. This camp had gas chambers that operated off of CO2, like the one chamber in Majdanek that I mentioned. Up until 5 years ago there were two rather poorly created memorials installed by the Polish Govt. (again under the Soviet Union). Survivors from the US got involved and helped the new Polish government create a very powerful memorial. Compared to Majdanek, the camp did not occupy a very large space. For the Nazis, it did not need to - people were brought directly off the trains and placed in the gas chambers, thus the only living quarters needed were for the small amount of workers who had to empty the chambers, process the belongs and burn and bury the bodies.
The memorial encompasses most of the camp space. It is a big square on a hillside filled with rock from a blast furnace. It is all grey rock except where the mass graves are - there it is black. It smells awful - almost like it is burning. Around this field of rocks is a concrete path built into the hillside. Along the path, by months during which the exterminations took place are the names of the towns were the people came from that were killed during that month. This had a tremendous effect on me because I have two friends who lost either family, friends or fellow townspeople here. When I saw the names of these towns (Durobycz and Furth) I nearly cried. I am still having difficulty processing all of this and today was probably the hardest. Yet I am glad I am here. I think this is the most valuable learning experience I have ever had and may ever have in my entire life.
Down the center of the field is a walkway built into the hillside. As you walk down the walkway you get deeper into the hillside and feel more overwhelmed. This leads into a memorial which can also be accessed by going down steps along the perimeter at the top of the field. The memorial lists first names of all of the people known to have been killed here. The death camp was mainly for Jews though a few local Poles and non-Jewish resisters also met their death at Belzec.
There is also a small but well created museum near the enterance to the site. It was very informative and had good displays. This is also very new and shows how the Poles are really attempting to address this horrible period in their history. Unlike Majdanek, which was near a main road and along a rail line but far from Lublin, the Belzec camp was located right next to the town. There was no doubt that the people who lived there knew what was going on.
We reboarded the bus and had a brief lunch at a Polish pizzeria in the next town over before embarking on the five hour ride to Krakow. We arrived here around 8:15 (local time) and had a nice dinner a half hour later. Prior to dinner I was asked to be one of the six people chosen to recite the Kaddish (the Hebrew prayer for the dead) at the memorial ceremony we will take part in at Treblinka. I will also light one of the 6 candles (6 for 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust.). I felt very honored to be asked to participate in this. I am also going to be talking about my friend Elaine's mother and her story tomorrow when we visit Auschwitz since Elaine is unable to be with us. I am also quite honored by this opportunity.
Well it is nearly 1 AM and I need to get some reading done before I sleep. More tomorrow!
Thanks Geff....yeah yeah guys, I'll get pics up ASAP :-) And I agree...any Holocaust denier should have gone on this...there would be no way not to believe after what I saw.
Day 5 (7/10)
We got up rather early to eat breakfast before heading to Auschwitz-Birkenau. We wanted to get in as much time as possible in order to maximize the experience. Auschwitz is about an hour and a half from Krakow outside of the town of Oswiciem. Auschwitz was the Geman name. The roads in Poland are quite terrible. Next time someone tells me the roads in Pennsylvania are bad I am going to suggest they visit Poland. Our roads look awesome in comparision. One of my fellow teachers got really bus sick so she ended up sitting with me for most of the trip so I didn't get an extra nap in today.
We arrived at Auschwitz around 9:30. First we went to the main camp which is known as Auschwitz I. This camp was mainly a concentration camp. It housed mostly male prisoners though female prisoners were in the camp prison, infirmary and also in the camp to undergo sterilization experiments. Several of the old brick two-story barracks have been turned into exhibits. Some are general overall topics of the camp (Living Conditions, Extermination etc.) and others were specific to country's and/or ethnic groups. We went through the barracks on living conditions, extermination and the prison barrack. The prison barrack was very creepy. It contained regular cells, starvation cells and standing cells. If you want to know more about this I would suggest examining the official Auschwitz website www.auschwitz.de , The prison block is next to an experimentation block and the courtyard in between contained a wall used for executions. It now serves as a memorial.
After leaving the prison block we entered the barrack for the exhibit on the Jewish victims of Auschwitz and the one on the Roma/Sinti (Gypsies). The last block is very recent and is incredibly well done. It is probably the best exhibit on this topic in the world. Following this exihibit we saw where the Commandent was hung after his post-war trial in Poland. This was located next to the gas chamber/crematorium. This gas chamber was the only gas chamber in the Auschwitz system to survive. The reason it did was because it ceased operations when Birkenau (Auschwitz II) was opened and the SS and camp offcials used it as a bomb shelter. The ovens had been removed but were placed back in after the war to give visitors an idea of what had transpired there.
Upon finishing our tour of Auschwitz I, we took a brief break for our boxed lunches though no one was really hungry. After lunch we went 2 miles down the road to Auschwitz II (hereafter referred to as Birkenau). This camp was the death camp of the Auschwitz system. Construction was well under way by 1942 and gassing operations were transferred to this site. It was at this point that Jews and other "undesireables" began to be transported to Birkenau for the purpose of extermination. The camp also had several sections of barracks where those judged fit to live would be housed and then during the day they would go out on various work details in the surrounding area. The Auschwitz system also had a third "large camp known as Auschwitz III/Monowitz. It was also referred to as Buna. Monowitz was housed with the IG Farben industrial center strictly to provide industrial labor. It did not contain a gas chamber. Auschwitz is judged to have had several dozen or possibly even over a 100 smaller sub camps.
We entered the camp and immediately climbed the infamous watchtower for a view of the entire camp. We discussed size comparisons to the two previous camps that we had visited. Our excellent guide from the main camp accompanied us to Birkenau and continued providing her services to us there. From the watchtower we walked to the unloading area where many of the later "selections" occurred. The selection was when people were chosen to live or die. The camp staff generally chose those who they viewed capable of performing forced labor to live and everyone else was sent to the gas chambers. Prior to the completion of the rail line into the camp in 1944, the initial selections were carried out at an unloading area outside the camp. We did not go to this area but could see it from the road and watchtower.
From the unloading area we entered the section known as the women's camp. Most of the wooden barracks are no longer standing but the women's camp contains some stone/brick barracks built from material from the homes of the locals who were driven out when the camp was initially constructed. In this portion of the camp I had a very special duty today. My friend, Elaine, was unable to be with us on this trip so she asked me to tell her mother's story about her time in the camp and the loss of her family. I have used her story in my classroom and Dora (Elaine's mother) also assisted me with my thesis. Dora was 16 when she was intially interned in Auschwitz with her 17 year old sister Frania. The girls' parents and two younger siblings had not come to the camp. Their father jumped from the train in an attempt to return to his wife and two youngest children; believing the older girls could be okay if they stayed together. His fate is unknown. Dora's mother and two youngest siblings perished in their hometown.
Dora was at Auschwitz for 2 years. Shortly before liberation Frania was shot by a guard for spilling a portion of the soup during a lunchtime delivery. Dora nearly gave up but was adopted into a "camp family" who managed to keep her going until the death march during which they were liberated. She eventually married a fellow survivor and immigrated to Philadelphia where she lives today. The story is a bit more detailed of course, but typing it in an e-mail does not do it justice. Telling it in person, at Birkenau, in front of the very barrack she was in (which we did not find out until after the story was told) was one of the most difficult things I think I have ever done. I hope that I did her story justice and that my fellow teachers will share it with their students.
We toured the remainder of the camp over the next several hours. The crematoriums and gas chambers have all been destroyed. 1 was blown up in a revolt by the "Sonderkommando" (unit forced to assist in this ghastly deed), and the other three were destroyed by the retreating SS. We also saw several other sights thoughout the camp that defy description. I also took the opportunity to share other stories of my survivor friends. I think my fellow teachers will carry them on as well. (To those of you who know who you are - again, thank you for sharing. It has brought so much more meaning to this trip).
I don't think I have been so emotionally exhausted in my life. The ride home was quiet and we took a brief break before dining in the town square. Dinner was wonderful and we had a nice stroll back while viewing the local sites and culture. It was somewhat decompressing and that was desperately needed. At dinner I had a nice chat with our group leader about a very special survivor who is no longer with us, a man by the name of Norbert Wollheim. His wife, Charlotte, helped to run this trip for many years. Google his name and read up on this wonderful man. That's your teacher assigned homework for the night :-)
Day 6 (7/11)
Afternoon (U.S time of course!)
Hope you are all doing well and that the weather in the U.S. is as beautiful as the weather here in Krakow. It has been in the low 70's all week, some rain but overall gorgeously my kind of weather. Supposedly it is getting hot after we leave but by that point we'll be nice and warm in Jerusalem.
I am a bit melancholy tonight as it is our last night in Krakow. Out of the three cities we were in on this trip (Warsaw, Lublin & Krakow) and the German cities/towns I was in last summer, I am still a strong believer that Krakow is my favorite city in the world. It's historic sites and the atmosphere are just amazing. I don't know if I mentioned it in last night's update, but there are street performers everywhere. We watched a group dancing with fire on chains last night to diverse American popular music (ironically) like Sting and Disturbed (heavier metal if you are not familiar). They were also accompanied by a mime. There were several mimes today as well as a keyboardist playing Elton John and another guy singing Bob Dylan music in Polish. There are also people who paint themselves and their clothes entirely one color (like black or gold) and pose like statues. It is quite unusual but so different. American music is very popular here but not everyone speaks English. We also saw a puppet show with a Michael Jackson puppet dancing to 'Beat It'.
This morning we did a tour of sites in the immediate vicinity of Krakow. We went to Plaszow, a concentration and forced labor camp outside of the former city limits where the Jews of Krakow were sent after the ghetto in Krakow was emptied. This is the camp that is famous in Schindler's List where Amon Goethe was the camp commandant. Those of you who have seen the movie will remember this monstrous character. The camp itself was completely dismantled by the retreating Germans in 1944 and only one of Amon Goethe's two villas remain; however, it is tucked back in the woods and we did not see it. There are several monuments and memorials on the site and our tour guide told of plans to expand upon the memorialization within the next year. I look forward to returning someday to see what they do to commemorate those who perished there (nearly 15,000) as well as those who were interned. I must say that overall I am impressed with the local populations willingness to address Holocaust memory in Poland. While not all will accept some responsibility for what happened and blame it all on the Germans, there is still a large movement that is government and privately funded to properly memorialize at the sites of the tragedies. This is a change from mindset during and immediately after the fall of the Communist regime in most places in Poland.
After leaving Plaszow, we drove to the former Schindler factory, Emalia. It was used by other companies after Schindler left the area and was falling into disrepair. Today they are well into restoring it and a new museum about the Jews of Krakow and Schindler is opening in September. This was not easily seen when I was visiting last year because the site was largely under construction. At the time, I did not realize that this was what they were constructing. En route to the factory, we drove past the remaining piece of the ghetto wall in Krakow. The wall was constructed to be 3 meters high and look like tombstones at the top. It surrounded the entire ghetto which was liquidated in 1943. Apparently the Germans forgot to dismantle this piece.
From the factory we stopped by the outskirts of the ghetto to visit the ghetto pharmacy building and museum. This pharmacy was run by a Christian within the ghetto to secretly help the Jews with smuggling and medical needs. The pharmacist convinced the Germans to allow it to remain open so the Germans could get good PR in making it look like the conditions were not as bad as reported. The pharmacist was eventually recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. (More on that next week). There is also a memorial for resistance in the ghetto in the main square outside the pharmacy. Those who were not transferred to Plaszow were sent to Belzec.
The next stop was the Jewish Museum of Galicia. This museum was created by a British man who came to Poland on a photography expedition and never left. He fell in love with Krakow and dedicated his life to creating a museum to commemorate lost Jewish life in the Galicia region of Poland. It was an amazing museum and a labor of love for Chris Schwarz, who unfortunately died of pancreatic cancer two years ago in his late 40's/early 50's. I highly recommend Googling his work or the Jewish Museum of Galicia. His photographs were truly art. There was also a neat exhibit by a man who lived in Krakow in his younger years until 1934. He moved to the states and started painting about his old city at the age of 73. It was a very cool exhibit.
After leaving the museum, we toured the old syngagogue located across the street. It was built in the 15th century and remained a house of worship until the Holocaust. Today it is a museum of Judaica. It was very fascinating. We also walked by the Remuh Synagogue which still operates today and is connected to the Old Jewish Cemetery in Krakow. Today is the Sabbath so we did not go inside.
We were then given free time for the afternoon. A small group of us dined on pierogies and Polish beer and then walked around Krakow. We went through the Wawel Castle (quite beautiful) and walked through the neighborhood Pope John Paul II grew up in. We visited the old market, had some ice cream and then made a brief stop in the shopping mall. Dinner was quite good and now I am finally wrapping it up for the night.
Tomorrow we have an 8 hour bus ride to Treblinka and then spend our last night in Poland in Warsaw, at the same hotel we visited earlier in the week.
Fascinating narrative. Thank You Anyone who has visited one or more of the concentration camps sites will forever have their view of the world, humanity and politics changed. Trips to these memorial sites are very somber days and still weigh heavy on you, long after you have left them. To those that have never personally visited them, it is almost impossible to adequately describe to you the feeling of being there and the range of emotions you carry away with you.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 07-31-2009).]
Thanks for sharing this. I personally couldn't do it. It would break my heart.
My uncle spent quite a bit of time in a concentration camp, in at 185 and out at 75. Survived it, but a haunted man for the rest of his life. We have alot of folks in our city with similar stories.
Fascinating narrative. Thank You Anyone who has visited one or more of the concentration camps sites will forever have their view of the world, humanity and politics changed. Trips to these memorial sites are very somber days and still weigh heavy on you, long after you have left them. To those that have never personally visited them, it is almost impossible to adequately describe to you the feeling of being there and the range of emotions you carry away with you.
That is the truth. In a moment of wry humor, someone on the very quiet bus piped up - "Now we know how to make a bus full of teachers quiet!" It certainly was a somber experience.
Thanks for sharing this. I personally couldn't do it. It would break my heart.
My uncle spent quite a bit of time in a concentration camp, in at 185 and out at 75. Survived it, but a haunted man for the rest of his life. We have alot of folks in our city with similar stories.
It is good you are an educator. Good for you.
Arn
Wow that is crazy, but unfortunately I have heard stories of it before after the time I have spent studying it. Was he able to talk to your family about it? I didn't realize London had such a high survivor population.
Today was a day that was spent mostly on the bus. Unfortunately, that meant a bad start for me. I got quite 'bus' sick early this AM and while I will spare you the details, I will say that I am happy with one thing about leaving Poland - no more bumpy roads!
After a long ride (7 hours?), we arrived at Treblinka, the final camp that we were visiting. Treblinka functioned completely as a death camp and is located about an hour northwest of Warsaw. The Nazis completely dismantled both Treblinka II (the death camp) and Treblinka I (which functioned briefly as a forced labor area). Today there are several monuments errected and some walkways but there is no original architecture remaining. The memorial was created largely under the Soviet regime and has some interesting aspects. The area where the railway was is marked by both a cobblestone walkway and then stone markers once you enter the camp. The perimeter of the camp is marked by large jagged rocks. The ramp area has been reconstructed, as well as the walkway to the gas chambers. In the location where the gas chambers had stood is a monument. It is surrounded by a field that contains many sizes of jagged rocks that appear like tombstones in the landscape. Names of the towns where the people came from are enscribed on some of the rocks. Only one rock is for an individual, Janus Korzcak, who ran an orphanage for children in the Warsaw Ghetto and went with them to Treblinka even though he knew what his fate would be. Korzcak probably could have saved himself but chose to accompany the children so they would not be alone.
At the monument we lit 6 candles to commemorate the 6 million. The Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, was recited. We then took some time to walk around and reflect before boarding the bus to head to Warsaw.
Tomorrow, quite early, we leave for Tel Aviv. We will arrive in Jerusalem tomorrow afternoon and at that point I will be 7 hours ahead of EST. I am not sure yet what my Internet access status will be but I will post more updates as soon as I can.
Days 8 & 9 (7/13 & 7/14)
Afternoon,
Sorry for the lack of update yesterday. Our hotel, the Sheraton Plaza Jerusalem, charges for Internet and I wasn't really in favor of paying $18.00 (US) a day to access the 'net. We managed to find a great little kosher coffee shop about 2 blocks away so I think this will be part of the daily routine from now until Friday.
We arrived yesterday around 3 at the airport in Tel Aviv. My first impression while flying in was that it looks like an extremely dry country. Tel Aviv is in a lowland area and aquaducts are necessary for farming in this section. Jerusalem, our first destination, is located in a more mountainous region and there is some greenery here. It is a very unique appearing city. There are settlements built into hillsides and the architecture ranges from ancient to very modern. To say it is a bustling place is probably a pretty accurate statement. Our hotel is located on King George Blvd. which is one of the main hotel areas. I am excited because a friend from the PA Holocaust Ed. Council is staying in the hotel right across from me during the latter part of this week.
Last night we had a great buffet dinner in the hotel. The hummus was amazing. It was nice to have choices for the meal instead of getting a mass entree for everyone. We laid low last night and got situated in the hotel room since we will be here for 5 nights. I also managed to get the required reading done for our time here so I felt very ready to go for the rest of the week.
This morning began with another nice spread for breakfast. We then boarded the bus for a bus tour of Jerusalem. First, we went to the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel. The tomb has an interesting history as it houses both Jewish and Muslim places of worship. During the Crusades it served as a fortification for the crusaders. It was then turned into a mass marketplace area and the Muslims built a mosque area around the tomb. From the roof of the building we had interesting views of Judea, including the city of Jerusalem. We also had a history lesson on the development of Israel and the various groups/countries that had ownership of the territory. On the way there, and back, we had to go through a security checkpoint. That was an interesting experience.
Next we stopped atop Mt. Scopus, where Hebrew University is located. This provided us with a great view of the Old CIty where we could see some of the major landmarks of Jerusalem. From this point we could see the Church of the Holy Seplacur (sp?), where the Tomb of Christ is located. You could also see the Gardens of Gethesamane, The Mount of Olives, the estimated location of the ascension of Mohammed and Christ and many other historic sights. We then drove under the Old City and ended up on Has Promenade, which was another great view of the city. You could see the wall built by the Turks to protect Jerusalem during their reign. This hillside was also the location of the United Nations base between 1948-1967.
Lunch was at a local kibbutz - Rachel Ramat. Another nice buffet and more great hummus. I was also able to pick up a nice and inexpensive shawl, which is something that is handy to have when going into the Holy Places. Overall, so far, I have found Israel to not be incredibly expensive.
After lunch we ventured to Yad Vashem, which is essentially their version of the USHMM. Yad Vashem sits on a beautiful hillside overlooking Jerusalem. Our agenda for today was to spend 3 hours within the main museum exhibit, unguided. This was something our directors fought hard to achieve because normally everyone must have a guided tour. They felt that our knowledge base was better suited to an independent tour so we could get more out of it. I think they made a great choice.
The Museum is built into a triangular/kaliadascope (sp?) building. It takes you chronologically through the Holocaust with thematic areas for things like Pre-War Jewish Life, the Ghettos and the Final Solution. It had a very extensive artifact collection and interspersed survivor testimony on screens throughout. It was a different approach then USHMM. I wouldn't necessarily say it was incredibly better, but it was a nice change after nearly 2 dozen visits to Washington. They had some very intricate exhibits including a very interesting section on Transnistria (LR - more on that when I return). The end of the museum contains a Hall of Names and Testimonies. It is a big circular room that is about 50 feet high lined with files of names of those who perished and testimonies of those who survived. In the middle is a giant pit, maybe 75 feet deep that has a black bottomless-appearing pool. It was very powerful and unsettling.
The exit to the Museum is built into a cliffside It is a beautiful view of Jerusalem and is quite uplifting after the intensity of the permanent exhibit. We then ventured outward, partially along the Avenue of the Righteous, which is a tree-lined avenue that honors those Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Following our visit to Yad Vashem we went to the Israeli Museum and home of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Israeli Museum is closed except for the outdoor exhibit that contains a 1/50th scale model of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was absolutely fascinating and I can't wait to share pictures. It also continued to help me brush up on my Biblical History. Mom - I am now wishing I paid more attention in CCD. The Dead Sea Scrolls were created during the First Century by the Qumrans, who lived in the desert area outside of Jerusalem. It is the oldest known written version of the BIble. They were hidden in caves in this area and were not found until 1947 when a Bedouin sheep herder found them while throwing rocks at a wall. He recognized that they were written on leather and took them to a local shoemaker whom he thought would be interested in the leather. Fortunately, the shoemaker was also a black market antiquities dealer and the scrolls were actually advertised in the Wall Street Journal for sale. The Israeli Government ended up with them and then excavated the area finding several more scrolls. The exhibit was accompanied by other artifacts from the first century.
Dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant. I have never had Moroccan food before and it was quite good. Our group had a nice time and great conversations at dinner. We then walked back to the hotel via Ben Yehuda Blvd. which is lined with shops and street performers of all kinds. It had a very European feel, with an Israeli twist.
Tomorrow, back to Yad Vashem to meet the prestigious Yehuda Bauer and David Ben Kier. In the afternoon we are doing a walking tour of the Old City.
Wow that is crazy, but unfortunately I have heard stories of it before after the time I have spent studying it. Was he able to talk to your family about it? I didn't realize London had such a high survivor population.
As you know there aren't tens of thousands of survivors, and the few left are very old. I have met several in London. My uncle did not talk about it. He was believed to be dead for about 4 or 5 years and it was not until 1947 that my father ran into him on the street in my home town of Brantford Ontario. He had been liberated by the Russians, and, like so many, had found it hard to get free back to North America.
He told me he kept alive by not eating the salted fish they were offered. He only drank the water when the fish was offered. What was done was the prisoners were given salted fish for food (they were starved) and then water was withheld long enough that when they got it, they over drank and a number would go crazy in the process. They were then shot. That was his story. He also talked about the burial details.
It is hard to know what happened in the camps. The stories are the memories of people often driven to madness and despair. This is part of the largest known genocide of mostly Jewish people, but also Allied soldiers, various Christian sects, and socially displaced persons such as the gay communities.
We have one prominent family of retailers in downtown London and the old couple who still own the store, have the tattoes. I have not conversed with them about their experiences myself. Others have. There are more here abouts but they are dying off every year, like the veterans who freed them. The things documented by the historians are so horrible as to not be believed by some, but, so horrible as to understand the evil of the Nazi Regime and the evil mankind is capable of.
All I can say is WOW.......hard to imagine how cruel humans can be!!!!! It is amazing that I share your feelings just reading about your experiences. I could not imagine being there to see it. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I have seen with my eyes the cruelty man can do to children and babies .. the heart of darkness is in all of us !! never forget the NAZI,s started with political prisoners then people not generally liked by the average person... We easily forget..
[This message has been edited by uhlanstan (edited 08-01-2009).]
I know the Holocaust is dominated by Jewish victims with little attention given to the Romas. But I've heard that Turks, Slavs and many other ethic minorities were rounded up by the Nazi's as well.
I know the Holocaust is dominated by Jewish victims with little attention given to the Romas. But I've heard that Turks, Slavs and many other ethic minorities were rounded up by the Nazi's as well.
Actually, currently the field of Holocaust Studies is focusing a lot of attention on Roma & Sinti groups. Auschwitz had what is now deemed as perhaps the best exhibit in the world on the topic. I also make it a point to talk to my students about these groups and others who were persecuted (Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses, Homosexuals etc.) but I know that may not always be the case. In the professional development work that I do I try to stress to teachers to do this as well. As far as the Turks, I am not sure I can think of exact cases during the Holocaust but there was a specific genocide during WWI directed at the Armenian Turks.
Thanks to all of you for the comments so far. My laptop is fixed and I should be able to get pics up later today.
Day 10 (7/15)
Hello!
Another long day but another set of wonderful learning experiences. We set off this morning to Yad VaShem once again. Our first block of time was dedicated to touring the Art Museum which has a collection of art created during and after the Holocaust, primarily by Holocaust survivors or people who were victims during the Holocaust. It was a wide variety of art from uplifting to memorializing to horrific. Much of the work appeared to be from the Terezin/Theriesenstadt Ghetto and Gurs (a transit/concentration camp in France). Apparently Yad VaShem (www.yadvashem.org) has much of the collection online but at this point I don't know the exact web address.
Following the Art Museum we met with the most well-known Holocaust scholar in the world, Yehuda Bauer. Bauer is said to be one of the father's of Holocaust Studies. He lectured on the unprecedentedness of the Holocaust. It was an incredibly interesting and informative lecture. I was enthralled the entire time. We then took a break for lunch and a stroll around the vast campus.
After lunch, we were treated to another lecture by David Bankier, who is now the director of the International Research Center at Yad VaShem. Bankier lectured on Nazi Racial Ideology, primarily the beliefs espoused by Hitler, as the topic is so incredibly vast. This was also a very informative session. The quality of scholarship that exists here probably tops any single institution in the world.
We then set off for the Old City. The Old City is considered to be the part of Jerusalem that existed at the time of Christ and into the period of the Romans and Crusaders. There are many excavated sites and we had the opportunity to see some neat architecture. We went through the Jewish and Muslim markets for a brief shopping tour during which myself and a few others just continued to look at architecture. After this we went to the Church of the Holy Sepluchre which is said to house the Tomb of Christ. The Church proper is divided into 6 different denominations as was ruled by the Treaty of the Crimean War. The Roman Catholics maintain the section where the Rock of Golgatha is housed. This is potentially the site where the crucifixion was held. We also saw the stone that Jesus may have been washed upon before he was placed in the tomb. We then had the opportunity to enter (in small groups after a small wait) the Tomb of Christ. It was a very neat and interesting little room. It was quite a feeling to be standing in it but I wish it was more well documented. I viewed that mainly from a historical perspective.
After the Church we briefly viewed some of the Stations of the Cross before going to the Western Wall. The Western Wall is the westernmost wall of the retaining wall from the Old Temple. People go here to pray (seperated by sexes) and place written prayers into the cracks of the wall. It truly was an interesting religious experience and very intense. Various religions all pray here together along this wall.
Dinner was in an Arab village and was pretty good. I definitely miss American food and was happy to see French Fries though! :-)
Day 11 (7/16)
Good Afternoon,
Today was, overall, a wonderful day. We set off first thing this morning for Yad VaShem to explore the "Learning Center." It has been called the "Reflection Center," in the past. This center has a mass viewing "circle" as well as several individual computers with headsets where you can listen to historians, scholars, religious figures, politicians and survivors respond to 17 questions posed by the Holocaust. The questions were things such as, "Where was God during the Holocaust?"; "Could the Holocaust have happened without Hitler?" "What is the role of various country's in Holocaust Remembrance?" I think these posed some great questions and responses for use in the classroom. Unfortunately, right now it is not available online so I had to take a ton of notes but they are hoping to get it accessible in the near future.
Following our time in the Learning Center, we were treated to a lecture on the educational philosophy of Yad VaShem by educator Shulamit Imber. I had the pleasure of making Shulamit's aquaintance at a conference a few years ago and it was an absolute treat to hear her once again. It was an amazing session and I was able to record several suggestions for classroom education as well as to assist me with leading professional development.
During lunch a few of us had the opportunity to walk down to the Memorial for the Deported. This is a boxcar on tracks going off the side of a cliff. It was an interesting memorial that has actually provoked lawsuits by local survivors who said they do not want to look out their windows in Jerusalem and see this boxcar. I plan on doing some more reading up on this issue when I return but the boxcar is still there so the assumption is that Yad VaShem won the lawsuit. Down the hill from this memorial is a huge monument/memorial called the Valley of the Lost Communities. It is a big stone labyrinth about 50 feet tall that lists all of the Jewish communities affected during the Holocaust. You need a map to navigate around this memorial, it is that large.
After lunch we had two sessions. The first was a history of Holocaust Art. Most of the art we viewed was available on Yad VaShem's site (which btw is actually www1.yadvashem.org).and I think there is a lot of classroom application for it. The second session was actually a testimony by a survivor from Salonika, Greece. He gave a backgound on Salonika and talked about the life of himself and his family before the war. He then went into his Holocaust experience which included ghettoization, deportation to Auschwitz, a death march and transport to "Dora" (where the rockets were manufactured underground by the Nazis), and then transport to Bergen Belsen where he was liberated. His story was interesting and it was a shame we had some time constraints because I would have liked to have heard more. He did have a book so I am looking forward to reading more in depth about his experience.
We managed to get in two hours of "free" time which I used to catch up on laundry and do some reading. After dinner we had a meeting and discussion about some of the topics that we have been learning about the past few days. It is interesting to see the various backgrounds that the different members of our group bring to the table. I think we could have stayed there all night discussing but such was not the case.
Tomorrow we are back to Yad VaShem for a session with Irena Steinfeldt, who is in charge of the Righteous Among the Nations program. We then have some free time to explore and then a ceremony honoring those who survived and memorializing those who perished. Then we have a largely free afternoon and evening.
It is hard to believe that I will be home in less than a week. I am still very excited to be here and be learning but I am definitely looking forward to getting home to celebrate our fifth anniversary (belated) since it is actually tomorrow!
These are some of the only remaining buildings of the Warsaw Ghetto. As I mentioned, the ghetto was largely destroyed by the Nazis after the April 1943 ghetto uprising that lasted about six weeks.
The Nozyk Synagogue also remained. It was refurbished in recent years and is the only remaining synagogue in Warsaw, even though there had originally been 4 synagogues that housed the nearly 250,000 Jews that worshipped in Warsaw.
Only a few sections of the Ghetto Wall remain. 3 of them are in and around the same apartment building and the other section is elsewhere in the city and difficult to reach. This is one of the sections with our tour guide, Waclaw.
Another piece of the wall. The Jews were forced to build it themselves. Its' height was varied but this was the typical size in most places.
Entering the cemetery, there is a retaining wall inside. The wall was built out of tombstones that the Nazis had ripped from the ground or that had fallen down and been moved out of disrepair. The black stones signify people and families who did not have a true grave.
After the war, Warsaw's Jewish community was reduced to less than 5,00 Jews. Today, there are around 10,000. Hardly anyone was able to maintain the cemetery in the immediate post-War years and the picture below shows the condition of a "better" section of the cemetery. There are some areas that are looking good but the bulk of it is completely overgrown. Much aid from foreign Jewish organizations and donors has come in during the past decade to help revitilize the cemetery and their efforts are evident.
Any picture size advice would be good before I go resizing more...until then...I'll continue the update!
Day 12 (7/17)
Well today marks the last official day we are in Jerusalem. We spent the morning and early afternoon at Yad Vashem and then had some free time for the remainder of the day. Tomorrow we head up north to the resort town of Nahariya and home of the Ghetto Fighter's Museum and Kibbutz. En route, we will be stopping at the Garden of Gethesame, the Church of All Nations, Tiberius and the Sea of Gaillalee (sp?).
Today was a relatively easy day. We had one session at Yad VaShem with Irena Steinfeldt, who is the person in charge of the Righteous Among the Nations. She gave us some background on the program, originally called Righteous Gentiles, and told some stories about people who have been identified as Righteous over the years. Honoring Christians who saved Jews at the risk of their own lives is a major task of Yad VaShem. The people honored range from the well known (Oskar Schindler) to those who perished (Raoul Wallenberg) and everyday people (Joseph Mitgeng). (Google the names for more info :-) ). This session was definitely a point of interest to me as some of the survivors I know and have interviewed for my MA were saved by people who should be honored as Righteous, if they are not already.
Following the session with Irena, we had some free time to explore Yad VaShem. We walked around and looked at a couple of memorials, including the very powerful Children's Memorial. The Children's Memorial is a building that is built in a labyrinth style with mirrors that reflect mutliple angles of a single candle flame while a voice read the names of children who had perished during the Holocaust. We then had a ceremony in the Hall of Rememberance before leaving the campus.
Our afternoon and evening was free which was a nice change. It is very interesting at the hotel because in Israel very orthodox check into hotels from Friday into Saturday so they don't have to perform work on the Sabbath. The elevators also stop on every floor so people don't have to press buttons because that is considered work. After dinner, I was able to see my friends from the Pittsburgh area for awhile so that was a nice slice of home!
Day 13 (7/18)
Whew. What a day. We were up and rolling by 8:30 this morning with our final destination being the northern city of Nahariya. After leaving the hotel, our first stop was the Garden of Gesthamane and the Church of All Nations. The Garden is at the base of the Mount of Olives, where Jesus is said to have delivered many of his sermons, and this is the location where Jesus is said to have cried tears of blood upon realizing the futility of the situation. The adjoining church contains the Rock of Agony where Jesus was said to be arrested when Judas revealed his location. After some time at this site, we ascended the Mount of Olives and spent some time overlooking the Temple Mount and taking some beautiful pictures.
From the Mount of Olives, we went northwest, to the West Bank and out to the Dead Sea. Unfortunately, the location where we stopped was charged a bit of money to put your feet in so I passed on that but it was still neat to see this epic location. After leaving the Dead Sea we traveled to the Sea of Gaillee. The bummer about this was that the medicine I am taking for motion sickness made me incredibly sleepy. That combined with the heat made me pretty lethargic for a few of our stops so I didn't take many pictures, nor did I really intake much of the information. The first stop after the Dead Sea was the village of Capernica where Jesus is said to have done a lot of preaching. Only old ruins are left at the site but it was still neat to see. We also went to the nearby Menza Christie Monastary where Jesus is said to have fed people with the fishes and loaves. Finally, we went to the top of the Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. All were beautiful sites. They also provided a great view of the Golan Heights which provided me with further understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
After leaving the Mount of the Beatitudes, we went to a nearby kibbutz to relax a little before having dinner at a restaurant outside of the kibbutz. We then drove an hour northeast to Nahariya. Our hotel is pretty nice but things seem a bit disorganized. A group of us walked down to the beach and took a brief wade into the Mediterranean. It is about a ten minute walk from the hotel.
During the period of the Warsaw Ghetto, regular burials were not permitted in the cemetery; however, the dead were allowed to be placed in a mass grave. This photo, with the surrounding stone markers, shows the location of one of three mass graves in the cemetery. Family members were not present at burial. The body was just dumped into a pit that was about 10-12 feet deep and probably with a radius of about 50-60 feet. Once that grave filled up, another one was dug.
Like many ghettos, many children were deported from Warsaw to the death camps. This memorial to the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust was located near the front of the cemetery.
I think this poem really summed it up well.
In my daily updates above, I mentioned a man by the name of Janusz Korzcak. He was a Polish-Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in pre-war times and during the ghetto years. In the summer of 1942, he was given the option of remaining behind to work while his charges were shipped to a certain death at Treblinka. He and his eight staff members declined the opportunity to further their life span, instead choosing to remain with the children until the end.
This monument marked the location of Mila 18, the bunker where much of the leadership of the Ghetto Uprising perished at the end of the six week uprising. They committed suicide before the Nazis closed in on them, thus having the final say in their own fates.
The memorial created at the Umschlagplatz by Ben & Vladka Meed, the survivors who originally created this experience for teachers. The story of the memorial is mentioned in my Warsaw update above.
Just curious, how was this trip financed? Sounds (reads) like a great trip. I might want to get into teaching.
Ron
That is a good question :-) And I do highly recommend teaching if you like a challenging job and can connect with teenagers.
Most of the trip was funded by the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors. The trip was initiated by a survivor couple, the Meeds, who both survived the Warsaw Ghetto and worked in the underground. They felt that it was important for those teaching about the Holocaust to see the sights and interact with people who live with the history everyday. There are also other private donors who were involved in the funding, many of whom were survivors or children of survivors.
Our cost to go was $2500. I was fortunate to get local funding through several outlets. A large department store chain owner was interested in my trip, as well as the owner of a local gourmet deserts company (Sweet Streets), and the retired owner of a large pest control company (his late brother-in-law was a survivor). I also received donations from the local Jewish Federation, a community group in Fleetwood (where I teach), a local Community Foundation for the city of Reading and the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council.
The cost included breakfast, dinner, hotels and associated costs. We had to pay for lunch everyday and any educational materials we wished to purchase.
That is just staggering. How this could be done for any reason blows my mind, 1.5 million children.
Yes, quite sad and overwhelming.
When we were at Yad Vashem they talked about one young boy who managed to survive despite repeated attempts on his life. He went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry...imagine how many shining lights were put out too early by this tragedy...and others that occur in our world.
View of the monument erected by the Soviets near the camp entrance to commemorate the Communist defeat of Fascism. Many of the camps throughout the old Soviet area contain similiar (ugly IMHO) monuments.
Watchtowers like this surrounded the camp perimeter.
There were two buildings with attached gas chambers. This was one of the gas chamber sections. Unlike Auschwitz, which many people are familiar with, these gas chambers did not have attached crematoria. The crematorium was located in the rear of the camp. These buildings were closer to the front.
This was the front of the same building. The chimney you see was for heating purposes.
These were actual showers. Victims were first brought into a changing room where they were undressed and told to remember what hook their clothes were on etc. to facilitate the process. They were then lead into this shower room. After the shower, their fate was determined by which door they exited from. There were two doors - one led to the gas chambers and the other to a life in the camp. Typically all of those who were to die were brought into the showers in one batch and all of those who were to live were brought in another batch.
This particular buildling had two chambers. One was death by carbon monoxide and the other was from Zyklon B, the pesticide/poison that was also used at Auschwitz. This was the carbon monoxide chamber.
[This message has been edited by Fierochic88 (edited 08-07-2009).]
This really freaked me out. In the carbon monoxide chamber, an operator stood in this room and regulated the amount of the gas that was being pumped in from the idling truck outside. Essentially, if people weren't dying fast enough this person turned up the gas flow. This bothered me far more than the concept of people dropping in Zyklon B from a rooftop or adjoining room and walking away. How anyone could do this job I do not know.
[This message has been edited by Fierochic88 (edited 08-07-2009).]
This really freaked me out. In the CO2 chamber, an operator stood in this room and regulated the amount of CO2 that was being pumped in from the idling truck outside. Essentially, if people weren't dying fast enough this person turned up the gas flow. This bothered me far more than the concept of people dropping in Zyklon B from a rooftop or adjoining room and walking away. How anyone could do this job I do not know.
Not to take anything away from your post, but just a fine point of science if I may... "CO2" is actually carbon dioxide. The exhaust from a motor vehicle used in the gas chambers was carbon Monoxide, (CO) In actuality, any gas that displaced enough oxygen would have worked to suffocate the victims but vehicle exhaust rich with carbon monoxide was initially used. It was slow and (excuse my use of the term), "inefficient". Zyklon B, (hydrogen cyanide) was originally a pesticide and was found to be quicker acting in the gas chambers. "Zyklon B was used in the concentration camps initially for delousing to control typhus. The chemical used in the gas chambers was deliberately made without the warning odorant" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B
I've always found the use of a "pesticide", (Zyklon B) to have been a cruel "joke" for the Nazis using it for "extermination". Then again considering the dehumanizing of their victims, perhaps the use of a pesticide was somehow "appropriate" to the Nazi view. I haven't read anything comprehensive regarding it's choice, other than it seemed to be cheap, and readily available.
"Zyklon B is still in production in the Czech Republic in the factory Draslovka KolÃn a.s. in the city KolÃn under the tradename Uragan D2, sold for eradicating insects and small animals."
Carbon Dioxide CO2 is naturally occuring in the environment, whereas carbon monoxide is a resultant gas byproduct of combustion. I make this point partly because the "green" movement has seen fit to villify carbon dioxide as a dangerous gas pollutant, and as a teacher I'm sure you would not want to perpetuate an error that carbon dioxide was used in nazi gas chambers...to my knowledge and according to all the research I've done over the years, I've never seen carbon dioxide ever mentioned being used in the gas chambers.
I do have a question for you. Have you done any study on the history of the "Einsatzgruppen" atrocities throughout Eastern Europe and the Ukraine?
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 08-06-2009).]
Thanks randye. My chemistry grades weren't the best :-). I fixed the above posts to reflect the proper term.
CO was easy to find and easy for them to use. Prior to the development of the other 5 death camps (Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka), gassings occurred in mobile gas vans at Chelmno (also in Poland). They would load the victims into what the victims believed were Red Cross Vans and they would then drive them to a remote area of the camp where they would take a hose from the van's exhaust and feed it into the sealed rear compartment. This method was deemed to be space prohibitive (the vans didn't hold as much as the chambers) and also more clean-up.
Zyklon B was indeed used initially as a control on typhus. A picture I did not post but can put up in my next round was of the room that the victims walked through between the shower room and the gas chamber section. This room had the tell-tale blue stains on the ceiling and some of the walls from the presence of Zyklon B. The room was used to disinfect the prisoner's clothing with the pesticide, in an attempt to prevent typhus.
And I do agree...pesticide + extermination is a cruel play on words.
Thanks for adding in the info :-) If I make any other chemical errors, please let me know! ;-)
I do have a question for you. Have you done any study on the history of the "Einsatzgruppen" atrocities throughout Eastern Europe and the Ukraine?
As I was getting ready to post more pics I realized I failed to answer this question.
Yes, I have personally as part of my Master's Program (in Holocaust & Genocide Studies) and as an undergraduate I read Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men. While on the trip we also discussed this several times and even went through some of the areas where the Einsatzgruppen where active.
More pictures - sorry for the delay. Weekends are tough.
This gas chamber was the chamber where the Zyklon B was used. You can see this evidenced by the blue stains on the walls. This is from the contact between the chemical and the cement. Prior to walking into the chamber area, there was another room with similiar stains where clothing was disinfected. This photo is taken from the door through which victims were led while they were still alive. The opposite door is where the Sonderkommando (prisoners who were forced to handle and burn the dead) removed the bodies and loaded them onto a wagon to take them to a crematorium in the rear of the camp.
Majdanek was a central warehousing camp for the three Operation Reinhard camps (to be explained later). Items taken from victims in those three camps where brought to Majdanek where they were sorted and warehoused until the items could be distributed to troops or displaced German families. These items included clothing, shoes, housewares, hairbrushes, toys etc.
This picture is pretty self explanatory.
This warehouse contained over a million pairs of shoes. Adult shoes, child shoes and baby shoes....
The camp was divided into 5 permanent "Fields." Each field had a specific purpose - for example, Field III was the field for Polish prisoners. There was another field or two (depending on the timing) for Jewish prisoners. There was a field for Russian POW's. There was also a non-permanent area, called Field VI, that was set up on an as-needed basis. Prisoners sometimes intermingled for work purposes but were housed seperately throughout the camp. After the war, various buildlings remained up in various fields, while others had been torn down or became dilapidated. When they opened Majdanek as a Museum, they moved many of the remaining buildlings to Field III so visitors could see what a complete field looked like.
This was the blockhouse at the entrance to the Field where the guards were stationed.
Looking out into Field III. The sky was very eerie and it ended up torrentially downpouring while we toured Field III.
sorry had to do it! Very cool though.
