Hartford Federation leaders go on March of the Living Mission to Poland and Israel

Harriet J. Dobin
Jewish Ledger

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DAY ONE: Mincha at Auschwitz

Twenty-nine men and women from Hartford got on a tour bus at Krakow Airport this morning, bound for a death camp in southern Poland. If it had been 60 years ago, perhaps only three of us would have made it out of that camp alive. Today, we smelled the air of Auschwitz, walked its muddy tracks and remembered the 1.1 million slaughtered Jews who never made it out of the Auschwitz gates of hell.

Day One of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford's Poland-Israel Yom Ha'atzmaut Mission began with a bumpy landing in the rain at the small airport of Krakow, population 800,000. Jet-lagged, and apprehensive, the group ranged from twin 28 year old granddaughters of Holocaust survivors to 81 year old returning survivor Emil Ellenberg, of West Hartford.

Today was a painful day of remembering, witnessing and viewing the remnants of Polish Jewish history. We walked, wept and wondered how the world had let this happen, and vowed to never let it happen again. The last stop on our Auschwitz visit was also the last stop for millions of Jews 60 years ago. . .the basement crematorium, a 1000 square foot underground slaughterhouse of cracked concrete floors, scraped walls, body-sized ovens, and an odor that clung to every pore and hair. This day, this space was a holy place for prayer, spirit, and community, as 125 members of the United Jewish Communities (UJC) Yom Haatzmaut Mission sang, lit a giant Magen David in candles on the bare floor and recited the Kaddish together.

"A lot of us have anger, it will take a long time to process what we've seen today, just like it's taken the Jewish people 60 years to get to this moment," said Rabbi Ben Scolnic, of Temple Beth Sholom in Hamden, a member of the New Haven Jewish Federation delegation. "Their spirit has to flow through our veins, let us remember them, let us perpetuate morality for them, in their names."

DAY TWO: March of the Living

There were Israeli flags everywhere.... stuck in muddy fields, protruding from backpacks, wrapped around teenagers, hanging off barbed wire and poking up from the obscene red bricks of Auschwitz today, at the 2005 March of the Living. More than 20,000 men, women and children remembered Sarah from the Soviet Union, Abraham from Poland, Hayim from Hungary and millions of other Jewish souls who, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the crowd, "wrote the history of our people in blood."

Wearing blue March of the Living parkas against the wind and rain, Hartford's marchers carried the flags of Israel and America two miles from Birkenau to Auschwitz. Their bright yellow and blue signs proclaiming 'Hartford Remembers' and "Hartford Lives Generously," were visible high above the crowds. Many scrawled the names of loved ones and friends on small wooden plaques with stakes which were placed in the holy ground on arrival. Auschwitz was covered with miniature hand-made tombstones for those who never had one.

Jean Federman, accompanied by her husband David and nieces Kimberly and Mindy Shuch, lost many family members at Auschwitz. Today's rain on the March of the Living was "the heavens crying," she noted.

The sun was shining through ominous Auschwitz clouds by the time Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flew over the death fields in an Israeli Air Force helicopter. He addressed the March in Hebrew. Accompanying him were survivors and their grandchildren - "the reborn and the free" who are serving in Israel's armed forces.

Though his words were directed at the young Israeli soldiers in the crowd, they had meaning to us all: "Don't stop your tears, let them run down your face. Remember the pain, take the pain to your homes, to your neighbors and friends. It will be up to you to tell the story. . . remember the sacrifice of how millions of Jews died and the world was silent."

DAY THREE: Warsaw welcomes Sabbath peace

The Sabbath Queen arrived to a standing-room-only audience at the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw, Poland tonight, the day after 20,000 March of the Living participants heard Elie Weisel declare "Jewish history did not end here, it was wounded. But it has remained alive!"

Nowhere were his prophetic words more in evidence this Sabbath night of Day Three than in the crowded staircases and wooden pews of Warsaw's only remaining pre-war synagogue. There haven't been this many Jews in Warsaw for more than 60y years, according to Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich

There were so many worshippers, that two services were held as visitors lined up to get into the heavily guarded doorway. It was a tower of Babel in French, English, Spanish, Polish, and Russian until Hebrew became the only language anyone needed. Hundreds of Israeli teens poured into the synagogue carrying special prayer books, dressed in crisp "Yisrael" March of the Living delegation jackets worn proudly at Auschwitz just yesterday.

From a diverse, unified, flourishing Jewish community of 300,000 Jews in Warsaw, only 3,000 survived the Holocaust. But so did the immense Gesia Street Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, where our study guide Shalmi Balmor wove a fascinating story for every grave. The descendants of Polish Jewish writers, poets, rabbis, historians, doctors, mothers and fathers will not pass on legacies. That job now belongs to us and to tour leaders, history books, and moss-covered Hebrew, Yiddish and Polish tombstones miraculously still standing in a Warsaw cemetery.

Sabbath candle-lighting, fresh flowers, Kiddush with Israeli wine, and a festive Shabbat meal with Israeli Ambassador to Poland David Peleg capped a momentous week. The spiritual peace of Shabbat renewed Warsaw and all her Jewish visitors tonight. It was "the most powerful moment I ever had in a synagogue" said Mission co-chair David Federman. "We were all crowded together in one spot, singing exactly the same song, in the same melody, on the same page."

DAY FOUR: L'chayim from Lodz

Jewish voices sang from the graveyards of Poland today on Mission Day Four at a Shabbat concert by the new Tzlil Jewish Choir of Lodz.

The choir was created two years ago, but their Jewish repertoire was born 60 years ago in the ashes of the Holocaust. The Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford mission members were part of the rapt audience listening to the haunting lyrics of "Ani Maamin" Yiddish and Israeli favorites and "Hatikvah."

For this audience at Nozyk Synagogue, Tzlil's flawless performance drowned out fears that Jewish culture in Poland died forever with the musicians, poets, writers and artists murdered in the streets, ghettos and camps nearby.

The surprise concert was "a defining moment" for Dane Kostin of West Hartford and capped a day of irony and paradox.

Neither rain, wind, hail nor Warsaw's Saturday morning traffic jams deterred us from tracing the route of the notorious transports to Treblinka from the Warsaw Ghetto's Umschlagplatz (collection point).

Ten years ago the Polish government dedicated the Gateway Monument at the site of the Unschlagplatz in preparation for President Bill Clinton's visit. Here, 6000 Jews per day were ordered to report for transfer to "the "East" bringing only 15 kilos of worldly belongings, a loaf of bread and jam for the journey to hell. Before the grey and white granite monument's 1995 dedication, the site was a Polish gas station.

Warsaw's streets, plazas, restaurants and shops swarmed today with Star of David flag-carrying students, survivors, families and delegations wearing their special parkas. One Israeli high school student group traveled with 75-year-old Peri Simcha of Rishon Lezion, Israel, originally from

Hungary. The Birkenau survivor with three children and ten grandchildren was making his fourth pilgrimage back to Auschwitz since his 1945 liberation. This time he was surrounded by the sabra teens he loves.

"The kids want to know my past and what happened to me. I am here to tell them never again, never again on our backs."

Buses carrying groups from France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Israel, the U.S. and dozens of Jewish organizations and universities created traffic jams surrounding the former Ghetto borders. At the Mila 18 bunker memorializing Mordechai Anilewicz, commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, visitors waited patiently for their turn to light memorial candles, deposit flowers, take photographs and bear witness.

DAY FIVE: Mother's Day at Majdanek

A few miles down a Polish country road from the monuments and monsters of Majdanek, anti-Semitic toy Jew dolls and swastika-framed Hitler photos are for sale today in the souvenir shops of this quaint artist colony.

Once upon a time, Kasimerz was a nostalgic Polish shtetl, with 2,000 Jews. They didn't return to this little town after the Holocaust. The one room shteibel (synagogue) is now a cinema showing the latest action thrillers. A small plaque behind the building reminds visitors of its holy origins.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford's March of the Living Poland/Israel mission spent Day Five in Poland on Mothers Day. We were bombarded by images and reminders of hate, sacrifice and personal courage from an abandoned hillside Chassidic cemetery, to the once glorious Lublin Yeshiva, now a sad, empty, decaying shell. The gray rainy day culminated at the Majdanek death camp, where it is always cold. It is the lowest level to which human beings can sink. A constant stream of March of the Living delegation buses clogged the highways getting in and out of Majdanek, where 300,000 Jews came in and 235,000 died.

Federation president Richard Rubenstein was "shocked and disgusted" upon discovering the toy plastic rabbi doll, with side-curls, bizarre hook nose and yarmulke, clutching a gold coin in his fist.

"As Americans, we are not accustomed to seeing such blatant anti-Jewish displays. The entire country is a mass Jewish graveyard, and it seems that anti-Semitism is still alive and well in Poland. The tragedy of the Holocaust and the waste of humanity motivates us to continue our mission of helping Jewish people all over the world."

The survivors visiting with delegations added a personal poignancy. We met spry 81 year old Majdanek survivor Adam Frydman of Melbourne, Australia in one of the brown wood barracks. He was on the March of the Living and returned to the place he endured in the summer of 1943 accompanied by a granddaughter and niece.

He was liberated January 16, 1945. His father, mother and brother were shot and burned. He moved to Australia "to get as far away from Poland as I could." Judy Zagoren Shlossberg "cried all day" and couldn't shake the memory of the single little red high heel pump in a cage of black and brown leather shoes taken from Jews en route to death. "Who was this woman? What was it like to be a Jew then and walk in her shoes?"

It was Mark Rosen's second visit to Poland, where he lost many extended Ruzinsky family members.

"I feel like I was born here, even though my birth certificate doesn't say so. So many of my aunts' and uncles' names end in an asterisk on a death camp list."

Cathrine Fischer Schwartz, Federation executive director, said, "Franz Kafka, whose own family was wiped out in the gas chambers, could not have imagined anything as surreal as this. If there is any good out of this, it is that we have Israel and I can't wait to get there."

She was not alone.

We recited Kaddish, and Israel's national anthem, on the Majdanek memorial steps. Our bus drove quietly and quickly to Warsaw Airport for the midnight El Al charter flight waiting to take us home to Israel.

Harriet Dobin filed daily reports from Poland and Israel as part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford's Poland/Israel mission, May 4-13. Visit www.jewishhartford.org to read an unedited version of the trip and to view more photos.