There is a very specific–almost forgotten–piece of the Warsaw Ghetto wall that stands in a miniature park in Warsaw that the Soviets plastered over. Now, however, that plate has begun to peel, and underneath there is exposed some of the original bricks from the Nazi occupation, many of which crumble and fall in pieces to the ground below. As we stood there, I picked up a piece of the rubble and slipped into my pocket and now carry with me a link to the past in this city.
While my small souvenir is an especially concrete example of such a link, it is hardly the only one. Today as we wandered in the city, we encountered two women who had been young adults during the second world war in this country, and through each of their stories we acquired a link to the era.
The first was not from Warsaw, but instead a small town (whose name, unfortunately, is currently escaping me) which, like many Polish towns, also had a Jewish ghetto within its walls. She recalled–quite emotionally–her witnessing a young Jewish woman, disguised as a non-Jew, out in the city carrying bread with the intent to smuggle it back into the ghetto. With Howard as our translator, the woman recalled and related to us in Polish how a German on a bicycle recognized the Jewish woman, and, just seemingly for the fun of it, shot her. The woman tearfully painted the image of the bread falling to the ground and as the woman fell next to it, and staying there for days, long after the remains of the body were gone.
The second woman was a non-Jewish Pole from Warsaw during the War, and recalls the Nazi occupation as “a terrible terrible time, with terrible terrible things that happened.” She used to throw, she said, bread over the Ghetto wall in an attempt to help what she knew were starving people inside. One day, however, a German caught her and frightened her so badly that she stopped aiding the Ghetto. Somewhat gravely, she told us, “There are those that say the Germans are now friends of the Poles but the Germans will never be friends of the Poles. Never.” This, of coarse, begs the question: is it fair to blame the sins of three generations ago on today? Personally, I don’t think it is, but, admittedly, I am not a Pole who lived through the War, nor am I a Jew who did so. If I were my perspective might be–would most likely be–very different.
And if the memories are indeed so bad, why would the Poles themselves want to remember the War, the Nazis? During the heat of the day, we stopped for a coffee break at a Starbucks in the heart of the city…and it is only later that I realized that this Starbucks was also in the heart of the former Ghetto. Will there come a time when the Ghetto Wall will just be an odd brick wall sitting in the middle of Warsaw?
We–I–must remember. But, as Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, told us a few days ago, remembrance is hardly enough. We must take it and do something with it–for the rest of humanity, and also for ourselves.
The people in the Ghetto had the will to cling to life and culture–to theatre, opera and music–while they were essentially enslaved. Even though I will, God willing, never experience pain and hardship like these people, there will be pain and hardship in my life–I’m human. And if they can cling to life, so can I.