We arrived in Warsaw, tired and hungry, but eager to begin our journey. The educators and students went to their separate buses and headed to the Jewish cemetery and then to the oldest remaining pre-war synagogue in Warsaw. I knew the experience would educational, but I truly had no idea how much we would learn.
Avi is an amazing font of knowledge. He has the ability to make history come alive, even for those of us who have spent much of our teaching careers educating students about the Holocaust.
It became apparent very quickly that the visit to the cemetery would not just be a quick look at the old tombstones when he told us the reason that the cemetery was on a hill was that the new graves were put on top of the old ones. He took us to the site of a known mass grave, marked only by standing stones with one black stripe painted on them. He then pointed out that the headstones had different images on them and sent us off to find different images and offer our explanation of what they meant.
The lesson drove home several points, but the one that stuck with me was the idea the a Jew in Poland was not considered Polish. He or she was Jewish, not even hyphenated as we are in the States. I don’t know if I will be able to wrap my head around that.
At the synagogue, we learned a bit about Judaism, and heard about the history of the family built house of worship. I have to admit, it pleased me a bit to know that even though the Nazis probably thought they were defiling the synagogue by putting horses in it, that very act is what allowed it to be preserved so that it would get restored and help revive the Jewish community in Poland.