Today was challenging! There was a complete disconnect for me-
As you roll into Treblinka, there is a beautiful forest and the area seems peaceful. Yet, if you know anything about the past, it is a place of ugly, hateful destruction of men, women, and children. You realize they were placed after the evidence of what happened here was destroyed. The Nazis didn’t want to leave evidence.
Knowing numbers is one thing, seeing the massive amounts of stones representing the communities whose Jewish population was destroyed was overwhelming. To know that the entire Jewish communities across Europe were lost is heartbreaking.
Treblinka : Poetry-Here I Am
Here I Am
But should I be here
As I travel the path
I’m surrounded by a beautiful forest
Yet, the sense around me is that
there’s something not quite right
The forest-it’s too young, too new
It doesn’t truly know the horror it covers
As I travel the path,
The path so many were forced to run
Under threat of violence
Violence often received
The bugs attacked over and over
Was it to warn us away from this place of death?
Was it to protect the remains of those who had fallen?
As I travel the path,
I see large stones representing the countries across Europe whose Jewish population was decimated
But
As I travel the path further,
There are more stones, smaller stones,
So, so many stones
As far as the eye can see
More stones and
More stones and
More stones
Each representing communities in which the Jewish population was annihilated
As I travel this path at Treblinka,
I question-
Should I be here?
Do the spirits that surround this place want us here?
I ponder and
I ponder and
I ponder
And I pray they understand it is with reverence and respect that I travel this path
I knew the facts in my head,
But now I have seen the truth with my eyes
And while my heart is now broken for the hundreds of thousands who were murdered here
My mouth must go and share this truth
To teach my students
To inform my community members
And I pray the lessons and experiences I share help those who hear to take on the responsibility
To know
To remember
To ensure it never again becomes a reality
Here I Am