By: Janet Eppoliti
Today we toured the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. It was beautiful. Most cemeteries are on vast, manicured lawns, peppered with headstones, flowers, and wreaths. But the Cemetery here in Warsaw was in a wooded area. Trees seemed to compete with tombstones for space, and as I looked into the forest, the grave markers almost grew organically alongside the brush.
I had never spent much time in a Jewish Cemetery before, so many of the symbols and traditions were unfamiliar. Unsurprisingly, many symbols are derived from the Old Testament and the ancient world. However, I found one symbol that seemed very modern and actually kind of surprising. Spock’s “live long and prosper” hand symbol from Star Trek. What were these hand symbols doing in gravestones?
It turns out this is a priestly symbol that means to live a long, successful life. Leonard Nimoy was Jewish and used the hand gesture as part of his character!
After a quick lunch across the street, we headed to one of the few remaining portions of the wall that once surrounded the Warsaw ghetto. What is unusual about this monument is that it is literally in the courtyard of a condominium complex. It is surrounded by a rare sight – a building that wasn’t leveled in the war. I can’t imagine living in a place with 1. Such important history and 2. people roaming through my courtyard day after day.
The wall itself was such a physical embodiment of the segregation and hatred that Nazis felt for the Jewish people. I could almost feel the bad feelings coming out of every piece of brick and mortar as I stood there. In a rare moment of levity, then a bird pooped on my shoulder! Is that a sign of good luck in Poland? I sure hope so!
After our trip to the wall, we went to the home of Adam Czerniakow, the leader of the Warsaw Judenrat during the Nazi occupation. The Judenrat was a coalition of Jewish leaders set up in each ghetto by the Nazis to facilitate the new rules and laws. It was a horrible position to be in. Czerniakow wanted to help his fellow Jews as much as possible, but the Nazis put constant pressure on him to do their bidding. When it came time for the ghetto to be liquidated, he chose suicide over collusion with mass murder.
While at the home of Czerniakow, we participated in an exercise in which we had to try and replicate this process of choosing who should be sent to the concentration camps and who should be saved. In just a short 15 minutes, it was eye opening to understand how excruciating this task was. And the Judenrat and police were forced to come up with 6,000 names to be transported (or resettled) each DAY. Over 300,000 Jews in all were sent to camps from the Warsaw ghetto.
It just seems like the cruelty and inhumanity of the Nazis knew no bounds. It turned everyday people into masters of life and death. Mothers in the ghetto had to send their children in and out of the ghetto to smuggle food back for the family, despite tremendous danger. Mothers are supposed to care for their children, not the other way around. And they had to determine how to distribute food and resources. Should they feed all their children equally? Or should they feed the child who can smuggle the most? It’s inconceivable.
Throughout this experience, I keep trying to put myself in these situations and predicting what I might do. But it’s just impossible. I truly have no frame of reference. My trials and problems until now have been trivial in comparison.
Regardless, I have a choice of what I can do with my experience and the information that I learn. It’s my intention to share this as much as possible and ensure that this dark period of history is never forgotten.