The Poland trip participants are back on Admat Kodesh! 

דברים פרק ד 
ט) רַק הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ וּשְׁמֹר נַפְשְׁךָ מְאֹד פֶּן תִּשְׁכַּח אֶת הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר רָאוּ עֵינֶיךָ וּפֶן יָסוּרוּ מִלְּבָבְךָ כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ וְהוֹדַעְתָּם לְבָנֶיךָ וְלִבְנֵי בָנֶיךָ

 

Monday 10 Elul 5772 - After davening Rav Bazak reminded us that on Sunday we had davened at the Remah shul, and spoke about the five hundred years of history in Poland. But here we have returned to our much deeper roots, as we were standing at the Kotel, in sight of Migdal David, both of which are thousands of years old.

 

 

 

Motzei Shabbat's Poland Update from Yechiel Schwab. 

Friday morning we davened Shacharit at a functioning shul in Ludz, from there we walked the streets of Ludz. We saw the house where Eitan Katlowitz’s grandmother grew up.

 

We visited the Poznanski House, the house of a famous, rich Jewish textile family. Then, we headed to the Ludz cemetery and discussed the life in pre-war Ludz, and the ghetto of Ludz. Ludz had a unique ghetto, headed by Chaim Lunoveatch, who in the hopes of saving the Jews in the ghetto, forced the ghetto to be as efficient as possible.

 

One time, when forced by the Nazis to send Jews to be deported, he famously asked the Jews of the town, to send the sick and elderly, so that the healthy could be saved. Although he had hoped that if the ghetto remained efficient they would be able to stay in Ludz, in 1944, the ghetto was liquidated.

 

We headed to a memorial in Ludz at the train station where Jews were sent to the ghetto of Ludz, and eventually sent from Ludz to death camps.

 

Here we were able to get on one of the trains, and heard Siggy Weiser describe his experiences in the cattle car, pointing out where he sat, and telling us stories of the train ride. It was a moving day, being able to see the vibrant life of the city before the war, and eventually how the Jewish life in the city ended.

 

We spent Shabbos, which had a more positive mood, in Krakow, arriving in the hotel with enough time to shower and get ready. We were all touched when Tuvia Miller our madrich, came into our rooms with the letters from our parents. We would like to thank the Yeshiva Office and our parents for sending us these letters, as it helped make our shabbos more meaningful.

 

Friday night we davened in the Kuppah shul with the Krakow community, and from there went back to the hotel for a very nice shabbos meal, and a lively Tisch, where we sang Krakow songs, and discussed religious implications of the Holocaust.

 

Shabbos morning we davened early at the Kuppah Shul, in order to give us time to go on an extended walking tour. After Kidush we visited the Iszak shul, and heard the famous legend of how it was built, and the Alter shul, a 15th century shul, which is now a museum about Judaism. We returned for lunch, before going on another walking tour, seeing Rav Dov Mazel’s house from the Ghetto, The Tempel, a non-orthodox shul, and the original Beis Yaakov building. We were able to appreciate the history contained in the city, while imagining what the city would have looked like had it been filled with Jews.

 

We proceeded to one of the first town squares in Europe, a palace, and the Krakow market. We all enjoyed a short shabbos rest, before Seudit Shelishit, highlighted by a Sicha from Eli Weber.

 

Motzei Shabbos we heard more of Siggy Weiser’s story, as he described what happened after he left Auschwitz and was taken to Buchenwald, and how he was liberated and eventually made his way to America and then Israel.

 

We look forward to hearing the rest of his story while in Auschwitz tomorrow. We would like to thank Siggy, and his daughter Barbara for accompanying us on this trip; they have made it much more meaningful, and even though we haven’t heard Siggy’s full story yet, having a survivor walk with us, has made the trip all the more special.

 

The trip has been extremely meaningful, and at this time we would also like to thank Tuvy Miller, our madrich who was very helpful in technical coordination, making sure we always went where we were supposed to go, and amongst countless other jobs, giving us noodle soup.

 

We would also like to thank the Yeshiva Office, for all the work they put into organizing and helping with details of our trip.

 

We would like to thank Rav Itiel Oron, Rav Eli Weber and Rav Amnon Bazak for accompanying us on our trip, always sharing meaningful Divrei Torah, and always being available for question and chats.

 

We would like to thank Rav Shalom Berger, for leading us on this trip, as we were truly able to appreciate the rich Jewish history in Poland, while also seeing its destruction.

 

It has been a very meaningful trip, and most of all we would like to thank our parents for affording us with this amazing opportunity.

 

Friday's email is from Yosef Press.  

We davened at the community synagogue in Warsaw. After Shacharit, one of the current community Rabbis spoke about the Jewish community of Warsaw and of greater Poland. From there we made our way to Warsaw’s Jewish cemetery which is the resting place of many famous Rebbeim as well as the tragically murdered inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto.

Our visit reached its apex with our arrival at the graves of the Netziv zt”l and Rav Chaim Soloveitchik zt”l. Listening to excerpts of the teachings of these Torah giants and hearing about their lives instilled a deep feeling of connection within us and enhanced our understanding of their respective legacies.

 

We finished our tour of Warsaw by visiting Mila 18, the memorial to those who participated in the heroic Warsaw ghetto uprising, and the nearby train station from which many Jews were sent to Treblinka. We concluded our day with a visit to the beit midrash of the Imrei Emet zt”l, also known as the Gerer Rebbe, son of the S’fat Emet zt”l. There we conducted a lively Tisch with no lack of Torah, food, and dance.

 

Wednesday, March 28 - written by Eliav Grossman: 

The day began on a personal note for me. After shacharit, we drove to what once was the center of Jewish life in Bialystok: the spot of Bialystok’s central synagogue. On Friday June 27, 1941, the Nazis burned the shul to the ground with 1,000 of Bialystok’s Jews inside. Though my great-grandfather left Bialystok before the war, my great-great grandfather-- Rabbi Yisrael Gedalya Grossman-- was among those “fridayers.” All that remains of the shul is the iron skeleton of the shul’s dome, left on the ground as a memorial.

We then travelled to Tykocin, a town which had a Jewish shtetl with a population of about 2,500. There we visited a beautiful shul and walked around what used to be the shtetl’s environs, hearing stories of individuals and luminaries who hailed from Tykocin (among them the Maharsha, whose commentary on halakhic and aggadic portions of the Gemara is printed in the back of the Vilna Shas). As is the case with almost all European shtetlach, Tykocin’s end came in the Shoah. We visited the mass graves of the Lopuchowa forest, just outside Tykocin, in which Tykocin’s Jewish population was slaughtered in 1941.

We then visited Jadwebne, the site of horrific massacre of Jews committed by the Polish residents of the town. The somber tone of the day was continued as the final visit of the day was to Treblinka, one of the six Nazi death camps. None of Treblinka’s structures remain; only a series of monuments that powerfully represent what occurred there. Most of the day was focused on Holocaust history, and tomorrow the pace will be altered with a visit to the contemporary Jewish community in Warsaw, and a survey of the wealth of Jewish life and scholarship that its history holds.

 

Update from Poland trip, day 2 

This morning we walked to Yeshivat Lublin for Shacharit, which allowed us to see the massive size of the yeshiva and experience its huge impact on Jewish history. We continued on to the Jewish cemetery of Lublin, visiting the kever of the Maharshal.

We then left city to the labor camp Mejdanek. Helena Birnbaum spoke about her life in Mejdanek, her living conditions, work experience, and survival story. Mr. Siggi Weiser compared the living conditions in Mejdanek to his own experience in the barracks in Auschwitz. We visited a memorial established by the Russians who liberated the camp, which showcased a pile of ashes covered with a large cement dome. As we reached the memorial, we saw a tekes conducted by Israeli army officers visiting Poland. Their commander spoke to them about the privilege and responsibility of being officers in the Israeli army and being part of a Jewish nation that is now in charge of its own destiny.

It was a day full of appreciation for the past but also recognition of the present.

Yechiel Schwab

 

Update from the Poland trip day 1 -  

Yechiel Schwab shares an email excerpt from Yakir Forman

After landing in Katowice around noon, we spent the afternoon in Tarnow, home of the very first deportees to Auschwitz and a city whose population was over 50% Jewish before the war. We visited the building that housed the community’s large mikveh and davened Mincha in the ruins of Tarnow’s central old shul, with the shul’s spectacular Bimah rising above us. We walked down ul Zydowska Street (the street of the Jews), which led us directly to the town square of the old city of Tarnow, where we heard reports and saw pictures of Tarnow’s history from the beginning of the Jewish presence in Galicia to the Germans’ selection of the people of Tarnow for deportation in 1942.

 

After that, we walked in the footsteps of the Jews of Tarnow. We followed the very same path the Jews of Tarnow walked to their final resting place in a nearby forest. We conducted a memorial ceremony to honor their memories before getting back on the bus to head to Lublin.

To see additional pictures from this year's trip to Poland
To read about the Poland Trip 5771