Why Should a Jew Visit Poland today?

 by Ron Nagel

Recently, I asked my father – an 87-year old survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau – whether he approves of the many programs that bring thousands of Jewish young adults to Poland each year. “No,” he emphatically answered. “A Jew should not even spend one “zloty” in that country which murdered over three million Jews.”

It’s hard to publicly disagree with a man who somehow, against all odds, managed to survive the Nazi’s atrocities and unrelenting horrors of the Holocaust. Beyond this, I have tremendous respect for my father and his determination to not only “never forget,” but to rebuild a life and family so deeply rooted in Orthodox tradition and enhancing Jewish community life around the world today.

However, having just returned from the Yeshiva’s annual eight day trip to Poland, and as a father who came on this program with my youngest son, Joshua, I think there are tremendous positive benefits. This difference of opinion is part of a larger debate, shared by many survivors and their descendants. So, in deference to my father, I would like to share my reflections and explain why I humbly disagree

An esteemed historian of Jewish history, Rabbi Dr. Shalom Berger of Bar-Ilan University, led our trip and ensured that this was not going to be merely a lesson in historical facts. Together with Rav Shlomo Brin and Rav Yair Kahn, they successfully conveyed the message that the tragedy of losing six million European Jews goes beyond the loss of human life but also includes the destruction of Jewish culture and religious life.

The first day of the trip took us to the small town of Jedwabne, where 40 local Polish villagers voluntarily told the occupying Nazis that they will take “care” of the town’s Jews and gathered several hundred into a barn and set it on fire. To our horror, we learned that this murderous anti-Semitism did not end after the war, as was the case in Kielce where a post-war pogrom resulted in the mass murder of 42 Jews living peacefully in the House of Refuge. My father vividly remembers the Kielce pogrom being the deciding factor for him that Poland cannot be considered “home” ever again. Studying the Holocaust from textbooks only makes it too easy to forget that anti-Semitism did not disappear after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. One just needs to view current events and see that anti-Semitism is still prevalent in the world.

As a pediatrician, I was particularly moved by the story of Dr. Janusz Korczak, an international revolutionary thinker in the field of childhood education and foster care. The Nazis offered him a pass from death, but instead he walked with his children on to the death train to Treblinka with honor and dignity. This heroic act performed by a non- Orthodox Jew was clearly an act of Kiddush Hashem.

We visited Mila 18, the bunker that housed the Warsaw ghettos’ Jewish resistance. Mordechai Anielewicz, a timid 19-year old, the same age as my son Joshua, led these young Jews. He was able to fight back against the Nazi war machine for several months and to prove to the world that Jews are not “sheep that go easy to slaughter.” An important lesson to be learned is that one may not necessarily be born into leadership but rather circumstances may arise requiring one to take charge.

My most emotionally stirring moment was in the extermination camp of Majdanek, when I entered a barrack which had thousands of shoes displayed in an open area. The smell of leather was easily noted and I decided to touch a shoe and imagine a relative of mine who may have worn it. Suddenly, I remembered the famous prayer that we say on Yom Kippur, Eleh Ezkerah, which discusses the 10 martyrs who were brutally tortured and murdered by the Romans. The prayer begins with a Roman ruler reminding the Jews about the biblical story of Yosef’s brothers selling him to Arab traders for twenty pieces of silver and with that money buying leather shoes. This Roman wanted the ten Martyrs’ death to be a retribution for this ancient sin. Could the German Nazis be reminding me of this same sin when I saw the shoes?

Without a question, the most memorable moment of the trip was Shabbat in Kracow. Our hotel overlooked the kevarot of the Rama, Tosfot Yom Tov, and Bach. We davened at the Kupa Synagogue with other visiting yeshiva groups. Rav Hendler, a Ram from Shaalvim, led us in a Carlbach-style Kabbalat Shabbat culminating with a moving rendition of the famed “Kracow” niggun, while Rav Eisner, a Ram at Torat Shraga, gave a drasha on Emunah. Our group was also honored to hear from Reb Aryeh Leib Leibowitz, a Hungarian Jewish survivor who fought in the War of Independence in 1948 and worked for the Mossad. He felt he survived because of his Emunah, yirat shamayim and dedication to Torah values.   The ruach of the Har Etzion boys was amazing. We sang niggunim over the entire week; Yossele Rossenblatt’s Shir Hamaalot in the Neolog Krakow synagogue, a Modzitzer niggun at his kever in the Warsaw cemetery, and the famous Ani Maamin which was composed en route to Treblinka. I will never forget the tish we had in the Beit Midrash of the first Ger Rebbe, the Chidushei Harim, and the singing and dancing by the kever of Rebbe Noam Elimelech of Lejansk.

These are just a few examples of how we experienced the beautiful spiritual religious life that Polish Jewry lived.   Lastly, Rav Brin arranged for us to meet a true chassid umot ha’olam, Mr. Bogdan Bialek, whose mission in life is to eradicate anti-Semitism in Poland, beginning in his own city of Kielce, by educating the citizens about this tragic post-war pogrom.

To my honored father and other survivors, I can only say that I can never comprehend the horror you experienced in the prime years of your life. And I can understand your inability to visit Poland or engage with Polish people. However, it is essential that young Jews visit your country so they can experience the good and bad times in your history. As the expression goes “seeing is believing.” The world learns about the Holocaust through books, videos, and testimonies. However, when you are standing in a gas chamber, walking the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto, and staring at a vast grassy field that contains the ashes of tens of thousands of Jews, you experience the Shoah in a different way. But in visiting Lublin, Ger, and Krakow, you experience the wonderful rich Jewish culture it once possessed.   My father lived in Poland for the first twenty years of his life and unfortunately has bad memories. However the Jewish history of Poland transcends hundreds of years and I feel it would be wrong to “turn the lights off” and never visit Poland again. We owe it to the millions of Jews whose lives were taken away prematurely that our presence in Poland indicates that we have not forgotten their contribution to Yiddishkeit. The mantra of “never again” requires learning and engaging with the subject matter of this horrible time in our history. But the commitment to pursuing justice and preventing another Jewish genocide is also intertwined with never forgetting the Jewish culture, heritage, and spirituality that were alive in Poland in the early twentieth century. To do so requires more than books and stories; it demands seeing, touching and wrestling with it, with all our heart and soul.

Hashem Yinkom et Damam.

Ronald A. Nagel MD

For more about this trip to Poland see our website.