The Charlotte Jewish News - September 2008 - Page 8
Women’s Mission to Poland and Israel
Making the Connections: Holocaust
Memories and the Land of Israel
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By Resa Goldberg
There is a street in
the Polish city of
Krakow where you can
see three synagogues;
four more are within
walking distance. Only
one, Nozyck, holds
services on Shabbat.
Krakow recently
celebrated its 18th
annual Jewish Culture
Festival, which attracts
thousands of people
who come to enjoy the
art exhibitions, cook
ing demonstrations, lectures and
Klezmer music concerts.
“They pack in every day, morn
ing until night, for a whole week
with as much as you can think of
to educate the community on the
religion, culture, past, present, and
future of the Jewish people, as
well as on what happened specifi
cally in Krakow,” says Sarah
Kaplan, Community Relations and
Israel Affairs Coordinator for the
Jewish Federation of Greater
Charlotte, “Thousands were at
their main concert when I was
there in 2005 and 2006... so I can
only imagine the total sum of peo
ple that (the festival) affects - it
has to be huge.”
The organizers of this celebra
tion of everything Jewish are not
Jews.
The Galicia Jewish Museum in
Krakow houses a stunning photo
graphy exhibit featuring gravesites
of Jews who were murdered out
side the death camps. The Jewish
community in Poland at its height
was 3,474,000—the largest per
centage in the world; today there
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The American and Israeli participants.
are only around 1,000 Jews living
in the entire country.
Poland is indeed experiencing a
resurgence of interest in Judaism
due to Poles rediscovering their
Jewish roots. Catholics who have
converted to Judaism, and mem
bers of the population who simply
want to bring back Jewish culture
to a land that holds so much sor
row.
It is the provocative
dichotomy between the
horror of what happened
in the region’s death
camps and the anticipa
tion that Judaism will sur
vive—here of all
places—that brought 13
Charlotte women and 12
women from the Israeli
city of Hadera together
on a first-of-its-kind mis
sion to Poland in July. It
was an ambitious experi
ment born out of
Partnership 2000 (P2K),
a “living bridge” relationship
between Israelis and Jews in the
Diaspora—in this case, our two
communities - Hadera and
Charlotte.
The American participants
were: Tess Berger, Adriana
Epstein, Resa Goldberg, Nadine
Gordon, Amy Gould, Julia
Greenfield, Renee Hammel,
Alison Lemer, Penny Lipsitz, Lisa
Strause, Julie Weiser, Liz Winer
and Sue Worrel.
The journey began on July 9
when we left Charlotte for Atlanta.
From there we flew to Tel Aviv,
where we enjoyed a fabulous meal
while watching the sunset over the
Mediterranean. A few short hours
later, we were back at Ben
Gurion Airport, where we
met the Israeli group. After
hugs and kisses all around,
it seemed as if we were
already friends.
“After the first few min
utes, I hardly remembered
that they were Israeli and
we were American,” says
Penny Lips;itz. “It’s as if we
were sisters, members of
the same Jewish family.”
Before the sun rose the
next morning, we departed
for Warsaw, nervous and
excited about what awaited us in
Poland. While all of us had all
heard Holocaust survivors speak
prior to the trip and listened to lec
tures by author Deborah Lipstadt
and a righteous gentile—both in
Poland—but nothing could have
prepared us for our arrival at
Majdanek, a concentration
turned death camp located
near Lublin. Beyond the
massive stone monument
were rows of barracks—
some original—separated
by double barbed-wire
fences. We thought entering
the dismal buildings would
bring relief from the blister
ing heat, but the air inside
was thick with dust and
humidity and despair. We
wanted to complain that we
were hot and hungry, but
dared not interrupt our scin
tillating tour guide Shoshanna
Klieman, who helped us under
stand some of the pain that the
prisoners there must have felt
using historical facts and passages
written by survivors.
“The most horrible place was
saved for last, and I had no idea it
was coming,” remembers Alison
Lemer. “I didn’t expect to see an
Lisa Strause and Resa Goldberg at the Kotel.
actual crematorium — I thought
the Nazis destroyed all of them.
But not here — apparently there
was not time. So we walked
through the gas chamber, saw the
room where dead bodies were
piled on top of each other waiting
to be put into the ovens, and we
walked into the crematorium. I
can still feel how I felt then, and
tears are coming back while writ
ing this. The idea that human
beings could do this to other
human beings is so beyond my
comprehension, and knowing that
it happened, standng in the place
where it happened, was beyond
overwhelming. Six million lives
were taken, mostly Jewish lives,
The shut in Krakow.
— and as Shoshanna kept remind
ing us — each of them was an
individual with a life and a story
and potential.”
The most unbelievable sight at
Majdanek is the mausoleum, an
imposing structure surrounded by
(Continued on page 37)