On our second day in Poland we were told to eat our breakfast, pack and check out by 8:45. Being the good Girl Scout I am, I complied. I had a really hard time sleeping after traveling for 20 hours, staying up to walk around Warsaw and then having a group dinner. Before going to bed the previous evening, I finished up the grading which had been submitted, but I was falling asleep at the keyboard. I made it through and headed for bed by midnight (after about 35 hours without sleep). I fell asleep for a short time, and woke up to a pitch black sky. I looked out the window and saw patrons leaving the bars, so it must have been around 2. I slept for another two hours or so, and then I was awake. Fortunately, I had plenty to keep me busy. I'm amazed how productive I was in the face of this fatigue.
After breakfast, we loaded up in our Mercedes mini bus. The driver seemed to run out of room after only packing about five bags, yet there were 14 in our group (15 including Henryk, the driver). We were all standing around tsk, tsking, when we saw him do something pretty miraculous. Lo and behold he had a detachable luggage compartment which connected to the rear of the mini bus. He secured this thing with bolts and pins.
It's a fairly straightforward idea, but I'd never seen it.
Our tour on this particular morning concentrated on the Warsaw ghetto. While our intrepid group of seven had explored some aspects of the ghetto the previous day, our wonderful guide, Agnieska, was able to give us some new perspectives. We started our morning bus tour with a stop at a lovely park which had been inside the ghetto.
All Saints Church on one side of the square is said to have "served
the Christian Jews who lived within the Ghetto wall." I'm assuming this refers to Jews who had converted to Christianity, but who were still deemed Jewish by the Nazis. Additionally, the parish priest from All Saints is credited with housing Jews in the
parish rectory and assisting some Jews to escape.
Across the street from the park is the only surviving tenement building from the Ghetto times.
The images on the facade are photos of Jewish people from Warsaw before the war. The building itself is a fragile fragment; it is literally falling apart. It is a haunting display of ghosts from a bygone time. The Warsaw Tour site from Judaica says: "It is one of the few fragments of ‘Jewish Warsaw’ in which the climate
of the old Jewish quarter is revived during the Festival of Jewish
Culture – [Issac Bashevis Singer’s Warsaw]."
From there we headed over to the last remaining pre-war synagogue in Warsaw, the
Nożyk Synagogue.
Although services were still held in 1941, toward the end of that year the Nazis used the building as stables and a depot. The building was returned to religious use after the war, but it was not until 1977 that serious renovations began, ending in 1983.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, "Warsaw’s
pre-war Jewish population in 1939 was 393,950 Jews, approximately one-third [30%]
of the city's total population" and over 300 synagogues. That represented about one tenth of Poland's Jewish population, estimated to be 3,474,000. Only 300,000 Polish Jews survived the war. Unfortunately, we were not able to enter the synagogue.
We walked behind the synagogue to find other remnants of the Warsaw ghetto. This is a piece of the ghetto wall which has been preserved.
An 93 year old gentleman living about three housing units from the wall,
has made a point of greeting visitors to tell his story about the ghetto wall.
Part of his work has involved maintaining a narrow ledge depicting where the wall extended within this neighborhood. People from all over the world come by to see this wall and when he's
available, he makes a point of talking to them (apparently to his neighbors'
chagrin).
The gentleman has compiled six volumes of messages from visitors expressing thanks for his work in preserving this piece of the wall. I extended my hand to thank him for telling us his story, but he wanted kisses. Soon, he was getting kisses from all the women in our group, and at least one of the men. Our guide tells us he doesn't always remember her, but we were glad to have spent the time with him.
Our next stop was at the site of the bridge which joined the small ghetto to the large ghetto.
This was the bridge that was featured in
The Pianist. There's a panel on this square which reports that the ghetto was closed off from the rest of the city on November 16, 1940. It was originally 307 hectares and was populated by 300,000 Jews from Warsaw, along with 90,000 from elsewhere. Our guide talked about how the ghetto became increasingly compressed,
squeezing more and more Jews in to less and less space--starting with
the closing of the small ghetto and relocation of those people into the
large ghetto. Nearly 100,000 died of hunger, and 300,000 were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising included 750 fighters
led by 24 year old Mordechai
Anielewicz. It began 19 April 1943 with only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and a couple of grenades. Fighting continued until mid-May when Mila 18, the headquarters of the Jewish
Fighting Organization (ZOB), fell. The Jewish Virtual Library reports that there was intermittent fighting until early June, even though the ghetto had been liquidated by May 16.
I've recently read a few books on the subject: I recommend a children's book called Run, Boy Run; an adult memoir I recommend is
Country of Ash by Edward Reicher. To be continued..
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