Izbica

I’m writing this post three days after returning from a two week Holocaust Education Foundation-sponsored trip.  I think I have finally come back to a “normal” sleep pattern (after two days of going to sleep at 8 p.m. and then taking six hour naps), but that’s not a complaint.  The daily schedule of our trip through central Europe was full-to-brimming with powerful encounters with memorials, cemeteries, museums and significant sites.   I valued each and every moment spent learning and experiencing and wouldn’t have traded a single second of activity for sleep.

Of the four cemeteries we visited and cleaned, the one which moved me most was Izbica.   This site was tucked away in a forest clearing, swarming with mosquitoes and overrun with stinging nettles.  

The site seemed to be repelling all visitors, much less grave tenders.  Understanding the sorry history of this place, however, made this task fundamentally important.  

From the reading I’ve done, SS-Hauptscharfuhrer Kurt Engels’ reign of terror seemed to have manifest multiple times, and was exacerbated by the Ukrainian Trawnikis.  Their drunken massacres and mass grave disposals of thousands of innocent lives tell a story of depravity.  

This plaque recounts Izbica's history:  "Izbica was established in 1750 as a settlement for Jewish people removed from the neighboring Tarnogora. For almost two hundred years Jews were the majority of Izbica's citizens, contributing to its economical and cultural development.  In 1921, 93% of the town's citizens were Jewish.  In September 1939 there were 4000 Jews living in Izbica.  In December 1939 occupiers brought to the town 2500 Jews from Lodz and Kolo, and in April 1942 1000 from Czechoslovakia.  By the end of 1942 all the Izbica Jews were murdered by the German Nazis. 4000 people were shot at the Izbica Jewish cemetery, and all the others were killed at the Belzec or Sorbibor death camps."

The story of Izbica is yet one more illustration of the terrors inflicted by the Nazis and their willing minions on the Jews of Europe.  Before this trip, I had no knowledge of this chapter of the Holocaust.  

After finishing our grave cleaning task, our little group took the opportunity to hold a personal service to mark the yahrzeit of our colleague’s son.  Those of us who are Jewish explained to our comrades the meaning of the Kaddish and then recited it.  

We told the story of Hannah Szenes who, after joining with British forces, parachuted behind enemy lines in an effort to  be of service to fellow Hungarian Jews.

Our service concluded with singing her poem “Eli, eli”.  It seemed only fitting to do so, as June 7 (the day we were at Izbica) marked the day she crossed the border into Hungary where she was caught and tortured before being executed by firing squad five months later, November 7, 1944.

Our day of work ended with bites and stings and indelible memories.