We visited the Forum for Dialogue Among Nations which is a group that works to educate middle school children in small towns in Poland about the Jewish History of their own towns. Many of the kids have no idea. They have a four day workshop in which they learn about the history and begin to plan a project. They talk to their grandparents and other town officials. Many of the grandparents are surprised because this is the first time that anyone has asked them about their Jewish neighbors. Some schools have planned guided tours to show people the Jewish buildings and cemeteries in the town. Other groups have made information booklets for the town hall to give out to visitors. They clean up the Jewish cemeteries. I was really impressed with the group and all they have accomplished. It was rather sad to realize that the children in these towns have no idea about the Jewish history of their own town despite the formerly large Jewish population because their really aren't any Jewish people left living there. Another thing this group does is work to bring people from other countries, whose families used to live in Poland, back to the towns where their parents or grandparents grew up. They showed a video of one boy from New York who had his Bar Mitzvah at the synagogue in the town where his grandfather was born. It was the first Bar Mitzvah in the town in 75 years.
We also visited another group called Hejt Stop (Hate Stop). Their mission is to remove anti-Semitic graffiti from around Warsaw (and the rest of Poland but they are based in Warsaw). People who see this hate speech on walls and buildings can take a picture and upload it to their website. Hejt Stop gets in contact with the local authorities, building owners, and administrators about covering it up. They have had public events where people in the community help to cover up the hate speech.
That night we participated in the Memory March for the 72nd Anniversary of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto (July 22, 1942). There were a lot of people marching. Everyone was given a white tag to wear that had someone's name on it who was once in the ghetto. At the end, people tied them all on to this large structure. The march was dedicated to Emanuel Ringelblum who buried the archives of the Warsaw ghetto so that the Nazis would not be able to destroy them and so that people in the future would know what went on in the ghetto.
This marks where the former walls of the ghetto were
Memory March
Walls from the Warsaw Ghetto
People tying their name tags to the structure
We visited the Jewish Historical Institute. He were able to meet with the director who told us about the founding of the institute. He brought us into the archives where we could see some original documents. We also watched a (very depressing) video about the Warsaw ghetto and the conditions there.
The structure from the march yesterday
Postcard thrown out the window of a train to Auschwitz. The top right has and address and the top left is a plea for someone to mail the card. The bottom is translated below. (Second section from December 1942)
Map of Warsaw Ghetto
Documents of people applying to not be sent to the ghetto and of people who survived the war
Simcha Guterman left records on toilet paper that he buried in a bottle before escaping the ghetto. He was later killed in the uprising. The records were found years later when the house he once lived in was being renovated.
No comments:
Post a Comment