A Day (or a Lifetime) at Bergen Belsen (July 5)

Bergen Belsen is not a long ride from Celle, the picturesque German city where we stayed overnight.  The road goes through fairy tale like villages next to a a forest that is straight out of Red Riding Hood.  In fact, I was thinking of her, looking for her amongst the trees, when the bus suddenly turned into the entrance to the camp memorial.  From Red Riding Hood straight to the Big Bad Wolf.

I had to catch my breath as we pulled in.  There had been no warning.  I didn't feel prepared.

We went straight to a classroom, and we broken into two groups.  My group focused on Testimony.  Our group leader and guide for the day, Janine, gave us an in-depth chronology of Bergen Belsen, much more than we had in our pre-trip reading.  Much more than I had learned in my years of Holocaust learning and teaching. She is so incredibly knowledgable, and we were eager to learn everything.

Then, pairs of us were given the name of a survivor who had been in Bergen Belsen.  We went through the main exhibition area of the museum and saw pieces of video testimony given by our survivor.  My partner and I learned about the life of Steven Pearl.  We saw two clips with his thought on liberation and two clips about his life in Bergen Belson DP (Displaced Persons) camp.  Steven was 16 or 17 in 1945, and went from the DP camp to England with many other orphans.  He was so resiliant and so grateful.  We were inspired.

Following lunch (which in and of itself is an odd thing at Bergen  Belsen, as are the clean restrooms), we heard about some very special photographs taken by US soldiers who liberated a trainload of people.  The train was one of three that the Nazis were sending east from Bergen Belsen at the end of the war.  One of the members of our group was instrumental in bringing the photos to light, and he is writing a book about it.  (He even has a Rochester connection. He went to Geneseo!)

Then it was time to walk through the site.  Because there had been a terrible typhus epidemic in the camp when the British army arrived, the buildings were burned to the ground.  The memorial site is large (as the camp was large) with memorials and mass graves throughout.  These mass graves are filled with the remains of the many, many bodies found by the British army upon liberation.  The British film footage --horrific images that stay in your mind  - are the ultimate in Holocaust shock value.  I would never show them to my students, though they made it into newsreels worldwide.

The site is very powerful and quite overwhelming.  I left memorial rocks throughout the camp.  (Yes, I left a couple of rocks at Hadamar and at the Holocaust Memorial in Frankfurt.)  At the Wall of Silence, we lit Yartzheit (Memorial) candles, and I was given the honor of saying Kaddish.  I broke down and somehow made it through the prayer and the English translation, though my eyes were blurred with tears.  As I walked away, a chill wind passed over (through) me.  No one else felt it.

Outside Frankfurt -- Hadamar (July 4)

DISCLAIMER:  We've been so busy, and we haven't always had internet.  This means I might be talking about things that happened a couple of days ago!  It also means I might not be able to post as often as I'd hoped.

Our first "authentic" site, Hadamar, was one of the 6 hospitals used for the Nazi T-4 (named for the location of the building that administered the program - Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin - not too far from where I am sitting right now) "euthanasia" program.  This was not mercy killing, however, this was where the Nazis killed those they deemed unworthy of living -- the mentally and physically disabled for the most part. 

Hadamar is an extremely quaint German village.  (I do have MANY photos of everything, but I will add pictures after I get home.)  Who could have imagined that a hospital in such a place would have turned into a killing center?  Disabled people - men, women, and children - were brought from other institutions on buses with darkened windows.  Imagine you are a low functioning individual and you are torn from the place where you are cared for, where you feel secure, and put onto a dark bus....It must have been terrifying.

The doctors and nurses - those trained for healing - were the ones who carried out the orders at Hadamar.  Gas chambers were built in the basement of the hospital -- a rehearsal for what would come all too soon.  T-4 "patients" were also starved and killed by lethal injection.  In fact, the program began by targeting children under 3.  Ironically, the next building is a psychiatric hospital with a section for the criminally insane behind barbed wires.

The night before, in Frankfurt, a few of us met a teacher who has a mutual friend (a holocaust survivor) with a member of our group.  She's a very nice woman, about my age, and she's involved in local Frankfurt Christian-Jewish relations.  She lived in Hadamar for a time, and her husband's grandmother still lives there.  The grandmother lived in Hadamar in the 1940s and remembers seeing the buses with the painted windows coming through town.  She also remembers the smell, a smell that was accompanied by small pieces of ash that blew in the wind.  The same type of description that one hears about Auschwtitz.

The Jewish Museum in Frankfurt

I expected to learn new insights into German Jewry (the Jewish Community of Germany) at the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, but the museum was a disappointment.  Though there are some very lovely pieces -- and some that truly spoke to me -- the museum seemed almost like a cemetery to Judaica.   It was not a vibrant place.  It didn't breathe or come alive for me.  The building is the former Rothschild villa, and many of the rooms were rather stark and unassuming.  There were a few rooms that held on to some of their former splendour, but no where was there a room set up as a Rothschild room to show us what it looked like in their day.  No where was there a family tree.

The thing that bothered me the most, though, was the graveyard-like quality to the collections.  For many visitors to the museum, this is where they learn about Jewish culture and traditions -- and the traditions don't sing and dance.  They don't call out.  They whisper.  They are shadows and echoes of the past.  And, what haunted me throughout, was the fact that the Nazis collected everything to make a museum to this people they wanted to annihilate.

On a more positive note, the Holocaust Remembrance Wall is very moving.  It is in an area that was part of the Medieval Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt.  Next to the outline of a synagogue that was destroyed during Kristallnacht in November 1938.  We also drove past the house where Anne Frank lived until she was 5 (1929-1934) and her family left Germany for Holland.

Tomorrow morning we will visit Hadamar, a T-4 euthanasia center.  Then we will travel north to the village of Celle, near Bergen Belsen.

Orientation

Though the program began yesterday, I still have trouble believing this is all real.  Our group of 24 middle and high school teachers (of the Holocaust) and 2 leaders will travel to Frankfurt, Germany tomorrow afternoon.  We've spent these last two days meeting one another and getting ourselves ready for the next few weeks.

Today at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, I tried to view things through a new lens -- trying to connect in a new way.  Our task was to look  for artifacts that spoke to us.  I found many, too many to mention. We were able to enter the museum early, so there were no crowds to get in our way.  It was us and the collections.  That, too, made it more personal.

When entering the museum, visitors take an identification card.  The card tells the story of someone who went through the horrors of the Holocaust.  My card was the story of Chuna Grynbaum (Henry Greenbaum).  Turns out our speaker this evening was Henry Greenbaum!!  He is amazing man, and his story so moving.

Last night we heard the story of Max and Hannah Liebmann.  They, too, shared their engaging story.

Coincidences....Luck....Faith....Miracles

All play a part

In

Every story

Community

If it takes a village to raise a child, what about the rest of us?  We, too, need the village, the community to help us through life.  Communities can make joys much happier and sorrows much easier to bear.  Communities celebrate both the talents of each individual and the needs of the entire group.  Communities become a second family (an extension of the extended family) and give more than friendship and understanding.  Communities bring people from all walks of life together and make the whole much richer than the parts.

But what is it that makes a random group into a community?  And how is this group put together in the first place?  Where one lives?  Who one spends time with?  What about common interests?  Common values? Common culture?

I do feel like a part of my town and the local public school community.  I have met some amazing people through my  sons' schools--PTA, etc.  It's always so nice to see familiar faces and catch up with friends at concerts, events, graduation.

My neighborhood also has great people.  I see them when walking the dog, at the library, at the store, etc.  It's almost impossible to buy groceries without seeing several people I know.

The community I feel the closest too is my synagogue (Temple Sinai, Rochester, NY).  In fact, many believe I live at Temple Sinai. Those organizations that  send out the free address labels have been reminding me for several years that I do indeed reside at Temple Sinai!  Who else has both a classroom and an office??  But seriously, these are people are there for each other and can be counted on to fill a room in both happy and sad times.  How lucky I am to be a part of this group.

Tomorrow I embark on a new adventure.  One where a new random group of people will come together to form a learning and traveling community.  A community of Holocaust educators.  And together, this new community will venture to the  "Old Country"  -- a place where Jewish communities once thrived, but are now echoes.  What will we hear? Will we listen?

Endings

There are many types of endings.  Some are good – like the end of an illness or the end of a long winter.  Others are expected, like the end of the school year.  And, then there are the unexpected….

The “normal” endings are like putting square pegs into square holes.  They fit.  After weeks of feeling lousy, the fog lifts (or the nose dries up), and health returns.  In the spring, along with the new growth, the school year winds down.

The end of the Religious School year is always bittersweet.  I truly love my 7^th graders – and, yes, I say this and mean it every year.  This year’s end was especially hard.  I had an amazingly awesome group of young people in my classroom.  I’m not saying this (only) because my son, Sam, was in the class.  The students were still awesome when he was not there.  (He was sick quite a bit this winter.) For the most part (they are 7^th grade, after all!), the students were thoughtful and respectful.  We had in-depth discussions, and we played silly games.  Learning and fun in a safe community-like setting -- what more does one need from 7^th grade in Religious School?

It is those unexpected endings that throw us all for a loop.  Recently, a former student tragically passed away.  Dear friends lost their son and a beloved former student lost her brother.  How do we deal with the loss of a kind and gentle 26 year old man?  This young man, Sam, was in my class 13 years ago – the year my Sam was born.  In fact, this sweet, goofy 7^th grader asked me if I named the baby after him.   The funeral was surreal.  It was a chilly and rainy day, which seemed appropriate.  Sitting in the synagogue and later standing by the graveside, I was in a fog.  Former students are getting married and starting families.  This is odd enough to me, but in a very good way.  Burying a former student just is not right.

Putting on my “Holocaust Teacher” hat, I know of endings that come in so many shapes and sizes.  For every shape and every size, there is a personal story.  Most of these endings are tragic, but there are also endings of hope and bravery.  These are the ones I focus on in class.  These are the ones that give us the courage to learn the others.

Your life has been cut short

You barely had time to begin

Yet, in your short time,

We saw your inner beauty

We saw your kindness

We saw your generosity

And, we have learned from you

Rocks

It is a Jewish tradition to leave a rock on a gravestone.  Though there are many explanations of this tradition, my favorite is that the permanence of the stone is like the permanence of the memory of the person who has passed.  It could almost be thought of as our promise to keep the memory of this person alive.  Thus said, I have begun a rock project.

This summer, I will participate in the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers Program (http://hajrtp.org/program.html), an intensive (extremely intensive!) trip to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland.   In anticipation of the trip, I wanted to find a way to connect my students, colleagues, and friends with my experience.  ROCKS -- Rocks that I will take with me and leave behind at various memorials as reminders that my students, colleagues, and friends have not forgotten the Holocaust, that they, too, will keep alive the memories and spirits of those who perished.

Though my first thought was of my students, I actually began my project with two other groups.  For 10 weeks, I took a class (part of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School) called “The Holocaust as Reflected in Diaries and Memoirs.”  I mentioned my project to my classmates a few weeks ago, and I brought pebbles from my yard to class.  Most seemed honored to create a rock memory.  Some asked for their rocks to be left at a certain site, others didn’t care where I left the rocks.

Last month, I accompanied a group of 25 teens from the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester to the USHMM.  It was a whirlwind day, catching a 6:20 am flight from Rochester and returning the same evening on a 10:25 pm flight.  The trip is aptly named Zikaron (Remembrance).  Sitting at the airport waiting for our flight back home, I went from one group of teens to another explaining my project and asking if they wanted to make a rock.  They did. 

Last week, just after Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), I asked my students to create rocks.  A few asked for their rocks to be left at Bergen-Belsen and wrote Anne Frank’s initials on their rocks.

My labeled zip baggies are filling, but the rocks will not weigh me (or my suitcase) down.