I’m standing close to where they burned the bodies. This is Treblinka. The bus departs soon, but I’m not ready to leave.
At Passover every year, we read aloud the Seder instruction to think of ourselves as slaves being freed from ancient Egypt. And there is the Jewish mystical idea that, when the Hebrews received the Torah at Mount Sinai, all Jewish souls—throughout time—were in attendance. We are connected. We have an obligation to remember because we were—and will always be—a part of the same story. A true collective memory.
“I would have never survived,” my Mum said once, while we were watching a film about Auschwitz. And when I thumbed through books about the Holocaust, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in a Nazi ghetto or a camp or on a suffocating train, surrounded by people I knew. As a Holocaust educator, I now know that we must never ask students to imagine themselves in the shoes of Holocaust victims or perpetrators or bystanders (for the reasons why, see my previous post.) But if, without prompt, we imagine ourselves in the circumstances of history, that is normal; empathy is natural, healthy.
I’m walking through the simple museum between Treblinka I (the Nazi labor camp) and Treblinka II (the extermination camp). Our group educator calls me over to look at a facsimile of a Nazi document—in both German and Polish—that lists specific regional guidelines on the treatment of the Roma and Sinti, the so-called “Zigeuner” (“Gypsies”). The poster states that Zigeuner are to be brought to the Jewish ghetto. Zigeuner must wear white armbands with the letter “Z.” Those who try to help Zigeuner will be shot.
I first heard of the name Treblinka in primary school. I remember reading a poem about a packed train headed to the camp. “Treblinka, Treblinka.” The name sounded frightening to me—a place of horror. Treblinka II was one of the six Nazi camps designed for mass-murder. The site contains the grave of around 925,000 people of Jewish descent and approximately 2,000 people of Roma or Sinti descent, mostly murdered in gas chambers. After a revolt in 1943 during which some 300 prisoners escaped the camp, the Nazi leadership ordered the complete destruction of the Treblinka complex and turned the site into farmland (a reminder that the Nazis themselves were the first Holocaust deniers).
In the museum, still examining the Nazi rules for Roma and Sinti, I realize I’m the only person left in the exhibition. I must now walk alone to the site of Treblinka II. My stomach hurts. I let out a heavy sigh and begin to follow the signs. The pathway is made up of rounded stones, making it difficult to keep the rhythm of a steady pace. The weather is cool, the trees green. This place is beautiful. I walk over the area that once held the camp’s gate. Blocks set into the ground like a ladder indicate rail tracks. Turning left, I face a sea of stones of different sizes and shapes, an abstract graveyard, each stone representing a place. Some stones bear specific names of Polish cities, towns, villages—Warszawa, Chmielnik. Some stones are draped or marked with the flag of Israel. The massive stone monument in the center—standing on the site of one of Treblinka’s gas chambers—is adorned with a menorah, its central branch broken to indicate Jewish lives cut short.
I walk into the open field of short wild grass, tall flowers. In the sunshine, flies buzz around me. I remove my jacket. It is here that their bodies were burned, their ashes compounded. My head spins with moments of my childhood mixed with the events of the last few days.
In Kraków, just days ago, after a lecture on the history of Polish Jews, I asked the professor about the current relationship between the Jewish and Roma communities of Poland. “We cannot ignore the Roma victims,” she told us, even though she hadn’t mentioned them until I asked my question.
Standing here in Treblinka, another question comes to me and my eyes find our educator. I walk quickly to him, across the field. “Is there a monument here to the Roma and Sinti?” I ask. He shakes his head. There is not.
In a few minutes, the bus will depart Treblinka and return us to the restored cityscape of Warsaw. But I don’t want to leave this place. I want to stay here. As if I owe it to myself. As if I owe it to the nameless.
My head is filled with clichés and more questions and some answers. Is this a holy place? No, God does not exist. Do ghosts scream? Are the remains of the people within this soil calling to us to be remembered? Are theses ghosts soothed by the prayers and the monuments and the tears? The Jewish souls call to us through the wild flowers above their single grave. Their cries are answered by the Jewish monuments in Treblinka. In Warsaw. In Berlin. In Jerusalem. In New York. And I stand here, trying to listen to the cries of the Roma and Sinti whose ashes and bones mingle with those of the Jews. We are connected, yet these adults and children are so often ignored and forgotten.
I can hear them and I will never leave.
“We reduced the problem to one between Nazis and Jews. Because of this we lost many friends who suffered with us, whose families share common graves.”—Simon Wiesenthal, 1979
“I would have never survived,” my Mum said once, while we were watching a film about Auschwitz. And when I thumbed through books about the Holocaust, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in a Nazi ghetto or a camp or on a suffocating train, surrounded by people I knew. As a Holocaust educator, I now know that we must never ask students to imagine themselves in the shoes of Holocaust victims or perpetrators or bystanders (for the reasons why, see my previous post.) But if, without prompt, we imagine ourselves in the circumstances of history, that is normal; empathy is natural, healthy.
I’m walking through the simple museum between Treblinka I (the Nazi labor camp) and Treblinka II (the extermination camp). Our group educator calls me over to look at a facsimile of a Nazi document—in both German and Polish—that lists specific regional guidelines on the treatment of the Roma and Sinti, the so-called “Zigeuner” (“Gypsies”). The poster states that Zigeuner are to be brought to the Jewish ghetto. Zigeuner must wear white armbands with the letter “Z.” Those who try to help Zigeuner will be shot.
I first heard of the name Treblinka in primary school. I remember reading a poem about a packed train headed to the camp. “Treblinka, Treblinka.” The name sounded frightening to me—a place of horror. Treblinka II was one of the six Nazi camps designed for mass-murder. The site contains the grave of around 925,000 people of Jewish descent and approximately 2,000 people of Roma or Sinti descent, mostly murdered in gas chambers. After a revolt in 1943 during which some 300 prisoners escaped the camp, the Nazi leadership ordered the complete destruction of the Treblinka complex and turned the site into farmland (a reminder that the Nazis themselves were the first Holocaust deniers).
In the museum, still examining the Nazi rules for Roma and Sinti, I realize I’m the only person left in the exhibition. I must now walk alone to the site of Treblinka II. My stomach hurts. I let out a heavy sigh and begin to follow the signs. The pathway is made up of rounded stones, making it difficult to keep the rhythm of a steady pace. The weather is cool, the trees green. This place is beautiful. I walk over the area that once held the camp’s gate. Blocks set into the ground like a ladder indicate rail tracks. Turning left, I face a sea of stones of different sizes and shapes, an abstract graveyard, each stone representing a place. Some stones bear specific names of Polish cities, towns, villages—Warszawa, Chmielnik. Some stones are draped or marked with the flag of Israel. The massive stone monument in the center—standing on the site of one of Treblinka’s gas chambers—is adorned with a menorah, its central branch broken to indicate Jewish lives cut short.
I walk into the open field of short wild grass, tall flowers. In the sunshine, flies buzz around me. I remove my jacket. It is here that their bodies were burned, their ashes compounded. My head spins with moments of my childhood mixed with the events of the last few days.
In Kraków, just days ago, after a lecture on the history of Polish Jews, I asked the professor about the current relationship between the Jewish and Roma communities of Poland. “We cannot ignore the Roma victims,” she told us, even though she hadn’t mentioned them until I asked my question.
Standing here in Treblinka, another question comes to me and my eyes find our educator. I walk quickly to him, across the field. “Is there a monument here to the Roma and Sinti?” I ask. He shakes his head. There is not.
In a few minutes, the bus will depart Treblinka and return us to the restored cityscape of Warsaw. But I don’t want to leave this place. I want to stay here. As if I owe it to myself. As if I owe it to the nameless.
My head is filled with clichés and more questions and some answers. Is this a holy place? No, God does not exist. Do ghosts scream? Are the remains of the people within this soil calling to us to be remembered? Are theses ghosts soothed by the prayers and the monuments and the tears? The Jewish souls call to us through the wild flowers above their single grave. Their cries are answered by the Jewish monuments in Treblinka. In Warsaw. In Berlin. In Jerusalem. In New York. And I stand here, trying to listen to the cries of the Roma and Sinti whose ashes and bones mingle with those of the Jews. We are connected, yet these adults and children are so often ignored and forgotten.
I can hear them and I will never leave.
“We reduced the problem to one between Nazis and Jews. Because of this we lost many friends who suffered with us, whose families share common graves.”—Simon Wiesenthal, 1979
outstanding. again. love.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether it was discussed to include the Roma and Sinti on the monument. However, I am assuming the Roma and Sinti might not want to be remembered on a monument with a menorah.
ReplyDelete