"Today's Poles should be educated
about the Holocaust," says Daniel
Greenbaum, a March participant and
sophomore at Akiva Hebrew day
School in Lathrup Village. "It is a part
of their history; and the Poles should
be regularly confronted with it now, so
that nothing like the Shoah will ever
happen again."
Karin Weinstein, another March
participant and .a junior at West
Bloomfield High School, feels that
consistent, intense remembrance could
be negative. "If the Poles are constant-
ly haunted by these images, they'll go
crazy," she explains, "and what good
would that do?"
What good?
Some may suggest that this is a form
of revenge on the Poles for sitting idly
by while the Nazis carried out horren-
dous atrocities in their own back yards.
But this idea just reminds me of that old
saying: With "an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth," you have a lot of blind and
toothless people walking around.
Megan Harris-Linten, a
Birmingham Groves senior and March
participant, offers another idea.
"I don't think the Holocaust should
Tali Zechory, 17, is
consume the Poles' lives," she says.
a junior at
"It's healthy to move on, to grow.
Birmingham Groves
Growth is what Judaism is all about.
High School in
The Poles must never forget, but learn
Beverly Hills. She
from their mistakes and move on."
and her family are
It is hard for us to comprehend
members of
how the Polish people continue to
Congregation Beth
live with these nightmarish places
Shalom
in Oak
in their back yards and on their
Park.
jogging routes. But by allowing
Tali Zechory
She is president of
these sites to remain, the Poles indi-
her
chapter
of
B'nai
B'rith Youth
rectly enable us, today's Jewish com-
Organization
and
she
has worked with
munity, to participate in programs like
the Michigan Jewish AIDS Coalition,
the March of the Living and never,
Yad Ezra, JARC and the ADL.
ever forget. Fl
Right: Marchers outside the wall that
surrounded the ghetto in Krakow.
4isaim
•-•
Far right: Marchers saw
the gas chambers up close.
Below: March participants
from Michigan gathered
for Shabbat at the Kotel.
Opposite page: Zevi Reinitz
of Oak Park and Young
Israel welcomes Shabbat
at the Western Wall.
everyone wore blue coats. It was corn-
forting to see all of us in Poland for
the same reason.
We listened to a few readings. The
first two were in Hebrew. Then young
people read in four languages. No
matter where you were from and what
language you spoke, you would know
what was being said.
It was Yom HaShoah, the day to
commemorate the Holocaust. A repre-
sentative from Israel's Knesset told us,
"All participants of the March of the
Living give evidence that the good has
defeated the wrong." We agreed totally.
At the camp we saw the rubble of
what was left of a crematorium the
Germans blew up near the end of the
war. Next to it were two ponds filed
with ashes. We threw in dirt from the
Mount of Olives in Israel, to give the
victims a proper burial.
As we walked into the barracks,
crying and holding hands to comfort
each other, we could smell the old
wood and the dust from the bunks.
Photo b David Jose
years old. I watched the faces of the
teenagers in the yishuv who might be
fighting for the same causes in only a
year or two, and saw only looks of
determination. That determination
characterizes every facet of Israeli life.
Yet in Hoshaya, life still overpowers
death.
Despite the somberness of the
day, happiness and bursts of
vitality still gleamed in every cor-
ner. The synogogue, which serves
as the center of the town "looks
exactly like the one in Tkochin",
said Rabbi Steven Burg, one of
the advisers for the mission.
The synogogue in Tkochin, a
small town we had visited in
Poland, had been beautiful. Now
it was vacant.
At the synogogue in Hoshaya,
the voices of the young rang out,
intermingled with the sound of danc-
ing feet, of prayers being sung, and a
feeling of love. There, in a settlement
begun a mere 16 years before, life and
birth are of the essence.
The following day, after all the sad-
ness of Yom HaZikaron, we stood in
the same spot. All was dark, except on
Elissa Joy Lindow, a senior at North
We could almost see the hundreds of
Farmington High
people lying there.
School, will major
We walked to the back and
in elementary educa-
entered a little room. There we
tion at Western
held a service. When we said the
Michigan
University
Shema, a few of us got chills
next
fall.
Her
family
knowing we were standing in this
is
active
at
Temple
room where people died saying
Shir Shalom, where
the Shema.
Elissa is president of
Whenever I say the Shema, I
the temple youth
will think of the victims and our
group
and volunteers
service in that tiny room in an
Elissa
Joy
Lindow
as
a
tutor.
Auschwitz barracks. 1-1
Shira Traison, 16, is
the stage, where torches were lit by
a junior at Akiva
the members of the yishuv. They
Hebrew Day School in
called them torches of life.
Lathrup Village and is
They were lit by the those who
participating
in the
had made aliyah, who had carried out
March
of
the
Living
the dream. It was Yom HaAtzmaut,
trip to Poland and
Israel Independence Day, and the
Israel She is the
faces of the same people, who only 24
daughter of Michael
hours earlier had been somber, were
and Datia Traison of
now beaming with pride.
Shira Traison -
West Bloomfield. She
Those from the March of the
hopes
to be a lobbyist
Living who visited Hoshaya on
for
AIPAC,
has
taken
part
in Model UN
those two days left with a feeling of
and
Panim
el
Panim,
is
regional
vice pres-
truly being at home. "I am moving
ident of education for Central East
there!" declared Aron Srolovitz.
National Conference of Synagogue Youth,
In Hoshaya, we realized that the
and is a member of the Anti-Defamation
Holocaust had not destroyed Israel or
League Dream Dialogue and the Daniel
Judaism. We realized why the sur-
Sobel Friendship Circle. Last summer, she
vivors had fought so hard to survive.
attended the NCSY Michlelet program, a
We realized that even through death,
six-week learning program in Israel
Israel is life.
❑
4/30
1999
Detroit Jewish News
17