Cover Story
MARCH
from page 11
Shoah Victims Live
Through Us
RACHEL KOHN
Special to the Jewish .News
W
hen I was little, I used to always ask my grand-
mother Rose what her childhood was like in
Poland. I was too young to be asking about ghettos and
concentration camps.
Instead, it was always questions about her comfortable
lifestyle in Chenstechova, her large family, what she did
for fun. One image stands out in my mind, placed there
by the story I asked my grandmother to repeat countless
times.
I can see my grandmother as a healthy, rosy-cheeked girl,
warm and cozy in her soft winter coat. She is riding in a
large, horse-drawn sled with other happy, smiling children
down the snowy streets of Warsaw. They are covered with
piles of warm furs and have not a care in the world. This is
how she remembers herself.
There are other images, though; ones that hurt when she
says them aloud. Emaciated bodies, wild yet empty eyes,
and the sight of children dying will be images that will flit
before her eyes like ghosts for the rest of her life. That is,
in my opinion, one of the greatest cruelties of the
Holocaust: the dreamlike memory of childhood torn in
half between images of happiness and love and nightmares
of torture and despair. Years stolen, never to be returned.
I would like to participate in the March of the Living
International, Detroit Teen Poland/Israel Experience
Program for a number of reasons. I know that the chances
of me visiting Poland as an adult are very slim. I also think
that going on a program like the March of the Living and
sharing the experience with my friends and other members
of the Jewish community will make the whole trip more
meaningful than it would be if I went by myself.
There is also the symbolism in a group of Jewish
teenagers, living in a world so different from that of the
Jews of the Holocaust, paying their respects to those who
fell or were burned by the hands of the Nazis. Those who
go on the march will walk the paths they walked, those
paths of death — except this will be a march of the living.
Finally, and most importantly, I want to see the things my
grandmother saw I want to see both the streets of Warsaw
and the fields and woods that will forever be stained with the
blood of innocents and the ashes of the chosen people
chosen to the but now chosen to live. They live through us.
We must see the things they saw, both in the good times and
the bad.
Even if one does not have stories to go by or paths to
follow, they must know that they have to take in every-
thing. The lingering anti-Semitism, the flowers that
bloom outside the walls of the death camps and the
ghostly barracks are all important. We must see, and then
remember, the things they saw so that when the last sur-
vivor is gone, we will be their continuation — and we
will carry in our hearts and minds their legacy of snow
mixed with blood. ❑
Rachel Kohn of West. Bloomfield is an 11th-grader at
Yeshivat Akiva in Southfield. She is the daughter of Marilyn
and Ken Kohn.
4/13
2001
12
ita
Rachel Kohn and Sonya Brystowski at the Holocaust Memorial Center in West Bloomfield.
"It's almost like getting into another religion,
and seeing and understanding what they are
doing," said Erin Kaufman, 18, of Farmington
Hills, a Reform Jew who wanted an Orthodox
roommate. Her family is affiliated with Temple
Kol Ami.
"I'm really looking forward to spending time
with the Orthodox, especially during Shabbat,
because there's so much Judaism that I've learned,
but haven't internalized," she said.
That Erin and the other teens are even thinking
about learning Jewishly from each other is part of
a plan set in motion years ago when two local
rabbis argued philosophical differences over
scotch and cigars.
From Discussion To Friendship
It was after a communal organization meeting in
1996. Steven Weil, former rabbi of Young Israel
of Oak Park, was arguing his case for Orthodoxy
with Rabbi Paul Yedwab of Temple Israel, a
Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield.
"At one point, I thought Rabbi Weil said, 'Do
you smoke cigars?" Rabbi Yedwab recalled. "I
realized he wasn't making an analogy, he was say-
ing, 'Do you want to go smoke cigars?' I said,
`Well, no, but I do like scotch.'"
That three-hour discussion over scotch and
cigars led to friendship. "One of the things we
talked about at that first meeting," Rabbi Yedwab
said, "was the idea of doing something to get our
three movements together. Rabbi Weil suggested
[March of the Living] as a project. I got excited
about it and we went to Federation, and that was
the beginning of the program (merging the
streams.)"
Rabbis Weil, Yedwab and Leonardo Bitran of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek B'nai Israel went on
the first March of the Living-Detroit Teen
Polandllsrael Unity Experience trip, sponsored
and subsidized by the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit in 1997.
The B'nai B'rith Youth Organization and the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit take
turns sponsoring the annual trip. Federation sent
45 from Michigan and 15 from Israel's Central
Galilee, its Partnership 2000 region, in 1997.
The rabbis had planned a
Reform/Conservative/Orthodox Kabbalat
Shabbat service together, spending hours debating
— pushing and pulling and coming up with
something, said Rabbi Yedwab.
"Well, here we were in Poland where they don't
know from Shabbat," he said. We were in a big
room with lots of other people and it was noisy,
and it was a disaster — an absolute disaster.
"So we get through a tour of the city the next
day, and then we get to Havdalah, and I did the
Havdalah service on guitar, singing the melody
Everyone was singing together, and it was nice.
"Then, when it was over, my kids, the NFTY
MARCH
on page 14