Jewish Identity

Evil Remembered

Shaarey Zedek family's trip honors those who perished in Poland.

Upon entering Majdanek, we met the
curator, Gregory, who gave us a personal
tour of the camp because we were the
only visitors.
Then we went into the men's shower,
with a dozen or so showerheads.
Knowing 60 years ago my mother was
next door in the women's shower, won-
dering if water or gas would come out,
was chilling beyond the cold tempera-
ture of the moment. We then proceeded
into the gas chambers, a room that still
has the blue stains from the Zyklon B.
We entered one of Majdanek's bar-
racks, where tens of thousands of shoes
from the murdered inmates remain. Lori
and Jessica walked arm in arm, passing
all the shoes, knowing they belonged to
people just like us. At that moment, all
of us felt an infinite sadness, a sense of
the overwhelming inhumanity of this
place.
We proceeded to the crematoria,
where the ovens and tools remain intact,
and then walked on a snow-covered field
where, on one November day in 1943,
the Nazis had a "Jew Harvest." On that
day, they shot 18,000 prisoners. This
was a place not to be forgotten.

Birthday Treasure

14144,4„

During a winter storm, Steven Weisberg feels the emotional chill at the Majdanek concentration camp.

STEVEN WEISBERG

Special to the Jewish News

is

y- mother Henrietta Weisberg
was born in Warsaw. Her
memories about Poland and
the Polish people are nightmares that
continue to this day.
I grew up curious about Poland, but
it has always been difficult emotional
ground to cover with her, and Poland
was described as ground not worth
returning to.
But this past February, my wife Lori
and I, and our children Jessica, 16,
Madeline, 14, and Matthew, 13, decided
to visit Eastern Europe to celebrate my
50th birthday and to look back at my
mother's exodus from Europe. We saw it
as a family trip to honor the lives of
those now gone or forever changed by
those dark days of the Holocaust.

We began in Vienna, where we visit-
ed the restored synagogue with its blue
ceiling that appears to have stars shining
down from heaven. We then went on to
Prague, to the Old Cemetery and several
synagogues, including the Pinkas
Synagogue, whose walls have the names
of 80,000 Czech Jews killed during
World War II.
I was particularly moved by my kids'
reaction to the exhibit of children's
drawings from nearby Theresienstadt. It
was clear this trip was giving all of us
reason to reflect on how lucky we are to
live in freedom.
Next, we made a nine-hour train trip
through the Czech Republic and into
southern Poland. Many of us have
grown up with images of the Holocaust
— of the train tracks leading to
Auschwitz. Getting on that train at
night, passing through Krakow in a

snowstorm, listening to others speaking
Polish and thinking of cattle cars trans-
porting Jews to Auschwitz was very
unsettling for Lori and me.
Lori's father, Joseph Schwartz of
blessed memory, lost his parents and 10
siblings in southern Poland during the
Holocaust. Although the sleeper car was
acceptable accommodations, neither one
of us slept well that night.

A Somber Visit

After arriving in Warsaw, we headed in a
minivan to Majdanek concentration
camp in Lublin. I thought 60 years ago
my mother traveled this same way, but
in a cattle car with her mother and sister
to a hell on earth!
What a surreal feeling to be at
Majdanek, where my mother was im-
prisoned when she was 14, my daughter
Madeline's age.

Ori Feb. 19, my 50th birthday, we went
to Warsaw's only shul, the Nozyk
Synagogue. Sixty-six years ago the city
had 38 synagogues and 350,000 Jews.
In synagogue that Shabbat morning,
Lori counted 40 Jewish souls. The syna-
gogue is located on the same street as
my mother's home from before the war.
Although her home was destroyed by
the Nazis, along .with 80 percent of
Warsaw, the synagogue survived because
it was outside the ghetto and was used
by the Nazis as a barn.
As a birthday present, I was given an
aliyah and read from the Torah, which
was arranged by Rabbi Michael
Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland. My
son Matthew opened the ark, removed
the Torah and handed it to the rabbi.
I was called to the Torah by my
Hebrew name, Shmuel ben Avram. My
first name comes from my mother's
mother, Sara, who perished at
Majdanek. Avram is my father's Hebrew
name.

EVIL REMEMBERED on page 90

6/ 2
2005

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