So after a short drive we got out of the bus and all gathered around the oldest temple in Poland. It was so cool to be in the place where so much of the heritage and tradition of the Jewish people stems from. For example, Sherrie (the lady in charge of our delegation) shared a story that on Simchat Torah at this temple a fight broke out and things were destroyed years back during the 4th of the 7 times you pass around the torah. Because of this disruption, today in temples around the world, congregations will stop after the second round to remember this event. We continued to walk through the city and stopped into an old temple where a very learned rabbi used to lead the congregation. I totally forgot his name but If you're really interested, you can look it up. One of the most impactful things we saw at Kazimierz, in my opinion, was the outer wall of this temple. The back part of this temple was a cemetery and the wall around the cemetery was a mosaic of headstones. All of the headstones were remains from pre-war graves which got destroyed in WWII. The headstones were all those of Jews and it was really a beautiful monument. It is interesting to know that the square in Kazimierz was used for the filming of Schinnler's List. We took a little walk outside of the square and crossed a foot bridge to the other side of Krakow; this was the Krakow Ghetto. We all gathered at the entrance to the ghetto which was memorialized by a display of metal chairs across the entire square. There were buildings lining the entire square, one of which used to be a pharmacist. There is a heroic story behind this, however. The pharmacist who owned the place was not a Jew, but, he was determined to help the Jews. We went into the building, which is now a museum, to learn how he would give his Jewish workers food medicine and supplies to smuggle into the Ghetto in order to save the lives of the Jews living in the Ghetto. When we left the museum we had a chance to mingle with people from the Australia/New Zealand delegation as our bus arrived and then were off on our way. For more info on Kazimierz, take a look at: http://www.cracow-life.com/poland/krakow-kazimierz.
Our bus was taking us to Plaszow, a former labor and later death camp. All that remains of Plaszow today is body remains and a monument. Before we arrived our bus driver took us for a "photo-op" to the real Oscar Schinnler's factory. Anyways, after a nice nap on the bus, I woke up to discover that the rain was going to keep us in the bus at Plazsow but I still got a lot of info out of it. It seams as if Plazsow today could be compared to a battleground park. There were people there flying kites and enjoying on the hills of the land. However, those hills were not naturally made. The site used to be a huge concentration camp for the Nazis but they destroyed it in the early 1940's when the Nazi party started to collapse. The monument that marks the site has 6 pillars to commemorate the 6 Million Jews that were killed during the holocaust. For more info on Plazsow, go to http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/PlaszEng.html.
Well it was time to get to our 4 star hotel room (that is sarcasm) and get dressed for Shabbat. In the hour we sat in our room the power went off so we were stuck in a dark dirty room with nothing to do. Well the weather was eventually turned back on but it was definitely an experience.
Talking about experiences, tonight was possibly the most entertaining Shabbat services I have ever been to. The service was at a small Chabbad temple in Krakow. I will share with you a few or the different emotions I had at the service. Unity- it was so cool to be praying with so many other people from so many places around the world and being united because we are jews. Confusion- The Rabbi lead the service in a very othodox manner so it was fast pased, confusing, and I bit overwhelming. Fear- I had to think while praying that I may close my eyes and have a little fear that the person behind me is chuckling at my hair cut. 70 years ago, however, that fear was of a Nazi coming in and shooting you in the head while praying. Entertainment- now to why this was such an awesome experience. Half way through the service, the leaders asked us to join them in dancing, clapping, banging, simply embracing the prayer time. The most remarkable part of this was when all of the men, polish men, BBYO men, and others, put our arms around each other and danced around the front of the temple in a circle while chanting "David Melech Yisrael" loudly and proudly. It was really an awesome and powerful moment that really made me feel like all the men in this temple were family for the simply reason that we are all jews and all share the same history.
Dinner was pretty good and then it was time for bed. Tomorrow is another long day I'm sure!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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