Tuesday Night

We arrived in Lodz late in the day on Monday. Our first stop was was the Jewish cemetery. This cemetery was in the ghetto. Unlike like american cemeteries these are not maintained. When I share the pictures with you, you will understand the totally different feeling you get when you are in that cemetery. The headstones are all weathered and leaning, weeds cover everything and many you can't read the inscription. It gives a powerful image of "ashes to ashes and dust to dust". The ghetto in Lodz was 1-1/2 miles by 2 miles and in this small area there were at least 200,000 people. The strange thing is that besides the cemetery, most of the old building were destroyed in the war and where the original buildings were are Soviet style high rises.
In the town square which I had my first meeting with a Roma. She would not take no for an answer. Dark and strikingly pretty she and her baby were all that you would imagine a gypsy to be.
After the ghetto we made our way to the transport station in Lodz! As you turn the corner you are face to face with a large smoke stack and the inscription is "Thou shall not murder" The directness of the statement stops you in your tracks. You continue to look to your right and a large wall with the years 1940-1945
follow you as you make your way to the train station. There are three original box cars. You enter the boxcar made for thirty feeling the 150 that were typically in a car. what made it poinent was the laughter of a 5 year old girl who had ridden her bike to the memorial with her mom. The contrast between the sound of her laughter and being in the car was unforgetable.
Then we went to Warsaw where we spent the day.
One more thing about Lodz, it was a tough town, my might describe it as american working class town. The people looked rough, stout,and serious. When you are out and about in the city you are an object of interest, but not friendliness. There is seldom a smile or acknowledgment. When we finally arrived in Warsaw that night it was 9:00pm and we were exhausted.

Warsaw in the day is not at all what you might think. The city it's self was destroyed by the Germans as the Russians approached the city. So the buildings you see today are mostly Soviet style. Hugh apartment buildings, some dull grey, others in what seems as an attempt express individuality are painted in what may seem Miami like, pinks, so are orange, bright yellow. They all have a post war clean line architecture. So as you travel the city it takes imagination to imagine that this city is close to a 1000 years old. We went to visit the famous Warsaw ghetto and and found ourselves in the mist of high rise apartments. The major events in the ghetto were observed by memorial only not by standing buildings that spoke of the history.
Within the ghetto the were approximately 450,000 people. At the Jewish Historical institute we saw a film that consisted of archival film from the ghetto. The Warsaw Getto is the title. The reality in this film makes you look away. The truth in black and white is more powerful than any words spoken. The website of the institute is www.jhi.pl You might be able to order the film. The content is for adults, but you could use clips in the classroom.

As we traveled from ghetto memorial to ghetto memorial it was crazy to be at the transport memorial for the Warsaw ghetto and see in billboards across the street advertisements for the Jonas Bros and Eric Clapton's upcoming concerts. It does a real number on your brain.

One ghetto memorial was at a old soccer field. This is where Jews were brought to a shot by the hundreds. There were pictures of post war excavations present. This field has heard many cries, but for many different reasons.

Heros of the ghetto like Janusz Korczak who ran an orphanage stay with his children in the ghetto, had the opportunity to leave them when they were ordered for deportation but wouldn't.


There is so much more that could be told, but sleep calls.