Wygoda Forest, Poland
"The blood of your brother cries out to me from the ground." Bereshit
I walked the forest path that many confused Jewish families had walked over sixty years ago. The difference: I did so by my eon will and I knew what waited for me at the end of the road. This clearing was one of the first places that a mass killing had occurred in Poland. As we walked up the path we were given a story to read, an account of the atrocities that had occurred here. When I finished I looked up and was taken aback by the huge monument there to commemorate this loss. The Jews of a nearby town were brought in the middle of the night, told the strip down, and were thrown into a huge pit. Many suffocated. Those who lived were burned alive when boiling water that was poured into the limestone pit. Rav Brown told us that that was one of the first killings, and thereby not systematic enough for the Nazis, yimach shemam. It was too messy, too unorganized. They didn't yet know how to kill and this was one of their first efforts, but it wasn't effective enough. The death of an entire town of Polish Jews was. not. effective. enough. Fury raged through me. How dare they belittle their murder. How dare they deem the loss of Jewish life as a murder that could have been carried out better. As we stopped to say tehilim for these tehorim by the monument erected for them, anguish coursed through my veins. So many had died here, but it was only the beginning. As I walked back after placing a rock on the gravestone, I was almost paralyzed with shock. I realized that I was making a trip that none of these Jews ever made. I had never been so ashamed of myself, in my boots, sweater, coat, hand and foot warmers, hat, gloves, scarf. I was so privileged, so lucky, and I had never even given it a second thought. I had never truly tasted from tragedy, and this realization pierced through me as my heart reached out towards my brethren who would never walk back down the forest path with me.
Memorial for the victims of the Wygoda Forest Massacre
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