Poland Trip Midreshet Lindenbaum 2013: Hell and Hope

Majdanek, Concentration Camp

It's everything I feared it would be. As we drive by the outside perimeter of the camp I physically felt my heart clench and my stomach drop. This was the first camp I had seen that hadn't been completely destroyed. The barracks and the barbed wire fences are still standing. This was the camp that could be operational in 20 minutes time. This was every Jew's worst nightmare.

As we sat at the entrance memorial, Rav Brown gave us a basic overview of the camp. It was considered by those who were there as the worst of all the camps. Sadism and corruption were the principles the guards lived by. The camp was run by the SS and employed by German criminals, who were given the job as an opportunity to redeem themselves. The camp was classified as a chaotic hell with very little organization and brutal guards. Only Jews had selection, the rest of the prisoners only worked. The camp was extremely close to Lublin and the people knew about it. Their knowledge served as a dual weapon for the Nazis because its location both sent a message to the Poles of the city that if they weren't careful they would end up in the camp AND tortured prisoners because they saw freedom was so close yet utterly unattainable. The prisoners were brutalized by other inmates and the guards, many of whom were female SS who were often inebriated. Many eyewitness accounts describe the female guards as cruel and extremely abusive. The female prisoners survived better than the men did and were shocked when they saw the men, who were in a far worse condition than they were. In 1944, the Poles already started taking victims' accounts of the crimes committed in the camp. The entrance monument was built before the idea of people coming to visit the camps was even thought of. The opening monument represents what the experience of Majdanek. You walk down a sleep slope, unable to stop your inevitable descent. Then you walk through a dark tunnel, with rocks jutting out from both sides at you. Finally you arrive at a staircase. At first, it appears to be a solid wall with no way out; you can't even see the sky. But with strong steps up the steep staircase, you are able to rise out of Mydanek and see the sky once more.

"Why was the barrack of the bathhouse partly wood with a brick ending?" This was the question that Rav Brown posed to us as we made our way from the square where families were separated from each other. Men to the left, women to the right. It took me a minute to clear my head from the images flashing through my mind of screaming women latching on to their men as the SS pulled them away. I took a closer look at the bathhouse with its dual material facade. At first I didn't understand, maybe the brick addition was a building project to keep inmates busy. As we approached the door it hit me like a pound of bricks. Gas chamber. They needed the brick to keep the fumes in. Swallowing my fear, I plunged into the dark abyss that housed that which I feared most from the time of the Holocaust.

The SS soldiers walked the Jews into the bathhouses and made them strip off their clothes. Their hair was shaven. Down one hall was a clean shower where they bathed and dipped in disinfectant. The other led to death. Seeing a gas chamber for the first time was traumatizing. I could envision the people packed together expecting the mercy of a shower and some clothes. But the Nazis were incapable of feeling; they deceived until the very end. The gas chambers are small enclosed spaces made of brick to keep the fumes inside. This one was powered by an engine. As I gazed inside, tremendous sobs shook my body. I was numb, frozen in place. I didn't want to look but I couldn't move. I could see the people inside, coughing, choking, and finally falling. Dead. Done. Finished. I could see mothers desperately clinging to their children during these final seconds, men embracing their brothers, and the poor souls who met their end totally and utterly alone. I cannot even fathom the mere mass of people who lost their lives here. Even hugs from Ateret or Estee could console my sobbing. As I sit now and write this from outside the building, tears still stream down my face. Sobs still shake my body, my hands are trembling. How could this have happened? How could a person with parents and siblings and spouses and children be capable of committing such atrocities against mankind? How could someone even be capable of developing such an idea? As I look now upon the walls of the bathhouse, my only sense of comfort is the Israeli flag wrapped around my shoulders. This security blanket proves that these sadistic, inhumane, disgusting excuses for people did not win.

As we walked out if the second barrack, my stomach flipped at the sight of the guard tower looking into the barb wired field. We were given a page to read on the way to the third barrack about shoes. At first I didn't understand the significance. When we first walked into the third barrack I thought it was huge piles of chopped wood that lined the walls and formed three walkways. Then it hit me. Shoes. Shoes everywhere. They were all different ones: large, sturdy men's boots, smaller, dainty, slightly heeled women's shoes, and the tiny booties of children. They engulfed me. Everywhere I looked were shoes. And then another realization hit me: their owners were no more.

As I walked into the third field area with Annie, my stomach dropped yet again. There was barbed wire everywhere. There were two fences for double security with guard towers placed along the perimeter. I entered a barrack where the beds were still standing. Three levels of beds one over the other lines the walls and the center of the barrack. I could not imagine how five hundred people could be shoved into this cramped space. There was no personal space. People slept on the floor for lack of space. Lice was always rampant among the prisoners.

As I walked through the rest of Field III to the other side of the barbed wire, I realized how lucky I was to be walking through the fence to the outside on my own terms and healthy. I was so lucky. I discussed this idea with Annie as we made our way up the road and we decided that it was also only fitting that dozens of crows flew over the camp and congregated on the field. These black birds were a reminder of the deaths that occurred here. Then we saw the sky. It was a cloudy gray shroud that encompassed all. But even though we couldn't see the sun, there was still light. Another symbol for hope in even the most hellish of places.

When we finally arrived at the monument at the edge of the camp, I was overwhelmed by the massive gray structure. Beyond that were pits where Jews were gunned down during the "Harvest." When I gazed inside the memorial, I was so nauseated. As I felt my eyes pricking with tears again, I turned to Rav Kaplan and begged, "Please tell me that's not what I think it is." The somber look in his eyes told me I was right. Inside the dome was a giant pit of ashes from the bodies burned in the camp's crematorium. Rav Brown explained that the ashes were found outside of the crematorium after the war and were moved here. The dome had an inscription that read, "Our fate is your warning." I felt sick.

Our last stop was the Crematorium. At that point, I had no tears left. As I passed through the halls and finally entered the room where the ovens were, I was furious. A fiery red anger coursed through my veins. How could this have been allowed to happen? To MY people?! My anger ebbed a little during the last few minutes in the crematorium when we sang a beautiful song all together called נר תמיד. The last lines were especially appropriate.

נר תמיד אקח לי את אש העקדה ובמזבח"

אקריב לו את נפשי היחידה.״

It spoke of the everlasting faith we should have in G-d and the sacrifices we give in his honor.

Majdanek Museum