The March: Bearing Witness to Hope 2012: on to warsaw!

early this morning we left krakow and headed to warsaw. along the way we stopped at a jewish cemetery that had a memorial to 42 children who were murdered. we made a few bathroom stops and a stop for lunch and then finally arrived in warsaw. we visited several memorials. one was at a location where many jewish transports were made to treblinka. another was for janusz korczak, who ran the orphanage in the ghetto. korczak was given the chance to save himself when the children were being deported but he decided to go with them instead of abandoning them, and thus suffered their inevitable fate. next, we traveled to the ghetto. the ghetto can not really be seen as it was burned to the ground. however, a few pieces of wall still exist. while our group was gathered by one of the walls and old man came out of his house and begun speaking to me in polish. obviously, i don't know polish, but we were fortunate enough to have survivor sally wasserman with us who was able to translate. they held hands and he told her how happy he was to see us there and he went inside his house. he came back out a minute later with a huge book on his hand and pointed to the 5 on it, symbolizing that it was the 5th volume. as he opened the book we saw hundreds of signatures and messages and multiple languages from many countries. it was the coolest thing. he asked us to sign his book as well. he has lived there since 1950 and has been the unofficial caretaker for the memorial within the ghetto. for the last 40 years he has been doing these books. the man is 91 years old. he said sometimes he comes out to see people and they won't talk to him or sign his book and it upsets him. he was the absolute sweetest. something much of our group has struggled with thus far was seeing life go on around these places of tragedy as if nothing ever happened and all has been forgotten. this old man proved to me otherwise. he gave me hope, and for that i am thankful. next, we traveled to mila 18, which was the headquarters of the jewish resistance for the warsaw ghetto uprising. we listened to the story and then visited the memorial. the memorial is actually on top of their graves. i placed a stone on top and took some time to reflect. we then traveled to our new hotel, had a little time to get settled in, and then met up for dinner at the hotel. following dinner we were extremely privileged to listen to the story of a righteous gentile during world war two who housed 15 jews in her house for 2 years and 8 months during nazi occupation of poland. this woman was truly inspiring, giving me more hope for mankind. to put your own life as well as your family's lives on the line in order to save someone elses is absolutely remarkable. after dinner one night before i left for this trip i sat my dad down to talk to him about something that had been troubling me. i told him that if i were in that situation would a be a bystander or a righteous gentile. honestly, i don't know if i would risk my families lives to save a stranger, but listening to this woman speak was remarkable. for the rest of the night we debriefed and i hung out with my new friends!
-jill