The Krakow Event: Tour to Auschwitz/Birkenau

[lizzytysh]

Goldstein ~

Thank you for your beautiful and meaningful posting. I was moved to do some edits in mine after I read it... never meaning to forget our American Indians... and, in one way or another, they all constitute wholesale annihilation.

It seems the consensus [though my lodging partners have yet to return] is that the day[s] after will be the vote. Even though it gave me a deeper understanding of some exhibits and sites I saw in Berlin, it created an odd 'disconnect' between me and the overall frivolity and fun that mark the Events. Going home, with time to more deeply reflect afterward when alone seems more fitting to me.


~ Lizzy

[ladydi]

Bob,

What a deeply moving post. Thank you so much. What wondrous and curious creatures are we humans. We are capable of incredible acts of self sacrifice. We can develop minds capable of discovering cures for illnesses and scientific advancements. We can create masterpieces of art and literature and music. However, throughout the centuries we have also been capable of unimaginable violence, corruption, and total debasement of the soul. Even in our lifetimes (well, for some of us) we only have to look at Cambodia, Rwanda, the Kurds, the Gulags, apartheid in South Africa....and as you mentioned Bob, our own treatment of blacks in this country.

Lizzy,

I think I agree that perhaps the visit to Asuchwitz/Birkenau should be towards the end..after the LC events; however, I'll leave that in your hands or the hands of the arrangers.

Diana

[goldstei]

Thanks, Lizzy and my neighbor and friend, Diana, for your kind comments. Along the lines of what Diana said, in my photo albums from my European trip, I have one page which has a picture of some stunning achievement of German art right next to a picture of the entrance to Dachau with its notorious "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes you freedom) slogan over the entrance.

For the van trip, I agree that the day after would make the most sense. I'm looking forward to meeting you there, Lizzy, and thanks for all of your efforts!

Bob

[MaryB]

Kind of on the same note, I just watched a movie called 'Deception' (rented from Family Video), fairly new. It is based on the true story of the Bielski brothers and all their work in keeping a community of Jews alive in the forest in Poland during the Holocaust. I won't go into the details, but it is truly excellent!

[kaz]

Silly question time ... my husband Tony will be coming to Krakow with me. He doesn't want to take part in the Event as such but he would like to join us for the Auschwitz/Birkenau trip. Should I register him for the event so that he can do so? Or can he join the trip as a "guest"? I don't mind paying an additional €100 registration fee but it seems a shame to maybe deprive someone else of the opportunity to join the event given that numbers are so limited.

Wendy

Wendy,
I don`t think it`s silly . There`s no need to register your husband if he only wants to go to Auschwitz.
The cost of the Auschwitz trip is not included in the registration fee.
Kaz,

[Mabeanie1]

kaz - thank you. I was hoping that would be the answer. Don't worry, I know the trip is not included in the registration fee.

I agree with the others that have said that the trip should take place after the Event. I would also vote for a full day trip if the advice of those that know is that you need a full day to appreciate the site. With this amount of advance planning, we will be able to make sure that we do not book our return flights too early.

I could not tell you why I want to do the trip other than I know I must if I get the opportunity. It's the same feeling as drove me to queue up for hours to pay my respects at Ground Zero when we visited New York a few short months after 9/11. (I worked in the City of London back then and 9/11 was very close to home. A work colleague lost his brother in the towers and the people on the dealing desk in Treasury had frequent dealings with banking staff there.) I know I will be upset - God knows, it was hard enough visiting the Ghetto memorial in Warsaw - but I have to do it.

Wendy

[martali]

Speaking about the Jewish children fate and sufferings during the WWII in Poland I think you might be interested to read about Irena Sendler a Polish woman who was the "Mother of the Children of the Holocaust".
There is her story in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler
and a film based on the 2005 biography novel by Anna Mieszkowska
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Courag ... na_Sendler

Marta

[ladydi]

Martali,

Thank you so much for sharing with us the information about Irena Sendler. I remember reading her obituary last year and being so moved by her life. I will now check with my bookstore for her biography and if they don't have it, then I'm sure Amazon will. What a beautiful brave soul. As well as never forgetting the Holocaust, we should also never forget people like Irena Sendler, and the many who gave so much and risked their lives daily to save others.

All the best,
Diana

[goldstei]

for the van trip, am i assuming that we are talking about august 9? knowing that would allow us with limited time to begin to solidify our trip plans, while still allowing those who wanted to stay longer to do so.
sounds like you are pretty definitely on board now Diana, yes?
Bob

[ladydi]

Hi Bob,

Absolutely! Right now planning on spending 6 nights in Krakow. It will be the first time since high school (and that's a lonnnnng time ago) that I've taken a summer vacation!

[lizzytysh]

Dear Martali ~

As soon as I get a chance, I'll look further into what you've posted. The cover itself conveys so much. These are such incredible stories of astonishing and humbling courage. Guardian angels on earth. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Goldstein ~ I believe they're open 7 days/week, but I'll check just in case. For your purposes [and probably mine, too], I'd say yes on the 9th. Maybe, we can get a consensus. Hopefully, Mirek and the other organizers won't schedule something else on that day [so often the case] or maybe what they schedule will relate to Auschwitz-Birkenau for others, as well.


~ Lizzy

[Greg Ross]

This is not an admission I would normally make, but I feel I am amongst friends - the very thought of Auschwitz fills me with horror and dread.

After Dachau, I vowed NEVER to visit such a monstrosity again. I have also fallen to my knees with the weight of the dead at Culloden (Scotland). Mark Knopfler wrote so perfectly, “And high on the wind, the highland drums begin to roll. And something from the past just comes and stares into my soul.” I don’t know whether others have been overwhelmed with tears and sorrow and a feeling of utter despair, but I come away from such places exhausted, as pleading voices recede in my head.

I don’t want to visit Auschwitz, I don’t want to think about it, but I know that to visit Krakow and not face such unspeakable evil would be in some way a denial, so yes, I will go with you all, in the name of -

[hydriot]

but I know that to visit Krakow and not face such unspeakable evil would be in some way a denial

Rubbish. Be a refusenik and join me visiting Bedzin instead. The six million murdered hideously are a historical fact, and none of us need to go through this dreadful self-flagellation, so long as we are all united in our determination that such a thing must never be allowed to happen again.

On the single day of 1 July 1916, Britain suffered 60,000 casualties, of which 20,000 were dead. I commemorate their senseless slaughter with a thoughtful silence on 11 November each year, but I don't have to actually visit the trenches or walk the poppy fields of Flanders and eastern France, where they were mown down by machine-gun fire as they marched forward bolt-upright, to make my remembrance of them more valid.

It is essential to keep these camps preserved to educate children, plus those few idiots who like to pretend these things never happened. But ask yourselves this: do the dead really want the living to suffer in their name?

[Womanfromaroom]

Dear Hydriot,

there is no general answer, if you ask me, as to the right or correct way to go about this, everyone has to find their personal way of responding, there are whole academic disciplines in Sociology and History dedicated to "memory places" and their function in memory culture. Personally - and being German - I would have thought of myself as trying to escape or outrun what is also the history of my people, however abominable it may be, if I had refused to go and see Auschwitz and Birkenau. If I go to see, for example, Weimar with the houses of Goethe or Schiller, I always make a point of going to Buchenwald as well, as it seems you cannot have one side of German - human! - existence without the other. And actually, for me, having been to Auschwitz made a few things immediately and soberingly clear which years and years of studying history books have not (the more I read about the holocaust, the less I "understand" it, if you know what I mean) - so for me, yes, the historian with some knowledge on the topic, and, I hope you agree with me, not a complete idiot or half-wit, it actually has helped to "understand" some general things and made me even more determined, if possible, to go against anything that seems to be persenting a danger of anything like the holocaust happening again, even if it is "only" <speaking up or becoming active in politics. I don't know, but I always think I HAVE to see for myself, to get away from the mere "bookish" approach - and if the dead have suffered what they did, how little is it to ask of me to put myself through seeing the site where it all happened?
As I have said, this is all very personal, and I would NEVER say that anyone who does not go should do so, for everyone has to find their respective approach. Which goes for you, for me, for Lizzy, for Greg - for anyone! As long as no one thinks he or she has the moral obligation to go or that it is "expected" in any way, but does it because he or she is really convinced that it is the right thing to do, it should be accepted, I suppose...

[Greg Ross]

Salutations Hydriot

I must apologise if I have not made myself clear, there is no self-flagellation on my part – I feel no sense of responsibility, other than a general dismay at what the human animal is capable of.

What I do feel, is the collective spiritual weight of the dead and here, I would certainly understand if you felt that that too was also rubbish. Perhaps the lesson of these places is tolerance of others beliefs, feelings and creeds.

I am interested that you mention Britain, I have long felt that the British, under the rule of England, are responsible for more crimes and bastardry across the world then any other race. The arrogance, disdain, sheer ignorance and violence shown to so many over so many centuries is breathtaking – the Maori, the Aboriginal, the Arab, the Indian, the Irish, the Scottish, the American Indian and so on.

As for the dead wanting the living to suffer, I suspect the same dead that caused so much suffering in our world, would continue to think that way, while, as Leonard once wrote, “Whatever makes a soldier sad, will make a killer smile.”