Today we rented a car and drove to Warsaw. Rather than taking a train, we wanted the freedom of exploring the Polish countryside by automobile. Our first stop was Sosnowiec, Vladek Spiegelman's hometown. Vladek is one of the main characters in Maus and much of the first volume of the graphic novel takes place here. We didn't stop for long, but we wanted to take pictures of the city to share with our students as we read. Our second stop was Lodz, to visit the remains and memorial to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, the second largest ghetto in World War II, established for Jews and Roma gypsies. As we drove from Krakow to Sosnowiec and on toward Lodz, I (Beth) stared out the backseat window, thinking about what it would have been like to be wandering through the Polish hills and forests searching for a place to hide, wondering if the Poles in the house across the field would take me in or turn me away. I wondered what fear the Polish Jews such as Vladek must have experienced as they wandered their homeland, fearing for their lives. I pictured the faces of all the Auschwitz prisoners in those pictures we had seen over the past two days, wondering what they survived and wondering what they didn't survive.
While we were in Lodz, we visited Survivor's Park which contains a memorial to those who helped Jews survive during the Holocaust. It was nice to see so many names, especially after being presented with the evil humans are capable of over the last two days. Outside the memorial there was a copy of a notice posted by the Nazis in cities such as Lodz that stated anyone caught helping Jews would be executed, along with their entire family. It was amazing to see how many people chose that risk in order to help their friends and neighbors. However, it is also apparent how many were afraid to do so, which is completely understandable, but I kept thinking about how important it is that we teach our students to be human beings that stand against injustice in our world.
We experienced a long day of driving and were tired at the end when we finally reached Warsaw, and I couldn't help but recognize my comfort and privilege, freely traveling across a foreign continent with nothing more than a language barrier in my way.
SIDENOTE: Thanks to my Aunt Judy, I (Allyson) recently heard about a man named Sir Nicholas Winton who helped save 669 Jewish children during WWII. When it became clear that Jewish people were in danger, he set about arranging homes in Britain for these Czechoslovakian children to find refuge in, ultimately saving them from what would most likely have been a dire fate. There's an amazing clip found here that shows some of these children meeting Sir Nicholas decades later. The author of the article writes, "We often ask why, during times of war, did people not intervene? The truth is most of us do not stir ourselves to act. We know of suffering in the world and yet continue to live our lives, go to work, take care of our families, and sleep in peace." As we continue on this learning journey, I am trying to continue asking myself that difficult yet vital question, and attempting to answer it - how am I being stirred to act?
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