Back to Poland
I've been wanting to share this story for eleven years. With life's hectic schedule I put it off again and again, but now with the help of my summer intern Malkie Scarf, we finally found the time to write it all down.
It was the year 2000. I was 26 years old, already a Judaica metal artist inspired by maternal grandparents who were survivors of the Holocaust. I was invited to go to Poland. My trip to Poland was a domino-effect initiated by my cousin Tamara Mielnik. A gifted modern dancer and Yiddish singer with a school in Jerusalem, she was asked to go on the March of the Living and perform in Yiddush at various points for the Israeli students. She was also to walk in silence and remembrance from Aushwitz to Birkenau—about 3 miles. Adverse to the idea of going through this powerful but emotionally terrifying journey alone, she asked my mother to join her in the experience. My mother, also wary of doing the intense trip, invited me to come as well.
After a few day of sightseeing in Warsaw, it was time to travel to Krakow and then the dreaded concentration camps. On the long bus ride to Auschwitz, just awaiting the March, I could feel stress in every cell of my body culminating. My mom had a migraine and stayed back at the hotel to rest. (She joined us later at the camp. It was an emotional reunion in such a terrible place.)
Anyway, as Tamara and I along with around 7,000 international students made the journey to the camp, I was shivering cold, even though it was warm outside. To walk silently the paths where many had stepped to their demise, to look at the death factories and structures in Auschwitz where our ancestors and my family members had barely avoided this horrific end, was excruciatingly difficult. [Below is the view of Birkinau as we walked in from a distance.]
Inside the decaying camp barracks, there were exhibits showing huge piles of belongings from the inmates, including shoes, prosthetics, eye glasses, luggage and more. To the dismay of the Israeli group, none of the exhibits had any descriptions in Hebrew -the central language of the Jewish people. They were written in Polish, English and German. Also disturbing was that the grounds included a bookstore which had the feel of a gift shop. We felt that was inappropriate in the setting of unimaginable suffering that this facility represents.
[The official documents registering Tamara's mother in Auschwitz]
As part of our journey into our roots in Poland, and despite our emotional exhaustion from the March of the Living, Tamara and my mother and I decided to set out to the town where my grandparents lived before the Holocaust. Though they had previously urged us not to even visit, my grandparents had drawn out a map of Chmielnick, their hometown nearby the central Polish city of Kielce. While we were there, we were able to view the official papers that documented their residency in the town. Looking at these printed relics of time, it hit me: this is the place and this is my grandparents' (and my) history.
Once we arrived in Chmielnik we walked around, slightly lost and not knowing what to expect. Again, feeling an intense rush of emotions we wandered around town. Before the Holocaust, the town used to hold over ten-thousand Jews, and now few Jewish people were scattered about Poland, most of them now in Krakow. From the depictions on the map my grandparents drew for us, we were able to locate where the town center was, as well as the old shul from my grandparents' time that, weathered from disarray and desertion, still stood. This synagogue had been constructed in the 1600's at the same time the main shul in Krakow was built. However, it was locked, so we could only peer through the open window spaces and look at the shul from outside. We sobbed.
[My mom, my cousin Tamara and I outside the old shul]
I had been told numerous, beautiful and tragic stories of Chmielnik and of my family members that survived the Holocaust. When my great-grandmother was a prisoner in Auschwitz, she hid when the rest of the inmates were gathered for during a death-march. She probably wouldn't have survived the unforgivable cold and fatigue of the march.
After three days, she arose from hiding and trekked on foot back to her hometown. After my grandfather was liberated from Buchenwald at the end of the war, he too walked back to Chmielnick. Imagine walking on the street, a familiar road that used to be paved with familiar stone, that the Nazis had now replaced with the tombstones of deceased Jews.
As your feet gently tap on stony deaths, the same desolation that surrounded you for six years, you see your mother for the first time in years. This is what happened to my grandfather and his mother, both of whom had had no certainty of the other's survival for the last two years of the Holocaust. Every time my grandfather told me this story he would tear up. As you can imagine, they couldn't bear to stay in their town still imprinted with hatred, they had to move on. Besides some Polish people had bought the house from them beforehand, so it was time to go.
With a mix of apprehension and curiosity, my mother and Tamara and I found this house. We knocked and an older woman opened the door. From her age we knew she was part of the wartime generation. As we began to realize she spoke no English, we were at a loss on how to communicate who we were, but soon after she had motioned for us to wait while she called to the house. Her nephew Adam came out. He had gone on exchange to Canada, so he spoke English! He acted as translator between us and his aunt. Finally, we could communicate our story and the significance of this place.
[Gathering in front of the old Klienhandler house]
To our surprise, they welcomed us into the house for tea and cookies. Additionally, they showed us around to see all the parts of the house, including the back where the candle making machine shop had been. The passion for metal smithing runs in my blood, for my family in Chmielnik were renowned as crafts-people. I was thrilled to spend some time in the space that had been their shop.
Plus, the family across the street had found and saved a pair of mis-matched candleholders buried in the front of their house. We were shocked that they saved them-- it seemed for us. After the trip, Tamara contributed them to Yad Vashem, the prominent Holocaust museum in Israel.
[The saved candle holders]
After talking over tea and cookies, we were all grateful and amazed at the connections we made with these people and this place. Adam and his uncle were especially kind. They wanted us to be able to visit the inside of the shul, knowing it would have incredible meaning for us.
Adam's uncle, in addition to being a painter and artist, was the head of the beautification committee of Chmielnik. He was planning to build a memorial wall out of the Jewish tombstones that the Nazis had used to pave the roads. He also had keys to the shul and connections with city hall. We were thrilled to learn the following morning that he set up a date for us to meet the mayor of the town and discuss opening up the synagogue for us to see. Tamara had previously contacted a professor at a university in Kielce, an individual who had studied pre-wartime Chmielnick in tremendous depth, and she had joined this spontaneous meeting with the mayor to help with interpreting.
With great respect for us, the Uncle and mayor let us into the shul. They waited outside as we entered.
[Inside the shul. You can still see the Lions of Judah painted up by the round window and Hebrew writing towards the bottom.]
Approaching the shul, we could still see the bullet holes on the outside of the building marking the Nazis' presence. During World War II, Chmielnick, like countless other small Jewish shtetls (small towns), was turned into a ghetto by the Nazi powers. Before the ghetto started liquidating its inhabitants, primarily sending Jews to their deaths in Treblinka, all the prominent Jewish members of the town were put in a wooden shul that was burned down with them in it. Needless to say, it was disturbing being in this dusty and eery place that had at one time housed such wonderful, joyous and spiritual events, that is now in ruins.
Adam's uncle explained to us that during communist rule, the shul was used as a storage facility, and since then had been abandoned. Though derelict and dirty, we could still see the marble floor under all the dust, and some of the Jewish imagery was still evident on the walls. He told us that there had been talk of renovating the shul and making it into an art center/memorial. I'm not sure if that has happened, but we'll try contacting them, and see what happens.....
After witnessing the darkness and desolation of the synagogue, we went with the Kielce professor and her daughter to find our family name in the city's ledger books. Even though we felt the pain of the past still resonating inside us, we felt the comfort and care of the community willing to listen and help us out. As we got into the taxi cab to go back to the hotel, the song "Human Touch" by Bruce Springsteen was playing on the radio. My mom and I teared up.
[My mom, the professor's daughter, my cousin Tamara, the professor, and me.]
In the last days of the trip, we ventured to Lodz, the city where my grandma grew up. Even though there was so much compassion coming our way from the people we met in Poland. In Lodz and in Krakow there were dozens, if not more, examples of anti-semitic graffiti like the one photographed below.
While the charming characteristics of the townspeople -such as the bell-boy of the hotel we stayed at expressing the nonsensical "hey-shoop!" indication of moving an object that my grandfather used to say- made us feel at home, others in Poland meanwhile drew Jewish stars hanging on nooses or tagged hateful messages for the public to see.
All in all though, our trip was incredible. We were thrilled beyond words to have been honored by the Chmielnik towns people. The trip boosted my sense of the possibility of peace and healing. From there, I would of course continue to develop my art and spiritual sense in unity.
Aimee, this needs to be shared. Perhaps it can be published in the "J" or elsewhere. We'll talk about it when we're together.
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I was touched by your account of your visit in Poland. It is more personal than any I have heard or read because of your grandparents. I worked for 12 years at a Catholic parish named for Maximilian Kolbe. He was a Polish Catholic priest who was killed at Aushwitz on August 14, 1941. Another Polish man was to be killed as part of a decimation resulting from an escape. The man cried out, "What will become of my family." Maximilian stepped forward and offered himself in place of the other man. He was put in a box to die and was injected with carbolic acid days later when he was still alive. A Holocoust survivor at the Holocoust Museum in Houston told me that Maximilian Kolbe is regarded as a "righteous Gentile." The man whose life was spared by Maximilian's sacrifice visited the parish from Poland while I was working there. He was 95 years old and had come to this country for medical treatment. He told his story through an interpreter. We were allowed to pass by him and touch him. I touched his shoulder and saw the numbers on his arm. I was so touched by his account of the years at Aushwitz before the liberation in 1945. I feel a closeness and connection to those who died there and to those who survived. We must never forget. Thank you for your account of Back to Poland.
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Aimee,
Thank you for sharing your experience in visiting Poland, the land of your heritage. It reinforces the fact that we must never forget what happened so long ago.
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Thank you for sharing your moving article. I could relate since my family was also from Poland. Many of my family died in the crematoria. I too was able to visit Poland and the address my mother gave me for my parents' apartment. My son-in-law also found the grave of my grandfather in the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. Every memory is worth sharing.
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Beautiful tribute to your heritage, your art, & your journey. Inspiring story--to perceive pain--yet to be uplifted. To walk a path of darkness, & find light. It truly is significant and representative of your work as an artist. Thank you for sharing a story that helps me to understand your intentions. May you be recognized for what you are, so that your vision of universal acceptance and inner harmony can be brought to fruition through those fortunate enough to participate in this journey with you. May the message and meaning of your Mezuzahs span far beyond the White House, into all households, so that people can experience their vibrational healing & constantly be reminded to stay at one with the loving, all-encompassing energy of the great spirit. Thank you. k
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