(no subject)
"The way that my mother Malka showed that she loved me was that she didn’t take me to Auschwitz. The way that my father showed that he loved me is he found a stranger and begged her to rescue his three daughters….How will you show this word that needs it so that you love it? How will you be the voice for those who don’t have one? How will you take care of the violated, the abused, the victimized? How will you show your love?”
-Sylvia Guttman, May 28th, 2006. Warsaw, Poland.
I feel the need to go back to Poland. I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do about it. I'm not sure what I think it would solve to go and stand in the ruins again. I don't think it would make any difference at all in the world. But I need to see again that there are still daisies blooming outside the crematoria at Majdanek, that songbirds still make their homes in the trees around Treblinka, that on Friday nights in Krakow old Jewish women still join hands with young Jewish boys and sing the ancient Sabbath songs. Dr. Cary told me as we got on the plane that Poland would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Maybe so, but what I saw and heard and felt and smelled...yes, smelled, the gas chambers at Aushwitz still smell of Zyklon-B poison gas....none of it will ever let go of me. None of it is ever very far from the front of my mind. I never WANT to forget what I saw...but sleep hasn't come so easily since May.
-Sylvia Guttman, May 28th, 2006. Warsaw, Poland.
I feel the need to go back to Poland. I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do about it. I'm not sure what I think it would solve to go and stand in the ruins again. I don't think it would make any difference at all in the world. But I need to see again that there are still daisies blooming outside the crematoria at Majdanek, that songbirds still make their homes in the trees around Treblinka, that on Friday nights in Krakow old Jewish women still join hands with young Jewish boys and sing the ancient Sabbath songs. Dr. Cary told me as we got on the plane that Poland would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Maybe so, but what I saw and heard and felt and smelled...yes, smelled, the gas chambers at Aushwitz still smell of Zyklon-B poison gas....none of it will ever let go of me. None of it is ever very far from the front of my mind. I never WANT to forget what I saw...but sleep hasn't come so easily since May.