My Visit to Poland

You are going to Poland? My friends and clients asked as they looked at me with a questioning gaze.  I could almost hear the voices behind their expressions saying “of all the places…”

Now that I am back, I am asked, How was Poland? 

I am not sure how to really answer this. 

But I have come up with a new name for the entire experience- Trauma Tourism. 

Poland forced me into a history lesson- not the obvious history that defines Poland from 1939- 1945. Most of us know this history, but that history was only five years of its almost 1000 year history. 

My ignorance of Poland was astounding. 

But what defines Poland, for Jews especially, is that five years because it was so devastating. Non Jewish Poles are in a bind. Relying on the tourism that supports their beautiful, yet painful country with the desire to move forward and talk about something else in the balancing act of having to perpetually reckon and acknowledge why people want to visit in the first place.

Poland has a lot of historical trauma, and so does Judaism. But Poland also has an incredible resilience, a grit, a life force, like my Jewish roots. The emotions were palpable. 

Before WW2, there were over 3 million Jewish people living in Poland. In Warsaw alone, every 3rd resident was Jewish. Poland had the largest Jewish population next to America. Prior to 1939, For almost 1000 years, Jews lived among their Christian neighbors. 

Not that this was one big rosy fest, but Poland became a safe place for Jews in the 1300’s since King Casimir III The Great welcomed them when they had once again been expelled from yet another place, this time Western Europe for violent antisemitism. This welcoming atmosphere continued through the next 300 years as the successor kings continued to make Poland a safe place for Jews. 

By the 1500’s 80% of the worlds Jewish population lived in Poland. 

These Kings were smart. They knew the economic possibilities of bringing more Jewish people into their communities, after all Jews are one of the most adaptive and resilient groups of people in history. They have always been survivors having to figure out how to make a living while they were so often not allowed in professions that their non Jewish neighbors were allowed. Jews in business are one result. Maybe they couldn’t own property, but they could give loans. Maybe they couldn’t attend schools and become academics, but they could bake bread, open stores to sell goods to their neighbors and so much more to those stories of success. 

When Poland was invaded by Russia in the late 18th century, this somewhat peaceful coexistence changed as Poland completely disappeared from the map from 1795- 1918. 

Before I went to Poland, I never realized that there was no country called Poland during that time. Jews fell under the rule of the Russian empire stripping them of their rights and confined them to one area called the Pale of Settlement subjecting them to state sanctioned pogroms.

This was the exact time my Great Grandparents were living in Minsk, which would have been the Pale of Settlement. 
The term pogroms has always equaled My Great Grandparents. I never made any sort of Polish connection with their need to escape Russia in the late eighteen hundred and early 1900s. Even though they weren’t Polish, I became more deeply connected to their plight while I was there. 

Poland was no longer its own country during that time so the borders that used to be Poland were all part of the larger part of Russia. When Poland finally regained its independence after WW1, Jewish citizens were legally granted equal rights, and even though Jewish life in Warsaw and Krakow was vibrant and active, there was rising hostility. 

This is where I landed on my trip to Poland post WW2 history. I thought I was going for my main point of interest, Auschwitz. I quickly learned that Poland was so much more than five years of time I thought I was visiting. 

I walked about 6-8 miles a day, traversing streets that Jews and their non Jewish neighbors have walked on since the 1500’s. I walked on pavement that had been pounded down and rebuilt upon post war communism on top of mass graves. Death under my feet in every square inch of the places I visited during a stifling heat wave of 100 degree temperatures.

It felt silly to even mention the weather as my fellow Jewish travelers moved in and out of the luxury bus that our tour required for all of its movement. I found myself grateful for the bougey bus- another surprise of the hundreds of surprises on this 10 day trip as we walked together inside gas chambers in silence.  

My feet touched sacred ground outside at the ghettos where I saw the remnants of the wall that was built to keep Jews away from the rest of the population. I saw the crimes of humanity. I felt the trauma underneath my feet and it is still reverberating inside my body. 

From a vibrant community of over 3 million Jews to today, under 10,000.

10,000 who identify as Jews. An exact count is difficult to pinpoint because many Polish citizens are still discovering hidden Jewish ancestry that their families concealed during World War II and the Soviet era. 

Why go to Poland is one question, why I can’t wait to go back is another that I am still reckoning with.