Pilgrimage to Poland - Part 1

This year 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the 75th anniversary of the Jewish State of Israel’s independence. It is also the 35th anniversary of the first annual March of the Living.

In that first March of the Living, Jews from around the world descended on the city of Oświecim, Poland to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps. They walked in the same path that over one million of our people — men, women, children and babies — unbeknownst to them, made on their one-way trek from Auschwitz to the gas chambers of Birkenau.

Later Jews would be transferred by train to streamline the extermination scheme, to be slaughtered by gas if not shot along the way, cremated to ash and dumped as common trash in mass graves or washed away by the currents of nearby rivers.

Today almost all of the Nazi extermination camps have been converted to museums, and many of the original facilities have been restored because the Nazis in retreat, destroyed as much evidence of their crimes as possible, knowing that imminent defeat would bring punishment and retribution. Unfortunately, many perpetrators among the German people and local collaborators in the invaded countries of Europe ultimately escaped justice.

In April I traveled to Poland to participate in the 35th anniversary of the annual March of the Living, to visit several of the sites where Jewish people lived and thrived for over a thousand years and where they met their ultimate destruction.

This trip was like no other I have ever anticipated. I would be traveling with a group of strangers coming from different places, different stages and experiences in our lives, and yet I felt we were destined to meet, to affirm life, to enjoy each other’s company; and at the sites of our greatest tragedy to celebrate the eternal survival of the Jewish people!

Pre-trip I had several dreams of Jewish men, women and children with real faces, none of which I recognized, but with real human features none the less, running down unknown streets of unrecognized neighborhoods in no-name European towns; some carrying bags, some suit cases, and some babies and young children. Clearly, even before it began, the destination was already having an effect on me.

Ironically, the only airline flying from Orlando International Airport with one stop to Krakow, Poland was Lufthansa. I left the day after Passover arriving in Krakow Saturday evening, after a several hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany.

A quick claim of baggage, a timely taxi ride to my hotel and check into a nice but modest room after a 19-hour travel time to my destination found me exhausted from travel. I immediately fell asleep and awakened on Sunday morning to a brilliant sunny and spectacular day in the city of Krakow.

Our official tour group was not scheduled to meet until that afternoon so after breakfast I ventured out for a walk to discover that our hotel was located along the banks of the beautiful Vistula River, near a park where the trees were just returning to their greenery, as spring was beginning to make its entry into Northern Europe.

The sunshine brought with it crowds of people. There were young and old on bicycles, couples walking hand-in-hand, mothers pushing baby carriages, fathers running after toddlers. For a moment I could not help but think I had mistakenly landed in Paris and was walking along the Seine.

But this was not the Seine; this was the very river where for almost 1,000 years until 1939 young and old bicyclists, couples walking hand-in-hand, mothers pushing baby carriages and fathers chasing toddlers were Jews of Krakow enjoying the morning walk in the sunshine of a spring day. And it was in this very river, further downstream near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps, that the ashes of Jewish remains were dumped like common garbage.

I returned to my hotel to re-group, to recover my composure and to prepare to meet the group I was joining for this week of touring, marching and reflecting on the great calamity that had befallen our people in this land.

To be continued.

If you wish to comment or respond you can reach me at melpearlman322@gmail.com. Please do so in a rational, thoughtful, respectful and civil manner.

Mel Pearlman holds B.S. & M.S. degrees in physics as well as a J.D. degree and initially came to Florida in 1966 to work on the Gemini and Apollo space programs. He has practiced law in Central Florida since 1972. He has served as president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando; was a charter board member, first vice president and pro-bono legal counsel of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Central Florida, as well as holding many other community leadership positions.