I Was Too Scared to Visit Poland. I Was Wrong.
Notes from a Recent Traveler
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
For years, I avoided going to Poland. I was too scared.
I grew up in the Jewish day school system, hearing Holocaust stories every Yom HaShoah Remembrance Day. And, every Yom HaShoah, I would have the nightmares that go with it. I thought that going to see the concentration camps, that actually breathing the air that was breathed by those who survived (and those who did not) would leave me sobbing in a puddle.
I was wrong.
Two years ago, I went to Austria for a writing workshop. Flights being what they are, I had a day to kill in Munich. And I thought, it’s time. I’m 53 years old. I’m brave enough to go to Dachau by myself.
I booked a tour off of Trip Advisor and walked 17 blocks to the concentration camp tour meeting place. (I also booked a spa treatment for when I got back to the hotel, just prophylactically.)
I was the only Jewish person on the tour. The British guide was a little excited about this, and, gesturing to my Chai necklace, said (more than once) “and this is where your people…” indicating the crematorium.
Never again. Never again will I visit a concentration camp as the only Jew.
When I got home, my husband signed us up for a Jewish community trip to Poland which was set to leave on October 9th. As in, two days after October 7th. It was cancelled. Not only was the tour guide unable to leave Israel less than 72 hours after the war broke out, but also, a tour bus of Jews was attacked in Egypt and there was no guarantee they could keep us safe.
They rescheduled the trip a few more times until the stars finally aligned. In mid-September 2024, my husband, some of our closest friends, and I woke up in a hotel in Warsaw and boarded the bus to Majdanek. To Belzec. To Birkenau. To Auschwitz.
When we were standing in Auschwitz, the tour guide, who had been able to leave Israel, pulled out his iPad. He FaceTimed a survivor, someone who had stood right where we were standing, starving and shivering and caked in mud. The tears rolled down my face but they were not tears of sadness and desperation, as I’d expected. Instead, what rolled down my cheeks were tears of awe at the resilience and strength that this gentleman and so many others showed in the face of such evil and destruction.
From there, we went to Krakow, where the Jewish Community Center was attempting to rebuild what once stood. They now have Hebrew lessons, a day care center, and communal dinners. They have posters advertising upcoming programming, like any other JCC in North America.
I was scared to go to Poland because I thought it would be too dark and too depressing. But it was the perfect time. Along with the lessons of evil, the profoundly disturbing history of destruction, and antisemitism worse than I could ever have imagined, I learned something else: there is always hope.
Amy was on Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books with Zibby to discuss her book I Wanted Fries with That: How to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Need and The Art of Complaining Effectively. Listen here.
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
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Kol hacavod !
This left me wanting more - more insight to your feelings more details about your connection - thank you for sharing well done!