[Search for users]
[Overall Top Noters]
[List of all Conferences]
[Download this site]
| Title: | BAGELS and other things of Jewish interest |
| Notice: | 1.0 policy, 280.0 directory, 32.0 registration |
| Moderator: | SMURF::FENSTER |
|
| Created: | Mon Feb 03 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1524 |
| Total number of notes: | 18709 |
1328.0. "April 19th. 1943 - April 19th. 1993" by TAVIS::JUAN () Tue Apr 20 1993 01:58
Fifty years ago, on April 19th. 1943, we would have celebrated, as we
did for millenia, the eve of Passover, the freedom from slavery.
Fifty years ago, on April 19th. 1943, the Nazi beast was preparing a
birthday present for Hitler: the destruction of the last remnants of
the Jewish Warsaw.
Poland, for some centuries, was a place where Jews florished: Rabbi's
and Hassidim, atheists and revolutionaries, writers and poets, in
Yiddish and Hebrew and Polish, mothers and children, "amcha"...
By 1939 there were about 3.5 million Jews in Poland, about 400 to 500
thousand lived in Warsaw. Thousands of Jews from the surroundings were
driven to Warsaw, where they were to meet their destiny. By April '43
remained only 50,000 Jews in Warsaw. Starvation and tifus preceded the
transports to Treblinka (that begun in July 1942), as agents of death.
This time, when the germans entered the Ghetto, they met fire from the
"Jewish Army", consisting of some 500 strong. A few carabines,
revolvers, semiautomatic guns, Molotov cocktails. The battle was very
fierce, no quarter was given, no quarter was taken. The germans
brought air support and artillery.
The defenders of the Ghetto fought for every house, for every street,
for every bunker where they did hide the remaining civilians. They
were fighting, with very few hopes. The organized battle lasted until
May 16, with pockets of resistance well over 40 days from the begining
of the uprising - the battle for the Ghetto lasted more than the
battle for Poland, for France...
The Jewish fighter's cry was: "Far undzer un ayer fraihait" (For our
and your freedom), but no-one answered their cry from the other side
of the walls. A few dozens of fighters and civilians survived.
Yes, they were only a handful of fighters. But they did stand against
one of the most powerful armies of their day. Many more Ghettos
revolted, and also the inmates in the extermination camps revolted, in
their fight for life or at least for their honour.
Five hundred fighters. Only five hundred fighters. Why were they so
few? I think that the Jews in Europe had a very long conditioning, not
to return any blow and the prevailing antisemitism and the well
concived death machine conditioned them to death.
But there is an additional factor I ask you to consider: they were not
soldiers, they were with their familes. With wives and children. With
elderly parents...
They were not soldiers, with training, with uniforms, dettached from
their beloved ones, and integrated in a fighting unit; they were
persecuted by the constant doubt: What will happen to my wife, my
child my mother if I return the blow. If I return the insult. What
will happen to my fellows, to my neighbors. Perhaps that was the
burden that tied the hands of so many, and they prefered to go to
their deaths, rather than cause more suffering to their beloved ones.
And, as I might have said before, against an enemy that wants to
destroy you by all means, the fact of trying to survive and upset the
enmy's plans, is in itself, a sublime way of heroism.
Tonight, we participated, by "the miracle" of TV, in the conmemoration
of 50 years of the insurrection of the Ghetto in Warsaw. Lech Walensa,
President of Poland, in his role as host and presiding the act,
saluted the Jewish defenders of the Ghetto and recalled that they were
Polish citizens that were persecuted for their faith and origin - if
they would have said that in 1943...
The Prime Minister of Israel said his allocution in Hebrew, bringing
in his words and person the pride of the reborn Jewish people, invited
all peoples and nations to ban wars and discrimination, and finished
with the same words millions of Jews murmured and cryed as their last
words: "Shema Israel, Adonay Elokenu, Adonay ehad."
Mr. Al Gore, Vice-President of the US, said the final words, recalling
that ..."those who plant he seeds in tears, they will gather their
fruits with songs"..., and commanding all of us to remember and tell
our children and the children of our children.
The act took place by the monument set in remembrance of the uprising
of the Warsaw ghetto, by Rapoport, in the same place where the
Umshlagplatz stood, the place from where the transports to Treblinka
departed. The Principal Chazan of the IDF then entoned the prayer of
"El Maleh Rachamim" and later said Kaddish.
I stood in front of the TV set, the eyes covered with tears, the
throat closed, and a great and awsome feeling in my chest, a kind of
mixture of sorrow and pride. Sorrow for our then, for those that were
lost in those terrible years, pride for our now, for our achievements
and hopes, and for the future...
May we stand to the memory of those 6 millions martyrs and heroes.
Juan-Carlos Kiel
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1328.1 | Maximilian Maria Kolbe | COVERT::COVERT | John R. Covert | Thu Apr 22 1993 03:34 | 8 |
| Arrested by the Gestapo for anti-Naziism in 1939; Franciscan priest Maximilian
Kolbe was undaunted, and continued to aid Jews and the Polish underground after
his release and until his second arrest in February 1941. He was imprisoned at
Warsaw and then shipped to Auschwitz, where he volunteered his life in the
place of the condemned inmate Franciszek Gajowniczek, applying devoutly and
ultimately Christ's commandment: "Greater love has no man than this, that a
man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). First starved, he was
finally injected with phenol and cremated.
|
| 1328.2 | | TOOK::ALEX | Alex Allister | Mon Apr 26 1993 19:33 | 26 |
| The commemoration took place at the monument to the Heroes of Ghetto.
It is located not for from the center of Warsaw. In video footage the
monument appeared somewhat smaller than it actually is.
The monument is in the shape of a ~15 ft thick trapezoid built of
granite blocks. It is about 30 ft tall. In the front, a bronze casting
depicting a group of Ghetto fighters. The back is a granite bas-relief
depicting Jewish refugees or deportees. The monument is flanked by two
large cast menoras, each supported by two lions. It is surrounded by
a park that stands on the parts of the destroyed Ghetto.
Incidentally, the cry "For our freedom and yours" was borrowed from
the Polish uprising against the Russian Imperial domination in 1862.
Another monument that is quite overwhelming is the monument at the
entrance to the Majdanek camp. It consists of an immense and painfully
twisted and deformed block of concrete supported by two relatively slender
blocks. In addition to the routine entrance, one can enter the camp by
passing under the monument. One first goes up about 50-75 steps and
then passes under the gigantic block of concrete. The passage is about
10 ft tall, while the twisted block of concrete above you is about 100
ft wide, 40 ft tall and 30 ft deep. One can almost feel the pressure of
that mass of concrete. Some people are afraid to walk under it.
Truly overwhelming.
Alex
|
| 1328.3 | a sardonic side note | TAV02::FEINBERG | Don Feinberg | Fri May 07 1993 14:52 | 21 |
| For the week when the "event" was held (the week of 19 April),
a local Warsaw businessman arranged to have the kitchen of
one of the local hotels "kashered". This would provide a "second"
kosher restaurant albeit temporary - for one week - in Warsaw.
(There is one "regular" kosher restaurant in Warsaw.)
Which hotel? The Europeiski.
Why is this important?
The modern-day Europeiski is located on the site of the pre-war
Europeiski, which was, like almost all of Warsaw, destroyed in the
war.
However, *what* was the Europeiski during the war? Gestapo
headquarters for Poland.
I didn't eat there.
don feinberg
|
| 1328.4 | | TOOK::ALEX | Alex Allister | Thu May 13 1993 21:32 | 22 |
| re .-1
I believe that the "new" Europejski not only stands where the "old" Europejski
stood, but it is actually the restored "old" Europejski. I am not sure how
much of it survived WWII.
Relevant to "restoration": in Cracow there is the best preserved Renaissanse
Jewish cemetery in Europe. The cemetery is currently being cleaned up by
at least one group of European and US researchers. It is located in the
"back yard" of a surviving synagogue that is being looked after by a few
Jews still living in Cracow.
The cemetery survived destruction by the Nazies during WWII. This was due
to the fact that the Jews in the area, in anticipation of the approaching
enemy army, placed the headstones horizontally and covered the entire
cemetry with a layer of soil. Thus the cemetery itself was buried until
very recently.
The most unexpected part of the story is that the enemy were the Swedes
and the time was early 1600s.
Alex
|
| 1328.5 | Edith Stein | COVERT::COVERT | John R. Covert | Mon Aug 09 1993 08:42 | 37 |
| Edith Stein, Catholic convert from Judaism, educator, philosopher, writer,
and Carmelite nun, was executed by the Nazis in the gas chamber at Auschwitz
on 9 August 1942 together with her sister Rosa, also a Catholic convert.
Born into a wealthy orthodox Jewish family, Stein renounced her faith in
1904 at the age of 13 and became an atheist. At the University of G�ttingen
she was introduced to Roman Catholicism; upon her return to Breslau (now
Wroclaw) in 1921 she had a profound encounter with the autobiography of
St. Teresa of Avila and was baptized on New Year's Day, 1922. She was
an influential teacher and lecturer in Speyer and M�nster until the
anti-Semitic persecution began in 1933.
In 1934 she took on the name Teresa Benedict of the Cross and joined
the Carmelites at Cologne from whence her prioress arranged a dramatic
nocturnal escape to the Carmelite convent at Echt, in the Netherlands.
There she wrote her important treatise "The Science of the Cross", a
Phenomenological study of St. John of the Cross.
Reacting immediately to the 26 July 1942 public condemnation of Nazi
anti-semitism by the Dutch bishops, Hitler ordered the arrest of all
non-Aryan Catholics. Teresa Benedicta, yellow Star of David sewn onto
her nun's habit, and her sister Rosa, were seized by the Gestapo and
shipped to Auschwitz, where surviving witnesses testified that she
aided all the sufferers with compassion until she was put to death
on 9 August.
The Edith Stein Guild for aiding converts was founded 1955 in the U.S.
and the Archivum Carmelitanum Edith Stein was established at Louvain,
Belgium, for the study and publication of her works. On 4 Jan 1962
a cause for her beatification was introduced by Joseph Cardinal Frings.
I don't know the status of her beatification; my German Roman Catholic
regional calendar, dated 1988, has no commemoration on 9 August, but her
commemoration does appear on 9 August in the 1993 German Old Catholic
(Union of Utrecht) liturgical calendar.
/john
|