Hitting Home

Today was our first full day in Krakow. I decided to wake up early this morning and attend the service at the local synagogue. I have been to a few Jewish services before, growing up in West Bloomfield, but not an Orthodox synagogue. I, along with everyone else, was very confused for the first 30 or so minutes. After that however, things began to run more along the lines of other services. I was amazed by the apparent age of the building. Dr. Kellerman made the observation that services must have been conducted in this fashion, in this room, for a very, very long time. This religious community has roots which are unfathomably deep. The reading from the Torah and the prayer for the sick was beautiful, every word with perfect pitch and harmony. After the service we ran into a British man who pointed out the cemetery adjacent to the synagogue. He explained how many of the tombstones were destroyed by the Nazi's and used as roads and doorsteps.
As soon as we returned to the Hotel it was time to head out on our tour of Krakow. The tour was fantastic, it was refreshing, after our last tour, to have a tour guide that was very knowledgeable of Jewish life. When we went to dinner, I had some time to discuss the tour and its impact on me with Dr. Kellerman. I told him about my hometown and how a good number of my friends from when I was growing up, were Jewish. My hometown is actually a very strong Jewish population center. My neighbors to the left and right are Jewish and even though they are the second family to live in both since I've been there, those homes have always belonged to Jewish families. On every street there is at least one synagogue, then a church, then another synagogue. There are even multiple synagogues at some intersections. Dr. Kellerman said that the Jewish community in West Bloomfield is very similar to what the community in Wrocław would have looked like. That thought, combined with all of the history and culture that was pointed out on our tour, really brought the Holocaust home for me. Given the difference in time and country, that could have been my neighbors. The statistics have always been known to me, but never before have I been able to add a face, an emotion, a life to the atrocity.
I do not know how I will handle Auchwitz tomorrow. I pray for strength so that I am able to take it all in and not collapse from the immense weight of it all. When we go, I hope I am able to see these victims as my neighbors, my friends and my family, because that is very well what they may have been. I hope I find the courage to ensure that the horrors of the past are never visited upon my neighbors. Tonight I lit a candle after prayer at the church on the corner of the Rynek. It was for peace, in all of its meanings.