Student Correspondent Jewish Studies student Lisa Meyers from Smith College has agreed to share her experiences throughout the fall 2009 semester in her blog, http://americankavpraha.blogspot.com/. Please check back frequently for updates!
Meeting A Survivor in Oswiecim CET Long Trip to Poland, Moravia and Vienna, Sunday, October 18th by Jarka Vitamvasova, Jewish Studies Resident Director
We spent 2 days in the town of Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish) during our long trip. We visited both parts of former Concentration camp where we were guided by historian from Auschwitz museum and also the Auschwitz Jewish Center and reconstructed synagogue in the town.
We were accommodated in the Hostel of the International Youth Meeting Center where we met during our lunch an outstanding and famous lady, Ms. Halina Birenbaum, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, KL Majdanek and Auschwitz who found time and agreed to meet CET students to tell them her incredible story.
Halina was the youngest child in the family of Jewish merchant Grynsztejn in Warsaw. She had two older brothers. When she was 10 years old, the WWII started by Nazi attack on Poland, one year later all Jewish inhabitants had to move to the newly established Warsaw Ghetto. During the uprising in 1943, Halina and her mother hid in a bunker which was unfortunately discovered and both were sent to the concentration camp of Majdanek. Thirteen-year-old Halina survived the selection but her mother died in the gas chamber. After two months in Majdanek, she was transported to the hell, to Auschwitz where she fortunately met the wife of her oldest brother, her sister-in-law. According to her words, she would never have survived without her. Until now, she calls her with a "mistake" – sister-in-love.
In Auschwitz she worked in the laundry, as a tailor, in the so-called "potatoes commando" and also in the sector called "Canada." In January 1945, shortly before the liberation of the camp, SS guards shot her in leg while she was trying to speak with women from another sector across the barbed wire. Blessed she was transported to the west, to the Concentration camp of Ravensbruck, later to the step camp called Neustadt-Glewe where she was finally liberated.
After the war, she returned to Warsaw where she met again her brother Marek. They were the only survivors from the whole Grynsztejn family. They decided to escape from Europe to Palestine. In 1947, while she was studying and living with her brother´s friends in Paris, her group waiting in Marseille got the permission to leave for Palestine. During the journey she met Henryk Birenbaum, a young Jewish man who survived the 6-year-long war as a Soviet prisoner in a Gulag, 100 km away from the Mongolian border. They married in 1949, they have two sons, three grandchildren and live in a village near Haifa, Israel.
This is her incredible story from the Holocaust. Now, she is a famous Polish - Israeli writer and interpreter, she speaks four languages and very often she comes back to Poland with groups of students, she guides them in Auschwitz and tells them her story.
Even though I still don´t have students' complete responses and evaluations of this trip, let me share with you student´s commentaries from the spring meeting with Halina Birenbaum and a part of the blog of current CET student Lisa Meyers:
One of the most amazing meetings I have ever had. Ms. Birenbaum was a fantastic experience and one of the highlights of the entire week. Her story, so filled with hope and optimism, will stay with me for a long time.
...Later that evening, we met a survivor, Halina Birenbaum, who lived through the physical denigration of concentration camps and the dissolution of her family. She was an amazing speaker. An old woman well-versed in several languages, with just 36 hours of English instruction, she used her hands and simple evocative words -- a misstep was especially touching: she called her sister-in-law her sister-in-love, then smiled at the mistake. Sister-in-love was closer to the truth. I found my numb muscles and bones further reawakened by her words, drawn as I have always been to a good story, and by the hope in her eyes and hands and words, her extraordinary survival. I listened for 2 hours rapt, caught in the voice, and here I felt the heartpound heartache heartwarmth...
Trip to Terezín Sunday - 4 October 2009
8:45 - Meet in front of the PARKHOTEL. We are meeting at the place, where the Prague Jewish Community was deported from.
10:00 - Arrival to Terezín, visit to the Small Fortress
11:30 - Visit to the Columbarium, Crematorium and Cemetery
1:00 - Lunch at Memorial restaurant
2:00 - Madgeburg Barracks and Hidden Synagogue
Visit to Ghetto Museum and screening the documentary "The Fuhrer Gives a Town to the Jews"
We had a very successful trip to Terezín this semester. Our guide was Prof. Felix Kolmer, who was okay with guiding 21 students. He felt very comfortable to be surrounded by young people and he really appreciated many questions students asked. As usual, we started by the memorial in Holešovice where the concentration place for Jewish people from Prague was. In Terezín, we started our visit in the Small Fortress where Prof. Kolmer explained very clearly the history of that place and answered even very personal questions about his experience. Before the lunch break, we drove to visit the Cemetery and the Crematorium.
In the afternoon, we visited the Magdeburg Barracks where the exhibition of Terezín arts is and the Hidden Synagogue. During the visit of the main museum in Terezín, we screened the documentary about the propaganda movie "The Fuhrer gives a Town to the Jews" and then students had enough time to visit the exhibition of this museum individually.
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