The journey begins:

(Noy:)This morning we woke up at about 7:00 and packed our bags. At about 7:30 we went downstairs and ate breakfast at the “restaurant” in the hotel. It was probably the finest, fanciest, meal I ever had at a hotel in my 15 years of living. There were 2 forks and a lot of different kinds of foods and cheeses. We then took our luggage and met our new travel guide, Tomek. We all got into his car and started the journey. We left Warsaw- and started to head towards Majdanek death camp. The drive was often in the middle of nowhere, passing through some what of a forest. There were a couple of prostitutes on the road (which I found fascinating, and that is why I’m sharing this piece of information). We drove and drove until we reached our first stop - Kazimier Dolnym. Tomek took us to the wall of tombstones- a wall with the broken gravestones of the Jewish people, which the Nazis used to pave sidewalks and roads during the war. This was one of the few villages in Poland that remained untouched during the War. The buildings in the village were preserved since hundreds of years before the war. We visited the synagogue, which too, was completely untouched and remained the same since about the 1600s. Then we went to eat at a bakery. The baked goods were delicious, we kept ordering more and more.

We then started heading back to the car, to continue our journey. After a long drive we finally reached Maidanek. Before we even pulled into the camp we could see the horrific landscape of it, just like it was still “working”. A few meters away from the area of the death camps were the houses of the Poles who live there now (during the war they lived only a little further down the road). They look outside their windows everyday and see death. A place where horrors beyond any measures have taken place, yet they continue their lives like anyone else. We entered with chills. The place had a grey tone to it, and the remains of snow and freezing air added a lot to the atmosphere and mood that prevailed throughout the camp.

(Ruthy:)I will just add two more things to this visit, one is a very touching letter handwritten on a notebook paper that someone who visited earlier left next to one of the ovens in the Crematorium and the other is that at the end of our visit we were invited to join a ceremony that a group from an Israeli high school had on the steps of the ashes mountain.

Singing HaTikva together with these kids was the last thing we did in Majdanek.

It took some time before we started talking freely again with one another in the car...















Later we passed a little village about which Tomek told us that it was the only village in Poland consisting of Jews Only and the only village in Poland with no church! Of course no Jews are left today, but there is still no church…

Just before sunset we arrived to another charming little town called Zamosch. Beautiful town square and Renaissance old town that survived the war as well. The synagogue which is also from the Renaissance was damaged during the war but was renovated and looks rather cheerful and colorful for an old synagogue that saw so many horrors…

In dinner in the town square, Savta Miki was able to resurrect GrandSavta Ahuva’s pirogy (potato and cheese Kreplach with sour cream) with a borscht soup on the side.
Another hour in the car and we got to the Hotel in a little town very close to the Ukrainian border.
None of the 5 stars that we had in Warsaw were left, but we are alive and learning to cope with reality, and besides we need some preparation for the trip to Ukraine (if we ever manage to cross the border…)
Laila Tov!