Berlin- WOW

A tremendous city Berlin!  Like modern day NYC because much of the city was destroyed by the end of WW II and so it had to be rebuilt.  Took the big tour of the city to see the main sites, 5 hrs of walking.  Then took train to the outskirts to see the Wannsee Villa where the infamous Wannsee Conference was held by the Nazis is 1941.  This was the official meeting which formalized the final plans for the FINAL SOLUTION to the Jewish question.  This is where the Nazi leaders came together to plan the final extermination of Europe’s Jews and how it would be carried out by each part of the government.  An afternoon meeting that changed the world in the most terrifying manner in history.  Tomorrow I visit Sachsenhausen.  Monday the Jewish sector and Jewish Museum and then I leave early Tuesday.  I really need a few more days here to see what I want but I did not realize that when I made the reservations.

Buchenwald- Aug. 13

Very somber day spent at Buchenwald.  It is an enormous concentration camp and there are many things to see.  The remains of the barracks, the camp infirmary, the SS Headquarters, the crematoriums, the memorial forets cemetary to the Russians, and so much more.  It took me from 10:30 to 4:30 to see it all and take the photos and movies I needed to take.  Tomorrow is a travel day as I take the train to Berlin.  See you from there.

Catch Up Blog Post

Wednesday August 12, 2009

I know….where have I been…this blog thing died or Rich (Professor Rich) died somewhere between Israel and Europe.  I’m back….it’s been a very busy and at times exhausting trip, but very gratifying in every way I expected.  Let me catch you up to date as I am now writing as I sit on a high speed Eurorail train from Nurenberg to Weimar where I will see Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  After my 3 weeks of working as a volunteer in the medical supply department of the Israeli Army I took a weekend to unwind before heading for Europe.  I drove to the Dead Sea and stayed at the Ein Gedi Nature Preserve and Kibbutz.  I went horseback riding in the Judean Desert and enjoyed the majestic view of the lowest place on Earth, the Dead Sea, where nothing sinks because of the unusually high salt content.  Having been to the ancient fortress of Masada three times already I passed on it even though it was down the road from the kibbutz.  I drove to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv where I spent the night waiting for my flight to Prague in the Czech Republic.  While there I ran into a couple, Paula and Tony Kelly who had been volunteers with me in the army, he was a bunkmate of mine.  They had done 2 weeks instead of 3 as I did, so they had a lot to tell me about their sojourn into Egypt overnight.  I have tried several times to take a tour to see Mt. Sinai but the tours never fill up on the dates I am available.  Maybe I will be lucky next year when I only do 2 weeks volunteer work I will stay a few days into the week when they seem to be able to fill the tours better than on weekends when I am off base.  Finally, I was up in the air after an entire night of no sleep, with a 6:35 am takeoff sleep is not much of an option.  Arrival in Prague resulted in arriving in the late morning and waiting to check in to my room.  As soon as I did I went to sleep..a nap…that lasted until the next day…talk about being pooped out.  I must say that Prague is one of the most enchanting places I have ever visited.  It has an old world charm that takes you back in time.  The architecture, the customs, the foods, the houses, the town square, all recall to a time long ago. Without getting into too much detail, my four days there consisted of some important things on my personal-professional agenda.  I toured the extensive Jewish Quarter.  In fact my hotel was two blocks from it.  There are many synagogues that date back to the 1200’s and later.  One can see that at one time this was the heart of Jewish culture and learning, as well as worshipping.  It makes you realize the extent to which a whole world was lost as a result of the hatred and murder that we know as the Holocaust (I prefer to use the word Shoah in Hebrew).  To fully comprehend what the impact of the Shoah has on our world we must now what was lost.  Jewish life was once alive and vibrant here more than many other places.  Today the Jewish population is very small and the numbers inaccurate because many of the Jews that are left do not even publically acknowledge their religion.  It is possible that those few who are left have lost their faith in religion.  I hired a private guide one day and visited the site of the former village of Ledice.  It was here that the Nazis massacred the inhabitants in retaliation for the men from there assassinating a top Nazi official, Reinhard Heydrich.  About 5000 people were murdered, the children being separated first and sent to a death camp.  This was not a specifically Jewish incident, it was an outright act of Nazi terror on an entire village. I also made a visit to Terezin Concentration Camp.  This was a famous camp due to the fact that the Nazis used it to show and fool the world how “nicely” they were treating the Jews.  They put up false cafes and theaters and so on and let the Red Cross visit and film those parts of the camp.  They even had the sheer audacity to make a movie with the title “The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City.”  The movie was just one more piece in the vast propaganda puzzle that the Nazis pieced together.  Most of the people from Terezin were sent to Auschwitz-Birkeneau to be murdered as part of the Nazi plan to cleanse the world of sub-human species as they saw the Jews.  This was a very moving experience.  As I always do when I visit a concentration camp, I lit a Yartzheit (Jewish Memorial Candle) at the site of a mass grave.  I took out my Siddur, or Jewish Prayer Book and recited a memorial prayer to the millions who died, read a passage outloud and recited the ancient Aramaic Mourner’s Kaddish prayer.  I left a part of me at the camp, as I always do on these trips.  It could have just as easily been me as the victim, just the sheer luck of birth decided that.

I then moved on to my next city, Munich.  Munich is a rather large, cosmopolitan city, with many giant department stores, shopping, and of course outside restaurants or better known as beer gardens.  Beer is so ubiquitous in Germany that they have it with breakfast.  I rather doubt my stomach could handle that.  My next destination was a walk through the former Nazi sites in Munich and of course a trip to the first concentration camp, Dachau.  I saw the spots where the Nazis held some of their early meetings and protests against the then Weimar Republic.  I visited the places where Hitler made some of his early speeches to arouse the crowds,  The rest of the day was more somber.  We took the train and then a bus out to Dachau.  The camp is enormous, just like Auschwitz, Majdanek and I am sure others I have not yet seen.  Again, the seriousness of this whole trip took center stage, seeing the rooms of torture, medical experiments, inhuman living conditions in the barracks and of course the gas chambers and crematoriums.  By the time I arrived at the Jewish memorial at the camp my eyes were again welling up with tears.  I again lit a candle, read a passage, read a prayer to the six million and recited the Mourner’s Kaddish. This time, standing alone at the memorial I added my own rendition of Hatikva.  For those of you who do not know, Hatikva (The Hope) is the Israeli national anthem.  I cried as I sang this, not from the terrible off tune sound of my own singing (which is pretty awful), but from the emotional meaning it has for me.  These people who were murdered in the camps had committed no crime.  To the six million Jews in particular many of them wanted only to fulfill the centuries old dream of returning to the Promised Land, the holy land of their ancestors, their home before being dispersed throughout the world.  Had my beloved Israel been granted its rightful status years before this, then there would have been a place they could have gone to be free and practice their Judaism.  I count myself among the blessed ones who have indeed returned to Eretz Israel now 4 times and counting.  My volunteering in the Israeli Army is in my own way contributing to the continuity of Israel, my own way of giving a part of myself so that the Jews will always have a homeland that is safe and secure and they can call their very own, just like many other people have had for many years.  You can see how connected I am to both the study of and education of the Shoah as well as Israel.  The two are connected in many spiritual ways to me as well as others.

After Munich is was time to move on to Nurenberg.  There are two sites to see here.  One is the site of the infamous Nurenberg Post War Trials, the other the grounds where the Nazis held their annual Nazi Party Rallies and Hitler made his grand speeches.  It is also where the propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will” was shot.  In addition there is an enormous building on the grounds that has been made into a very extensive documentation center, telling in detail the story of the Nazi- Third Reich.  The courthouse is being renovated into a memorial so it is closed to the public until 2010.  I spent half the day going through the documentation center, listening to the narration on the headphones for EVERY exhibit in the place.  I took extensive photos here as I had in the other places I visited.  I then walked the vast grounds and climbed the steps of the viewing stand where the Nazis delivered their speeches to an audience of at least 50,000, many members of the Hitler Youth and military.  I stood there trying to imagine, to transport myself back in time when in that very spot stood Hitler, espousing all his hatred and anti-Semitism to the world.

So that brings me to now, Wednesday August 12.  I have been typing here as I sit at the window of this ultra modern high speed inter-city express train.  It is so smooth and quiet you ca barely hear of feel the train.  The countryside is quite picturesque.  We pass small Bavarian villages with their red roofs, old world architecture, vast fields of crops and rolling hills.  We also pass some larger towns or small cities.  I can imagine how picturesque it would be to drive across the countryside and stop at one’s leisure to observe life in these quaint little hamlets which dot the landscape.  My next stop will be Weimar to see Buchenwald, so for now I will sign off.

Friday July 17

Well the first week of army work is over.  It was an interesting week working in the medical supply factory of the base.  It seems that the base I am on supplies ALL the medical supplies for the  Israeli army for the entire country.  The supplies we packed and sealed into kits are shipped to all bases and units throughout the country.  The work is the same day after day but that is to be expected.  The food is as varied as ever….tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggs, cheese, pudding, yogurt, tomatoes, cucumbers, and then some tomatoes and cucumbers for a perfect desert!  In Tel Aviv now for the weekend, staying at a hotel across from the beach and facing the Mediterrranean Sea.  I am sharing ny room with one of the other volunteers named Chris who I have a lot in common with.  He is a physical education teacher in South Jersey where I use to live.  Tonight at 6 all of us volunteers who are staying somewhere in Tel Aviv are meeting on the beach for a beach party.  Wew have to be back on the base Sunday morning as here your weekend is Friday and Saturday.  Not much else to tell other than the weather is typically very hot, about 100 everyday.  Part of the work is indoors in warehouses that are partially air conditioned.

Pics of my Travels

Holocaust Sculpture

 

Sunday July 12, 2009

So today is the day I meet up with the Israel Army for my volunteer work. Update on the last few days. I flew down to Eilat early Thursday morning, it is a 40 min flight. The view from the plane was spectacular as always as I flew over the Negev Desert and all its splendor. The first day relaxed (slept) by the pool for a few hours. Since being here I have gotten in some beach time, overlooking the splendid Red Sea. I also went out on an early evening jeep caravan into the Eilat Mts. and to see the copper mines of King Solomon. Quite a ride in a 4 wheel, over roads I would never attempt in a regular vehicle. The next day I signed up for a another caravan, this one on a camel. Don’t ask me what kind of camel, I simply do not know. There is a special way one must sit on a camel. One must let one leg hang down the side and the other must be crossed over and around the horn of the saddle and the camel’s neck. In this fashion you are able to keep your balance since a camel shifts its weight from side to side as it walks. Oh what a trip to the desert will teach one. After the ride into the wilderness we returned to the Camel Ranch for some Bedouin hospitality. The Bedouins are the tribes that roam from place to place setting up tents and tending their flocks, just like in ancient times. I bet they got a good price on their rent back then. The visit to the tent was memorable. Our guide first made a fire from some wood scraps and a circle of stone. He then set his kettle upon the fire to brew our tea. Next he took out flour and water and mixed and kneaded it until it became doough to make pita bread. he proceeded to cook the flat breads over the fire and tore them into pieces and smothered them with Labaney cheese…mmmm…some more tea, a relaxing rest on the matresses on the colorful carpets that line this desert home and we were genuine Bedouins…NOT. Our morning excursion done I headed back to the hotel and treated myself to a one hour message in the spa.
Since I will be restricted to an army base til late Thursday each week for the volunteer work, I will be unable to post this BLOG daily. I will try to keep a daily journal and then post it on the weekend when I am off base and traveling the country. I really do not know where I will be, although I will surely spend at least one sabbath in Jerusalem with my friend Modi and his lovely wife and children. I assume today will be a long day. Checkout at 11, plane at 1, meet the army group at 4, head for the base and get settled into the baracks, uniforms and dinner with the soldiers. The base I am postedto is called Matzrap. which is part of a multi-base complex known as Tel Hashomer. It is suppose to be the largest base in all of Israel. It is north of Tel Aviv. Matzrap is a medical base where every soldier must go for his or her army physical when first drafted into the IDF. Yes, for those of you unaware, girls serve 2 years, men 3 years…immediately after high school. This is a country that must have a ready and able military at all times as history has so sadly shown. Even after serving you are in the reserves until sometime in your 40’s if war breaks out. It is quite common to see young girls carrying an M-16 rifle over their shoulders when in uniform. Life is certainly different growing up here.
Our visit to Sderot last week was quite moving. Being in the very spot that has been bombed for the past 8 years is quite sobering. All they want is peace and the fact that the Israeli government dismanteld EVERY settlement in the Gaza Strip and has still suffered from Kassam rockets being launched at them is proof itself. Imagine a neighbor of yours who you do not like but never set foot on their property launching missles into your backyard over and over without provovation. You quickly get the picture. Til next time…Shalom

Thursday July 10

Now in Eilat on the Red Sea. The course has ended and was physically (class from 8:30-5:30 daily) and emotionally draining. There is a lot to process now. The last day, Wed, was quite emotional. We had survivor testimony such as we have never had before in any course. Esther Wachman, and Israeli and child of survviors told the tragic story of her parents being in Auschwitz and how it cast a shadow on her life and upbringing at home. She went on th oave 7 sons. They loved their faith, country and heritage and served proudly in the IDF- Israeli Defense Forces- ARMY. The least likely one, the smallest and scrawniest managed to get accepted to an elite army corp. division. One weekend he was called to be trained in special dfense equipment. At the end of the weekend he was picked up by a car filled with religious Jews, dressed in orthodox clothes with black hat and frock coats, carrying Jewish prayer books, etc. They turend out to be Hamas terrorists. They held him hostage and the world’s attention was on the incident of her son Nachum. In the process Esther went on worldwide television pleading for Nachum’s life. The terrorist would not be negotiated with was the official policy. They wanted some others of their terrorist group released. Instead the Israeli Army staged a secret rescue mission which went bad. The next day the terrorists made a tape with Nachum and subsequently executed him as the world watched. Many of us would recall the incident. By the time Esther was done telling her story I was personally crying quite openly and some of my fellow classmates comforted me. AsI write this blog my tears are streaming down my face. Esther is a symbol of courage, love and determination. She now has 11 grandchildren and when she was done, and cried her own eyes out with us she told us that she had to bring back the Happy Esther as she was leaving us to attend her grand daughter’s Bas Mitzvah….a happy event. She has learned to live with these tragedies but tells us the Sad Esther still visits on a daily basis, she lets it happen and then moves on. This is what Nachum would have wanted. Her love of her Judaism, Israel and faith have not wavered through all this. She really feels that Hashem has a purpose in all this that she is not suppose to understand because that is the way our relationship with the Allmighty is meant to be.
Shalom and Rest In Peace Nachum,
Rich Gair from Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Holocaust Graduate Seminar

Click Link to Motionbox on here for videos

Monday July 7

Sunday July 5
Yesterday was a day off from class as it was the Sabbath. We had a choice of remaining at the hotel and going to services and having Sabbath meals at the hotel as Yad Vashem’s guests. I had planned to go with the part of the group that went to the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi nature reserve. I woke uo with a terrible sore throat and stiff neck and so I slept in. I awoke close to noon and joined the others who remained here and we had a nice Sabbath luncheon with wine, prayers, singing and good conversation. We then moved to the hotel lobby where we sat and chatted for a while. Eventually most of use retired for our Sabbath nap, a custom after the Sabbath meal on Saturday. We awoke and met back in the lobby for sundown and a havdalah service and prayers and singing to celebrate the end of the Sabbath. At 9 pm the restaurants started to reopen and some of us went to dinner at the food court in the bus station next door.
Sunday July 5
Today was Sunday and a full day of class. The topic was anti-Semitism and Dr. Robert Weistrch who is a world known scholar on the subject was our first class. He was followed by presentation of Nazi Degenerate Art and propaganda. The presenter was Dr. Rachel Perry from Tel Aviv University. She was followed by Dr. Raohael Israeli who gave an very informative lecture entitled “Antisemitism in the Muslim/Arab World”. We then had a presentation by Dr, Vago on modern antisemitiism. Last we had a discussion with Avner Shalev, the Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate…the top man here.
Monday July 6
A trip to Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, Beit Terezin and Atlit Museum and a trip to Sderot to have lunch with the mayor. As you may know, Sderot is the town that has suffered 8 years of bombing of Kassam rockets launched from the Gaza Strip by the terrorist organization Hamas. Today we spent the day traveling. First we were south and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai named in honor of Mordachai Anieleviwc who lead the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Then we drove to Sderot on the edge of the Gaza Strip. Sderot is in bad shape as a lot of damage from the 5000 or more rockets that have hit it over the recent years. We toured the town which has bomb shelters everywhere. We visited the police station and saw a collection of what was left from the many rockets and shrapnel that has hit the town. Lunch was served at the Hseder Yeshiva which is the world’s first and only bomb proof Yeshiva building. Even the playgrounds here have bomb shelters for the children to get into when they hear the siren warning. When the siren goes off the residents have 15 seconds to get into a bomb shelter for safety. Every bus stop has a small bomb shelter at the stop. Kids and adults as well have been traumatized living under the fear of rockets for so many years. Many people have left the town and you see the damage and desertion in many areas. Some have determined to stay and not let the terrorists in Hamas scare them away from this ancient town that has been part of Israel for centuries. This is not a “disputed occupied” territory. The Israelis totally withdrew from Gaza in about 2000 and have dismantled every single settlement there as well. There is therefore not justification for the bombing other than do scare the residents, which is what terrorism is meant to do. We then headed north to Beit Thereisenstadt which is a kibbutz commemorating the Terezin Ghetto in what was then the area of Bohemia in Czechoslovakia. There many victims were sent on to Auschwitz in Poland and their ultimate death. The day was long as we arrived back at the hotel by 7:30 pm, having been on the road since 7 am. Tomorrow will be spent back in class at Yad Vashem. The topics for tomorrow are Holocaust art, music, film, testimonies the power of using films to teach the Holocaust and other related media as well. Should be a great day with lots of information. Tomorrow night Yad Vahesm is taking us to a mystery restaurant in Jerusalem for our farewell dinner. Thursday is our last day of classes.

Thursday July 2

Wed, was a fascinating day at the medical center with the lectures by doctors and others on medical ethics and how they were violated during the Holocaust by Nazi Drs. and the attempt to provide good medical care by the Jewish doctors in the ghetto and camp. Today was Armed Resistance in the ghetto and the woods surrounding the ghettos. Tonight is a walking tour of the Rehavia section of Jerusalem. Tomorrow is a short day to get ready for the Sabbath. Next week I will be taking a local airline to Eilat when this seminar is over, I am staying in Eilat on the Red Sea for 3 nites. I plan to take a tour one day into Egypt to see and climb Mt. Sinai and visit the site of the Burnig Bush. Must go through Egyptian customs and get a one day visa. They require 3 people on the tour so I hope some other people order the same tour. I am staying at the Caesar Premier Hotel on the Red Sea. I will fly back to Tel Aviv to meet with the army on the 12th. They are sending me to a base near Tel Aviv and I will be working in the medical supply area, restocking and packing medical kits for the troops to take on maneuvers. It is suppose to be one of the nicest bases, like a 5 start hotel, washing machines etc.