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June 24, 2008

Auschwitz

There is an old adage I once heard about Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the greatest Jewish minds of the 20th century. The story goes that Heschel, along with other members of the faculty at the Jewish Theological Seminary, were interviewing an applicant to the Rabbinical School. The question arose of when was the last time the applicant had felt God’s presence. After pausing to think, the applicant told a story of how earlier in the day, he had been walking on the street when he noticed a crack in the sidewalk. From inside the crack, a tiny blade of grass was growing. In that blad of grass, the young man said, did he see God. Heschel replied that this was satisfactory, but the end of his time in Rabbinical School, he should see God in the sidewalk, as well.

As I walked the graveyard that is Auschwitz, the calling card of the Nazi death machine, I grappled with Heschel’s words. God may be in the grass, and he may be in the sidewalk. But can we really expect to find God in Auschwitz?

This was not my first trip to Auschwitz. I had traveled there once before during my firsst sojourn to Poland, and I was not relishing a repeat visit. The first time I had gone there the weather had been absolutely perfect: feet of snow on the ground, a cold wind chill searing through my veins, visibility of little and empathy up the wazoo. I even had the amazing experience of wandering around Birkenau with two of my friends, Ari and Benous. Ari’s grandmother had been imprisoned at Auschwitz during the war, and we were able to find the bunker where she lived as an inmate. It was exactly the trip it seemed it was supposed to be. Sad, solemn, thought provoking, depressing as all hell. Suffice it to say that even my most masochistic side was none too eager to relive the experience.

My choices, however, were limited. As a part of my paid abroad experience, there was included an all-expense paid trip to Krakow, Poland for five days. A full day on the schedule was devoted to Auschwitz, just a short bus ride away. I have recently discussed sometimes feeling like the only Jew in the room. This placed an overbearing responsibility on my shoulders: How could I expect others to witness this place of death if I myself had not the strength to go?

I have often heard that things become easier the longer it has been. Auschwitz is a glaring exception to that cliché, a place where time heals no wounds. Rather, it seems as if the passage of years has made this trip more difficult, and has opened entirely new wounds. What happens when the last survivor dies? What happens when the Holocaust becomes a tale of days of yore, a horror story that blurs the line between fact and fiction? I was plagued by these questions as I sat on the bus, unsure how exactly to feel, uncomfortable with whatever thoughts entered my head.

As my group of 16 departed the bus, I could feel the hesitation in the wind, the shear nervous nature that spread like epidemic among my friends. Before we entered the camp, I placed a Kippah on my head. I could feel the glares from all around---from Poles, from Germans, from friends. I put it on not out of respect for God but out of respect for the dead. I was walking through a cemetery, and when a Jew enters a place of burial he is obligated to cover his head.
Again, I felt as if I was placing upon myself the responsibility of being the Jew in the room. As we went on our tour, I could feel the glares of my friends. Is what the tour guide is saying ok? Is the explanation adequate? Do the numbers suffice? Does this memorialize the loss? Does this make things better? Are our ancestors forgiven?

I tried to separate myself ever so slightly from the group, to not be noticed, to hide where they couldn’t ask me. Why must I have the answers? I, too, do not know how to respond. I, too, am lost in a sea of jumbled emotions, things I am too stupid to interpret and too young to comprehend. I felt powerless, I felt hopeless, I felt clueless. I felt very, very, alone.

As we left Auschwitz I and arrive at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, I was struck by something I had not yet realized. It was an absolutely stunning day. If I had not known better, if the rubble were not beside me and the ashes below me, then I could have been in the middle of a summer camp or a weekend retreat. The rays were bouncing from treetops and branches, glistening off of marble monuments to souls perished. I felt as if the ground was fertile enough to help any plant grow to fruition, the irony of the thought not lost, the sadness of the truth still ingrained in my mind. It was all wrong. A place like Auschwitz is supposed to be miserable. Stuck in perpetual blizzard, just like the last time. The weather seemed too beautiful to not be enjoyed, the awesomeness of the place blurring the line between what is good and what is not.

Again, I felt the stares of my friends. Is this pkay, Jeremy? Are these numbers correct? Is she portraying what was meant to be portrayed? Is the truth evincing itself, as it always should? Give us the affirmative. Show us this is enough. Is this enough? Has it been enough? Is it ever enough? Never enough? Never again? Never again. Why? Why. Why?

As we stood before the monument to the former gas chamber, I attempted to say the Mourners Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. But whenever I began, every time I started, I stumbled, I faltered, I said the wrong word in the wrong place. A prayer I have heard thousands upon thousands of times, lodged in my memory on the tip of my tongue. Yet I was prevented from remembering it, tempted to throw tradition to the wind. After something like this, could there be anything left to believe in?

There is a prayer said at funerals and memorials that constantly popped in and out of my head, known as “El Malei Rachamim.” Roughly translated, “God full of mercy.” I began to struggle with the irony of such a prayer that is so often chanted at Holocaust commemoration events. What kind of merciful God stands by as his people are destroyed? Where is the mercy in watching your children beaten to death before your very eyes, losing your sense of self, losing everything in less than a flash. How is that a God to believe in? Why should we keep chanting, keep praying?

My chest began to hurt. I received that guilt ridden feeling of despair in the pit of my stomach. I recalled a story told by Elie Wiesel in his famed Holocaust memoir, “Night.” Wiesel was a teenage boy who was imprisoned at Auschwitz. Wiesel writes of an experience he had at the camp, where they hung a young boy at the gallows. The boy’s neck did not snap, he was not immediately taken from this earth. Rather he hung there, lingering, struggling for life, kicking his feet in search of some saving grace. Wiesel remarked that he saw God hanging on the gallows.

Is God dead? Or was he just sleeping through the Holocaust? In these beautiful pastures of Auschwitz, under the glaring sun of Birkenau, those piles of ashes at Maidanek---all of this is the hand of God? None of this is the hand of God? Which one is it? Do I have to choose?

I have often mentioned before my very good friend Jeff. After returning from Auschwitz, I felt like I needed to call him. I can always depend on him for healthy debate, to be my devil’s advocate, to challenge everything I believe until I’m not even sure what that is. Few people are lucky enough in life to have a friend like that. Jeff and I have very different views on God, religion, and life in general. As our discussion of my experience progressed, it was blatantly clear why I major in Public Policy and he in Philosophy. Yet despite our differences, one thing Jeff said to me during our conversation really stuck. He state that the question of whether or not God exists is, in fact, THE question. Every other question’s answer is contingent on your response to that one.

Was God hanging on the gallows? Is he in the sidewalk crack? Is he in the blade of grass or in the ground or in Israel or in me? Usually I like to end these entries with a piece of insight, an arrogant answer in my vain attempt to display the knowledge I think I have. But the great Jewish scholar Maimonides taught that we are a questioning religion, constantly doubting, always wondering, continuously asking “why”. So these are my questions. May God help me if I ever find the answers. Or not.

The following is a poem I wrote upon leaving Auschwitz. All I have is a bunch of questions to go along with the the lack of answers that leaves them unfulfilled.

A prayer at Auschwitz

Oh King of Kings,
Oh Lord of Hosts,
Arbeit Macht Frei!
Work will make us free of you.
Holy one, blessed be you,
Grant peace and comfort
As we are poisoned shot, beaten and burned.
Praised are you, rock of our world,
(Not to be confused with the stones on our graves)
Who gives sight to the blind, and allows the deaf to hear,
So we can witness our people’s destruction
And hear out children’s cries.
God, you are everywhere, omnipresent.
Where are you hiding?
God, you are compassionate, forgiving of sins.
Do you reserve a seat for our killers?
God, you are our hope.
What is it you want us to prove?
Is it for our sake that you have forsaken us?
Hear our cry, Lord, or don’t.
It does not matter for I know that you are with me
As I trample over death.
El Malei Rachamim.
God Full of Mercy.
I chant my praise to the dead,
And to you,
To give thanks
For our suffering.

Posted by borovitz at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)