Praha 43, or The Things I Once Mentioned
(Written 4/9/07)

I’ve wanted to write this entry for a while. Occasionally, I’ll make a note in one of my entries, and then promise to write more about it later. This is the entry where I get to have some explicative fun.

1: “The only way to be a truly universal Jew is to be Orthodox, or at least able to follow an Orthodox service.

I’ve gotten a lot of flak for this one, mostly because it’s a weird and vague statement. So, allow me to clarify. In many of the places we’ve visited, particularly in Poland, the only option for Shabbat services is Orthodox services. This means that the service contains no explanation, and is primarily in Hebrew. If you’re not familiar with the standard structure of Shabbat services (Psalms, Barchu, Sh’ma, etc), you’re going to be quite lost. In most of these services, I can just barely keep up. Thus, my assertion: if you want to be able to follow a Jewish service anywhere in the world, it’s best to understand either Hebrew, Orthodox services, or both.

2: “The Holocaust memorial in Lodz. I won't write about it here, but I want to put it down so I don't forget to write about it later.

The memorial in Lodz (pronounced Wooch, in Polish, Lodzh in Yiddish) was simply, the most effective memorial I’ve ever been to. It begins on a train platform. There’s a small station-type building, which contains pamphlets and a guest book. Around the station are walls with explanatory inscriptions on them. But on the tracks, in front of the platform, are three cattle cars. One of them is open – you can walk into it, feel the rough boards, see the tiny windows, imagine a hundred people crammed in with you. Once you step out of the cattle car, you might notice that the train tracks lead into a tunnel. And you might also notice that there’s a walking path on the lefthand side of the tunnel.

If you follow the path into the tunnel, you notice one thing right away: the lights operate on sensors. You take two or three steps, and suddenly, the exact spot you’re standing on is flooded with light. Two steps more, and it’s gone out, to be replaced by a new light. On the wall, you can read and see things as you walk – documents, transport lists, a hat, a cigarette lighter, some statistics. As you walk the length of the tunnel, tracks at your side, you might notice that it’s curving slightly - this keeps it so that you feel like you’re walking alone the entire time, unable to see everyone behind you or in front of you.

The tunnel ends in a room with the names of cities etched on the wall – all of these represent cities from where Jews were deported to the Lodz ghetto. In the center of the room is a small structure that might be a symbolic fire, or fireplace. If you stand next to this “fire”, and look up, it becomes immediately becomes clear – the ceiling isn’t a real ceiling, but a chimney, sloping up to reveal a small opening to the gray sky.

The Lodz memorial was one of the later places we visited, so I was already deeply set into numbness and de-sensitivity. After visiting so much, there was no way to continue to process grief, no way to really handle it. But my brain did make a note of this particular memorial, this particular place. My memory filed it away, for some time when I could think about Poland again. And here it is.