Our last trip was one of the most emotional, meaningful, interesting and fun trips we've had. After seeing different communities from around the world, including various Jewish ones, we visited the place that headquartered the systematic attempt to destroy Judaism, wiping out 6 million Jews in the process - Berlin. Over two weeks, we also went to Prague, Czech Republic, Budapest, Hungary, a quick drive-through day-stop in Bratislava, Slovakia, and finally Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, making it 5 countries in just 15 days. We visited Holocaust memorials, learned about the Nazis and their grandchildren today, saw the effects of communism, ate unreal food like bratwurst (bratbest*), and saw the incredible human ability to be resilient and overcome and grind through atrocities and come out stronger as a result. This trip was definitely more centered around Judaism, which made it the most similar to the first trip. Seeing sites such as the very villa where the Wannsee conference was held, where the Nazis debated "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question" blew my mind, in addition to a concentration camp that was a little nicer because it was used for propaganda. I definitely came out of this trip more than any other proud to be a Jew.
Berlin, Germany: Best food I ate: -Currywurst: a hot dog type thing but way better and sprinkled with curry spices. Often referred to as currybest -vienerschniztel- basically very thin big piece of breaded and fried chicken - beer! Beer was really cheap here and there was a 2,000 person capacity biergarten right next to our hotel which had the best draught beer. Half a liter was always less than $2 -struessel from a vegan bakery that was amazing -chicken tongue -arepas and rib eye sandwich from a food market we went to that could have been the best one we went to all year. We go to one in every country there is one Some phrases How are you: vee gehts Sorry: entschuldigung Thanks: danke Throughout this year, my favorite cities have almost all been from cities that we stayed in for at least 3 nights, which doesn't happen as often as you might think, maybe once per trip. We stayed in Berlin for 4-5 nights and it made such a difference. Not having to spend half of every day driving somewhere allows us to do so much more and really see the city, which we definitely did. The most striking part of Berlin was the sheer amount of monuments and memorials scattered in the city. It seems like the city is putting everything they can into showing they want to atone for what the Nazis did. At some point, the citizens of Berlin must get numb to all these memorials, because for example, on one of the morning runs, we must have passed a memorial every time we took a turn. Even by the end of this one run, I stopped trying to figure out what each memorial was for and just thought about how many there were. That being said, Germany committed atrocities in the recent past and must take responsibility for what they did. It is very clear that this thought is on the mind of at least the city's government or whoever is in charge of making monuments. One of the many monuments that is scattered around the city is something called stumbling stones. Stumbling stones are gold stones that are put into the ground, raised a few inches up from the sidewalk, in front of the houses or residencies of Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Their names are engraved on each stone. They are raised a little bit so that people will trip slightly on them as they are walking on the street, and subsequently look down at these names to remember those who fell. It's an initiative (I think but check this before posting) started by a offspring of a Nazi to try to atone for what his ancestor did. I thought these were the most powerful memorials because they are so ingrained in life and normal, which is what antisemitism and the Nazis were to Germany during WWII. (Somehow tie this together better.) This trip was very Holocaust centered, if you can't tell yet. We also went to the Wannsee conference villa, where the top Nazis decided on the final solution to the Jewish problem, I.e. completely wiping out the Jewish people because they were a cancer to society. The villa is absolutely gorgeous, with a magnificent yard, colorful flowers, freshly groomed grass, and a back yard that goes right into this lake. Sitting on a bench, with our backs to the villa looking out on the water, it was eerily serene and quiet. This would be a great place to have a summer home and go boating and all sorts of fun activities. Yet somehow this gorgeous place with an equally gorgeous house turned into the place that decided to efficiently and systematically try to wipe the Jews off the face of the Earth. Just like the rest of Berlin, the present day scene cannot escape its horrific past. Continuing the Holocaust memorials, we also visited the main Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, as well as track 17, where thousands of Jews were sent to various death camps by train, where many of them were murdered on the same day they arrived at the camps. The memorial was in this big courtyard or square, which was filled with giant blocks that said nothing on them, not even a Jewish Star. The blocks start out looking like a grave or tombstones, but gradually get higher and higher so that all you can see is the blocks to your right, your left, behind and in front of you. It could be quiet and powerful, yet many people there who might not realize the true meaning of the memorial treat it just as a place to take selfies and climb on fun structures. It became such a problem actually that one disgusted person created a slideshow called yolocaust, which put people's selfies with the giant blocks next to the bodies of the victims of the Holocaust, people who hadn't eaten sufficiently in months or years. Needless to say, many of us left this memorial angry that the other people visiting did not respect what these blocks were memorializing. Track 17 had two memorials, one of which is tiny and one of which is train tracks. The tiny one is a few pieces of wood slabbed together that no one would notice if they weren't told it was a Holocaust memorial. This was only put in recently and does not do justice to how significant and horrible track 17 was. The other memorial just a few hundred meters away, is the physical train tracks. These tracks are hugged on both sides by dates, numbers and destinations. The dates are the dates when trains left from this station to various camps. The numbers were the number of people who were in each "shipment." And the destinations are the specific camp each train was sent to, including Auschwitz, the death camp that killed 1 million Jews. Someone had, in rocks, made the Israeli flag at the base of the tracks and written notes in Hebrew to the victims. This was one of the more powerful memorials. We also saw other memorials that were more for World War Two and the Nazis in general. It was interesting to see the German perspective, especially quotes from offspring of Nazis who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, harbored no hate, yet still had to live with the family name and know their parents or grandparents took part in the horrendous killings. Another part of Germany's past that we made sure to see was the Berlin Wall, which is now used as a platform for graffiti and street art and is beautiful. There's every color and picture you can think of and it goes on for so long. Crazy to think that something that again looks so beautiful now made all the difference just half a century ago. On one side was communism and the other capitalism. Overall Germany was an amazing country to visit and really made me think. It made me think about my Judaism. It made me think about my ancestors. It made me think about people. It made me think about memorializing. Most of all, it made me think and realize how much the present is a function of the past and how long are we supposed to look back for. At what point can you say, listen that was x number of years ago and we know we messed up but we need to move on? Is it ever acceptable? Can we still blame the citizens of Germany, who have accepted 1 million refugees, on their ancestors past? It's a tough question that I don't have the answer to. I do know, however, that Germany really made me think. One of the most religious experiences of the year for me, up there with the Friday night in Córdoba, was when we visited the local synagogue in Berlin. The rabbi there was just such a good, genuine guy who really believed in his religion. He thought it was his duty, despite being a 7th generation Israeli, to move to Berlin and be the rabbi as a kind of duck you to the Nazis. He spoke to us about how much it meant to him that there was an active Jewish community and synagogue in the place that masterminded the Holocaust. During his speech, he would sometimes break into song that would go with what he was saying. In one particular instance, talking about the Holocaust he sang vehakadosh barchu matzeeleinu, the holy one saved us. Despite the horrors and otherworldly suffering our people experienced, here was this rabbi in Berlin trying to be positive and happy that the Nazis didn't win, that we're still standing. It was just a very powerful moment for me. From now on, that song will carry much greater meaning for me, I'll actually think about the words and how lucky we are to be alive right now. From Germany, we got our last beer and currywurst and drove to our next city, our first of real Eastern Europe, Prague. Prague, Czech Republic Best food Chimney cakes Pork shoulder Sausage Phrase Ahoy hello Thanks yakoor Good-dobre Prague avoided the bombing at the end of the Second World War and as a result has maintained its old city beauty. It was absolutely one of my favorite cities of the year. It just had that feeling to it. Just an incredible place to be, somewhere I would definitely spend a semester abroad. The nightlife was so cool, with different types of bars and clubs that were so unique and fun. The buildings were beautiful and hundreds of years old, as were the streets. We also did a lot of Jewish and Holocaust sight seeing here. We visited an 800 year old synagogue that is still active and supposedly holds the remains to the heroic golum, a clay statue turned defender that protected the Jews in their dark times hundreds of years ago. We also saw the Lennon wall, which I don't know the history of but has the same feel as the Berlin Wall, just on a much smaller scale. There is street art and graffiti covering it with different quotes and messages about life. The best one was, "for the nights I won't remember, with the people I'll never forget." I think that is pretty much kivunim in a sentence. We do so many incredible things and it's going to be impossible to remember every single experience we have, but we'll know we had them together and that's what really makes it that much more special. One of the more powerful days of the whole trip for me was when the day we visited Theresenstadt, a concentration camp, my first camp ever. Being so close to Poland, where 3 million Jews were killed, I had really been wishing our trip included visits to Warsaw and Auschwitz and overall Poland and its camps. Seeing this camp only made me want to visit the death camps and the nastiest part of the Holocaust even more. This concentration camp was where all the VIPs, elderly etc were sent. It was supposed to be a little nicer, which it definitely was, and was used as propaganda to show the rest of the world that these camps weren't so bad. They would make videos of kids eating bread looking happy. We watched one of these videos while we were there, and it was clear in the videos from how fast these kids were eating this bread that they were starving. This portion of food they received was not the normal amount, but just a show for the video camera. They also had fields where the kids could play soccer and really emphasized art. While this sounds fun and nice, even just a quick glance at this artwork, which is shown in the camp's museum shows how wrong this is. The kids' drawings depict their lost family members, their longing for freedom, and more. One poem read: A little garden Fragrant and full of roses The path is narrow And a little walks along it. A little boy, a sweet boy, Like that growing blossom When the blossom comes to bloom The little boy will be no more It's crazy again to think that such a nice looking place could be the origin of so much cruelty and deception. It also shows how smart the Nazis were in trying to make themselves not look so bad. It also raises the question which we talked about throughout the trip: are we all, each and every human, capable of such evil, of dehumanizing others and blindly following orders because so many others are? It's happened once and continues to happen across the globe. What compels someone to commit such evil acts? How are morals learned, through natural genetic DNA? Or through nurture and culture? The most striking story I heard from the camp was about the rooms where people slept, which fit 60-80 people on triple bunk beds. This was near the end of the war, so the Nazis wanted to avoid the Allied Forces finding their camps at night, so the curtains had to be shut and lights off well before the sunset and the night darkened outside. Every night, as the 60-80 kids turned the lights out and began to settle into their triple bunk beds, hungry, tired, overworked, weak, and overall suffering with barely any room to get a comfortable nights sleep with someone else trying to sleep right next to them, the darkness would be quietly illuminated by a slowly moving lamp. Every so often, the yellow lamp would stop for a second. The lamp's owner, a Nazi, would walk in the near darkness around the room and tap three or four bodies. This tap signaled that they would be shipped on a train to a death camp, where they would almost surely die upon arrival. Now, they didn't necessarily know exactly that the tap meant almost certain death, but they knew it was bad. That it was definitely worse than the propaganda camp. To think that every night, after a long days work and barely enough food and water to keep you going, where you probably just want to sleep and have your only few hours of peace, you worry in a way that is unimaginable to us today. If you don't get tapped, your friend might. Or the person sleeping to your left. Or to your right. Or above you. Or beneath you. Every night, three or four of the people you've suffered with disappear and you never see them again. All of this with the guilt that you're lucky it wasn't you, that you got to stay because your friends or family were sent away. And it's not like this was a infrequent occurrence. It happened just as often as we brush our teeth or read a bedtime story to our little siblings or the kids we babysit. While we get to put our kids to sleep today with bedtime stories, the kids in this concentration camp went to bed to a lurking lamp that could spell their quick demise. To me, this was unfathomable yet eye opening. Prague was also home to some of the best runs on Kivunim, along the river that split the city in half. Its beautiful architecture kept the runs exciting and having David Mendlesohn back made a big difference, as he wasn't there for the runs in Germany. Prague left me thinking about a lot of different things. I would definitely like to come back here for an extended period of time just because of the way the city feels; it's somehow modern and old at the same time. Communism had a far greater impact than we hear about in the US in school, as such staples like religion that were suppressed never fully recover. Presently, the young adults who are starting families now did not learn religion from their parents, but from their grandparents, if that. Instead of religion being led by parents like it often is in the US, it's led by the kids. Instead of parents dragging their kids to services, the kids here are trying to reconnect with their roots and as a result are bringing their parents back into religion. But the thought that most stays with me is this: how can so many people, so many learned, cultured people be at the heart of such heinous crimes against humanity? I just can't wrap my head around it. From Prague, we drove to Budapest, with a quick stop in Bratislava, Slovakia on the way. In Bratislava, we basically got gelato, had some free time to walk around the old city, and then saw a synagogue. It has the same old feel as Prague, as it too was not bombed in the war and preserved its old buildings. We got to see a glimpse of this culture and check another country off of our list. Now on to Budapest! Budapest, Hungary Best food Beef goulash "Cheeseburger"- literally just cheese not meat but one of the better sandwiches I've had, better than just a grilled cheese, had so much other stuff inside tasted amazing -lagosh: a kind of fried and breaded huge empanada-esque food, with often Paprika chicken stuffed inside -chicken paprika Phrases Seah- hello Hoys vayg- how are you? Kusi - thanks Botchy - sorry Egam - yes Naam - no Split by the river into two halves (Buda and Pest), Budapest is one of the more beautiful cities we've been to this year. While Buda is hilly and naturally beautiful, Pest contains the bustling city life, with centuries old buildings and squares. On one of Buda's hills, the one right across the bridge connecting the two halves, there is a monument that we ran up to one morning where you can see the whole city overlooking the river. After a whole lot of stairs and hills up to the top, we felt very accomplished once we could finally take in the view of the city from the top. On our last night in Budapest I would actually go back their for the sunrise with two friends. The river sits east of the hill, so the sun rose over the Danube and Pest, and we had the best seats looking down from the monument. Budapest is a city I wish we could have spent more time in, but in the little time we did have there we saw a lot. We went to the Lauder school to see the Jewish kids our age. Similarly to Czech, the kids in Hungary are often bringing their parents into the religion, not the other way around. On top of visiting the school and hanging out with those kids for a morning, we also met other Jews our age who took us out one night. Meeting the kids of the city our age gave me a much better connection and understanding as to what it's like to live here. Overall, it seems like most kids, at least the ones I met, want to get out of Hungary for university, whether it be in Berlin or even all the way to the USA. They are not trying to stay in Hungary, but actively trying to study somewhere else. One of the subtler Holocaust memorials we saw over this trip of central and Eastern Europe was the shoe memorial on the Danube river. Here, I don't recall there being a mention of the word Jew, which was a general representation of the way Hungary currently memorializes and deals with the Holocaust. Most passerby wouldn't know that this memorial stood for the thousands of Jews who were forced to take off everything, including their shoes, at the edge of the Danube river before they were ruthlessly shot and killed into the water. The shoes were what were left of these Jews. Back to the point about dealing with the Holocaust, after visiting each country's Holocaust museums, there wasn't much new information to be taken in from each one, besides that countries individual facts. But for the most part, each new museum shed light as to how each country memorialized the Holocaust and the responsibility they cared to take. Some museums, such as the one in Berlin, obviously took full responsibility for what happened, saying it was the Nazis who did everything, while others in other countries said the same thing; that it was the Nazis who did everything. The country downplayed its own part in systematically killing Jews. We also went to the great synagogue that attracts non Jewish tourists and has tours in so many languages. It is simply beautiful on the inside and has aspects of churches, making it more grand than many of the other synagogues we've visited. The nightlife in Budapest was also pretty cool, with interesting bars underground and cool food truck "karavan" markets. One thing that we as Kivunim participants have become very good at is finding these amazing food markets, where if you're smart, you share everything with someone so you get to try all sorts of food. We've done this in probably the past 5 countries. Going up to the monument at sunrise on our last night/morning was when it first hit me that Kivunim was actually coming to a close. And it hit hard. One of my friends mentioned that next year, we'd never have opportunities like this, to wake up for the sunrise overlooking the Danube river in a foreign country. We're just so lucky to be able to do what we're doing day in and day out, traveling the world like it's casual that we went to 5 countries in 15 days and 16 in a year. We'll never have an opportunity like this again, even if we travel like this, to be with 45 amazing people and an amazing staff. To have everything planned for us, so that we can just sit back and enjoy the ride. We meet incredible people who have resurrected communities and literally put the Jews on their backs. It was sitting there, on a ledge that looked out onto the orange and pink buildings reflected in the river like a perfect mirror, that I realized that four weeks left was not much time at all. Before I know it, I'll be back home, yearning to go to moments like these. With this in mind, I got on the bus to Bosnia looking to make the most out of our last country of the year. 11 hours later, after passing through Croatia (we just drove through so can't count it as a country visited) we arrived in Sarajevo, a city unlike any other place we've visited this year. Sarajevo, Bosnia Best food Veal strips Breaded meat Pepper stuffed meat Phrases Thanks- walla Bosnia is still feeling the effects of the Yugoslav breaking up only a little over 20 years ago. There are bullet holes in most main buildings and much of the population either fought or was victims of the war with Serbia. Serbia ruthlessly terrorized and massacred thousands of Bosnians during the war, which was depicted very harshly and opaquely in one of the museums we went to. This museum was actually designed by the victims of the event and not by professionals, and as a result had a unique feel to it that left many of us shocked. Bosnia is a majority Muslim nation, while Croatia to its west and Serbia to its east are Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, respectively. Many Bosnians who were born in Bosnia still today identify more with their religion's country than the country they were born into. For example, many Bosnian Catholics identify greater with Croatia than they do with Bosnia, which creates tensions to this day, some 20 years later. That being said, Sarajevo is a very predominately Muslim city with over 120 mosques serving a population of 450,000 people. Most restaurants are halal, but it doesn't feel like the other Muslim countries we went to. In Sarajevo, we also walked around the old town market, which has all the trinkets and everything that so many markets have had all over the world, yet with the Bosnian touch. The Winter Olympics also happened in Sarajevo in 1984 or so, and the ruins have now been turned into a platform for street artists and graffitiers to do their work. We visited the old bobsled track which was on the top of one of the many mountains that surrounded the city. Through so much green we saw the old city and could feel the still present pain of the war creeping into the life of so many Bosnians. It's clearly a soft spot for much of the population, yet it was a war and war crime that almost none of us had heard of before visiting the country. We wondered often why we never learned about such an event in school, and if this had happened in a western country, would it be in our textbooks and exams. It also further forces us to ask the question of: is every human capable of committing such atrocities? We consistently see it all over the world, regardless of cultural or socioeconomic differences, people find a way to be horrible. What can we do about it? Is it our responsibility to do something about it as fellow humans, or is it a too far away, not my problem type of thing. For most of us, it seems, we are largely apathetic towards others suffering across the globe. One of the more cultural immersion experiences we had this year came when a few of us went to a soccer game in Sarajevo between the two Sarajevo soccer teams, who are, of course, big rivals. One team's fans are largely from the working class, while the other's fans are largely from the white collar class. As one of my friends pointed out, many of these people's weeks depend on these games. If their team wins, it's a happy, celebratory week, and if they lose, they mourn for their team. They also are the most rowdy fans I have ever seen. The most rowdy section was on its feet literally the entire game chanting God knows what, but we would try to join when we could. Often, we would just make up English chants that went along with what they were screaming and would kind of make sense. For example, they were cheering something that sounded to us like "who the champion! Who the champion! Who the champion! We the champion!" Also, for goals, they went absolutely nuts, the whole section was clapping and jumping as one, the benches were shaking; it was a full out party. On the other side, when it was a bad call or something didn't go their way, a similar joint reaction would happen, this one including fans from the back of the sections running down to the bottom to field level and climbing on the fence, yelling at players, coaches and refs. To top things off, somehow each team's section had flares they would throw all the time. Sometimes it would be a flame into the crowd, other times it would be on to the field, where players would casually kick them out of the field of play and continue playing like it was nothing. They also burned the other team's scarves at the bottom of their section in a kind of ritual ceremony to declare their superiority. What really made it more exciting was the absurd amount of riot police in attendance that line the field. Each policeman carried a riot shield, heavy guards all over the bodies, and of course big ole guns. When one fight broke out across the field, at least 40-50 riot policemen with their shields ran over to the section to break it up and then sat down in the middle to make their own walls. Really incredible how much this city put into this game. There was enough entertainment surrounding the game that you barely had to watch it to have a good time. The working class team did win 1-0 though. The general feeling in Bosnia was one of resilience. These people fought through the war and we're going to continue grinding until they could grind no more. They wanted to have unity in their country, but this seems like it's far away. It doesn't have the same Eastern European feel that the rest of the countries we visited had, yet it still was old and beautiful. They would certainly benefit from more people being educated about their story. Overall, this trip was one of the best of the year and taught me a lot about the ability of humans to be downright horrific. Seeing the effects first hand of the Holocaust and the war in Bosnia will stay with me forever. As I've said multiple times above, it really begs us to ask ourselves how we can let this happen, and can any human do this. One friend pointed out that there is this study that (roughly) goes as follows: individually, ordinary regular people are brought into a room with a button and a man in a lab coat. They sit down and the man in the lab coat says that whenever they hear a certain noise or something, they should press the button. What they realize once they press the button is that every time they press it they are electrocuting somebody. They hear the cries of terror of this mystery person, yet the man in the lab coat says to keep pushing the button. With every push, the screams and cries get louder and louder- the person they are torturing is getting close to dying from the pain the person pressing the button is inflicting on them. Yet they don't stop, because the person in authority tells them to keep going. He doesn't threaten them or point a gun at their head, he just simply tells them to keep pushing the button. Eventually the screams get so bad that they stop; the person has died from the torture. An ordinary person has just been turned into a killer solely because someone in a position of authority told them to do it. After the screams stop, the person pushing the button feels horrible, and is told that there wasn't actually anyone being tortured, it was just noises and they didn't kill anyone. It was just an experiment. But the scary thing is, the experiment showed how easy it is to turn normal people into killers. The majority of people didn't even ask why or if they could stop pressing the button and torturing this unidentified person, they just simply did what they were told. There were some, of course, who objected and wouldn't do it, but not enough. To me, that showed that the majority of people are capable of doing such horrible things, which is downright frightening. That being said, I know I will always remember this last trip for its sites and sounds, for its nightlife and food, and most of all, for being our last trip as a group. It's crazy how fast this year has gone by, now with only a couple weeks left before we return home from this fantasy year that has taught me so much. We will return to the Negev, to Sde Boker, where we started the year, in about a week, for the last week of Kivunim, for the last week of being with the people who experienced so much together in such a short time. Here's to making it count. As usual, thanks for reading the absurdly long blog post! Expect a reflective final one in the coming weeks! Shoutouts: Adina Noble
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AuthorDan Rosenzweig-Ziff Archives
June 2017
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