Memories

Today we looked at memorialization of the dead and celebration of the survivors, what we were talking about became very personal when I apply the ideas to my own experience on March of the Living (MOTL) in 2008.

Here is a link for those who are not familiar with MOTL

http://www.marchoftheliving.org/mol2009/09intro.html

As the locations in Poland may change with each different MOTL journey on the 2008 one I went on I went to numerous cemeteries, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka.

MOTL itself is an experience that is a memorialization of both the dead and the living. One of the things that MOTL tries to do every time they take people to Poland is to go to a place where this is memorial, this memorial is one that is not as well known or in some cases completely forgotten.

In my experience on the 2008 MOTL we went to a small memorial between Lubin and Warsaw. This memorial was for the people who were murdered and shot while running from the Nazi’s when the raid came on the small town. While we were there a elderly man came to see what was going on at the memorial, as it is rarely visited by anyone outside of the town. When our coordinators told the man about our experience, he began to speak to us and our guide translated. He told us how he had been a young child when the raids came through, and how he remembered hearing everything. This single memorial that was hidden within a forest was one of the ones that I remember the most from the experience.

In contrast to the cemeteries in Poland that we visited were mostly filled with those who had died of natural causes, and therefore where some of the most peaceful places I have ever been in. They were testaments to the great people who lived their lives and passed before the war.

The third type of memorial we experienced is one that was in Israel rather then Poland on Yad Vashem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yad_Vashem

This memorial was all about the living and those who helped people to survive. What I am talking about are the memorials of the “gentiles” (none Jewish people) who helped hide, save, or protect Jewish people during WW II. This memorial is in the form of a garden where trees are planted in the name of those righteous people. Interestingly enough this is a perishable memorial rather then a permanent one, yet it is fairly synonymous with thoughts about Yad Vashem.

The purpose of March of the Living is for the living to remember and be able to pass on their memories to the next generation, and to celebrate the survivors. In my opinion I do think that through this program, and the testaments from those who have gone on the journey, the memory is not forgotten, the dead as well as the survivors are not forgotten