During my long layover in Warsaw on my trip back to Moscow, I had to find what’s left of the 11-mile long Warsaw Ghetto wall. Although I got lost for about an hour and only found the original short section after the sun had gone down, the overwhelming emotional cocktail of heartache, waves of sadness, gratitude for my freedom made the trek worth every second.
The only thing that had a similar effect was when I saw the original railroad boxcar on original tracks from the extermination camp, Treblinka, at the Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida when I was sixteen. I don’t know which route(s) this boxcar took, but about 250,000 to 300,000 Warsaw Ghetto inmates were sent to Treblinka this way. The stench of that boxcar, #113 069-5, came right back when I first laid eyes on the wall.
Scenes from The Pianist also came right back. I have to watch it again, and it will be a new experience now that I’ve been to Warsaw – inside the ghetto boundaries and standing right at the wall.
I was hoping to get there while the sun was still up, but with my flight into Warsaw being delayed and my getting lost, I’m actually grateful for the night views. I think the darkness added more mystery and wonder to all that happened exactly where I was standing. The darkness made my mind race even faster about what life was like inside the ghetto in stark contrast to the other side of the wall. Looking at my photos makes my heart heavy all over again, and the chills that down my spine make me imagine myself in the shoes of a ghetto inmate. ↓
The wall is between two apartment buildings, and a staircase goes down into the one on the right.
Imagine what the other side looked like during the Nazi occupation.
The golden plaque explains that the rectangular hole – two bricks were removed and brought to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington for its permanent exhibition in Aug. 1989.
I suspect that stones and pebbles are for those who lost their lives as is Jewish custom.
I thought that the ad in the background provides an interesting perspective with the wall.
The other side of the apartment building on the right in the previous photo. This part is higher than most other parts of the wall at 10 feet because sections that connected two buildings like this were built higher.
Does anyone know Polish? It looks like another brick was removed and people placed stones and pebbles inside.
The map was very hard to read in the low light, but it was a map like the one below showing the boundaries of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940. ↓
The Warsaw Ghetto boundaries in 1940; image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto
The ghetto was sealed on November 15th, 1940, and this section was no longer part of the ghetto when it became smaller after most of the inmates were shipped off to Treblinka. I’m so glad that I was able to bear witness to this dark period of world history this way. I hope that I’ll have another long layover in Warsaw so I can find other Warsaw Ghetto landmarks.
Given how this made me feel, I can only imagine how Auschwitz will hit me in May. If only walls could talk.
Are there things/places you want to see
so that you can bear witness?
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