Today our President Shimon Peres, himself born in Poland, stood with Polish President Lech Kaczyński at Treblinka. It was the first of several ceremonies to mark the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which has been called "the first urban mass rebellion against the Nazi occupation of Europe." I took these photos at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. The first evokes the heroism of the 19-year-old who led the escape of roughly 80 fighter-survivors through the Warsaw sewers. They emerged in a nearby forest or in safe houses on the "Aryan side" of the ghetto walls. Most joined up with the Polish resistance partisans.
And lest we forget, or never knew, there WERE several thousand Poles who risked or sacrificed their life to save Polish Jews. They are some of the many Righteous Gentiles honored by this garden and with trees bearing their names at Yad Vashem.
Did you know that they are building a huge, beautiful Jewish Museum here in Skokie? I'm wondering when they'll be finished.
ReplyDeleteWonderful images. Thank you for sharing those. I visited Auschwitz in 1996, and I'll never forget it.
ReplyDeleteMusings--No, I didn't know. Hope there will be many happy things in the new museum.
ReplyDeleteUSElaine--Good on ya. You are braver than I.
My godmother's husband was born in Poland. He escaped with a friend, by climbing underneath the wheels of a railway train and travelling in such a trecherous manner over the border. He made his way to England where he found work, a family and continued to help his family by sending them what he could.
ReplyDeleteHe died some years ago, a much loved and respected man.
We need to remember what our families went through for us.
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What a daring escape! Thank you for sharing this inspiring story. Yes, how true, we should appreciate what that generation went through and how they went on to make a life.
ReplyDeleteGreat post
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Thanks for sharing this homage.
ReplyDeletebeautiful pictures to remember events by I had a polish class fellow whose father told us stories of his experiences.
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