My wife Mickey and I were members of the Friends of Israel Defense Forces delegation that recently traveled on a March of the Living type tour to Poland and Israel. The delegation consisted of 60 FIDF supporters and 40 active officers from all branches of the IDF. All ranks from brigadier-general to commander were represented. These IDF officers were on a Witness in Uniform program, where soldiers and officers are sent to Poland to commemorate and to learn about the Holocaust.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We scaled the depths and peaks of Jewish history and we experienced every spectrum of emotions from sadness to disgust to joy.
We have been FIDF supporters for 12 years. We chose to take this trip because it was a great opportunity to experience some of the tragedies and triumphs of Jewish history with IDF officers and other VIPs.
FIDF, which unfortunately is not a well-known organization in the local Jewish community, was established by a group of Holocaust survivors. It is a non-military and non-political organization that emphasizes building bridges with the Jewish community worldwide and strengthening the Zionist effort to secure Jewish continuity and pride.
FIDF provides social, educational, cultural and recreational programs for the young men and women soldiers of Israel who defend the Jewish homeland. One of its programs supports the more than 3,000 soldiers from over 60 countries who serve in the IDF as “lone soldiers.” These soldiers have no immediate family in Israel and come to Israel because it is a top priority for them to serve and protect the Jewish nation. The FIDF lone soldier program provides, among other things, Shabbat and holiday celebrations, social networking centers, post-service career counselling, academic guidance and scholarships.
Mickey and I are members of the FIDF because we agree with their philosophy and objectives and because it is a very caring and professional organization that is committed to provide IDF soldiers with love and care to ease the burden they carry on behalf of Israel and the Jewish nation. This trip was important to us because it enriched and enhanced our understanding of the events in Jewish history that unite us all as Jews.
The trip began in Poland. We visited Warsaw, Krakow and Tarnow. These cities were once bustling with large Jewish populations. The Jewish communities in these cities were destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Jewish Warsaw today is a city of memorials. A mound with a plaque is the only remnant of what is left of the Jewish ghetto, where 400,000 Jews were packed in.
In Warsaw, we visited what was once the Great Synagogue of Warsaw, which was one of the largest synagogues in the world and was regarded as a symbol of Jewish Warsaw. On the last day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it was blown up by the Germans and its ruins became a symbol of the suppression of the uprising as well as the end of the ghetto and the Final Solution in Warsaw.
Sitting on the site today is a 29-story skyscraper called the Blue Tower. The Jewish community of Warsaw has struggled to regain the rights to the property of the Great Synagogue. It has been offered the 19th, 20th and 21st floors of the Blue Tower for their justified claims. I find this offer insulting. It is another example of how the Poles have benefited financially following a Jewish disaster.
From Warsaw we flew to Krakow, a city that pulsates with vitality and energy. The synagogues that were not destroyed there were used by the Germans during World War II as stables, storehouses for ammunition and fire equipment. Today only two of those synagogues are active. The others have been converted into museums or cultural centers.
We visited Tarnow, which was declared “Juden rein,” free of Jews, in 1943. While there we witnessed the joyous Bar Mitzvah of one of the IDF officers traveling with us. It was held at the site of the Old Synagogue whose battered and burned bimah is the only surviving remnant of the town’s many synagogues.
But then we went from the joy of celebrating a Bar Mitzvah to deep sorrow in mourning the slain Jews of Tarnow. Here we were each given a card with a photograph, name and birthdate of a child who was murdered there. We stood in a circle and each read the names on our cards. Then we lit candles, which we placed around the mass grave and a rabbi recited the memorial prayer for the dead. We sang Hatikvah and two wreaths of blue and white flowers each in the shape of a Magen David were laid on the mass grave.
Other moving experiences included the visits to Auschwitz 2-Birkenau and Auschwitz 1 Death Camps. Auschwitz 2-Birkenau was the biggest and most savage of the Nazi death camps. No words can describe the horrors and atrocities committed there.
The impact of Auschwitz 2-Birkenau can be fully felt by the sheer size, scope and solitude of this death camp. It covers over 425 acres. We marched with our heads held high through the main gates of Auschwitz 2-Birkenau behind the Israeli officers wearing their IDF uniforms. They carried Israeli flags raised high as well as flags of the different branches of the IDF. We marched along the railway tracks that transport trains used to deliver Jews to the gas chambers and crematoria from all over German occupied Europe. The march into Auschwitz 2-Birkenau is to remind the world of the slogan “Never Again” and to proudly declare that Israel and the Jewish nation are here to stay. The presence of the Israeli soldiers was to show the IDF is prepared to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to achieve this result.
Throughout the tourist areas of Krakow there are numerous posters and billboards advertising tours of various tourist attractions in and around Krakow. Tours of Auschwitz compete with tours of the famous Wieliczka salt mines near Krakow. I found equating the Holocaust with a tour of a salt mine to be in poor taste and I was equally disgusted. I also believe making money from tours to the scene of mankind’s greatest tragedy and crime was even more inappropriate and perverse.
We flew from Poland to Tel Aviv on an Israel Air Force jet plane. We went from the Jewish-blood-drenched killing fields of Auschwitz and Poland to the land of milk and honey in Israel.
We landed at Ben Gurion Airport on erev Shabbat. As we disembarked from the plane a band was playing “Heivenu Shalom Aleichem.” Most of the FIDF delegates and soldiers spontaneously started dancing on the tarmac. It was very exciting and emotional, bringing tears to many.
Once we were settled at the hotel Mickey and I went to the Kotel, which is always a moving and exhilarating experience. While in Israel we were honored by the presence of several IDF dignitaries and political leaders.
America is the greatest country in the world. However, much as we love America, Israel is a sanctuary and our homeland, a place where we can always seek refuge and shelter. We thank Hashem that Israel exists and has the IDF defending it. We have been involved and exposed to many Jewish organizations in South Africa, Israel and United States. The FIDF is without question the crown jewel of all Jewish organizations. FIDF deserves the support of every Jew who loves Israel and the Jewish people.
Solomon Batnitzky, M.D., is emeritus professor of radiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center.