The management of the Auschwitz Museum has filed a complaint with the Israeli Embassy in Poland and the Israeli Ministry of Education condemning the behavior of Israelis visiting the camp. One of the transgressions listed is that Israelis talk on their cellular phones, even inside the gas chambers.
The management asked the ministry to ensure members of the groups respect basic behavioral norms at the site, such as not lighting candles in the barracks, from fear of fire, not using loudspeakers and cellular phones and maintaining appropriate conduct inside the gas chambers. Israeli visitors talk on their cellular phones despite unequivocal requests not to. They talk even inside the gas chambers, dishonoring the place, the museum said.
Polish officials have also complained about the Israeli youth who walk in the streets wrapped in Israeli flags. Additionally, the organizers of the March of the Living have said that they are considering not inviting groups of Israeli teenagers to the marches in Auschwitz and Krakow due to the heavy security arrangements they required. The Israeli groups arrive in Poland and travel around accompanied by armed Shin Bet security guards.
One of my first “real” jobs was working as a chambermaid at a Wandlyn Motor Inn. I cannot personally speak for the conduct of Israeli teens but let me tell you - hockey teams with 20+ year old players were no joy for the cleaning staff or motel management but we didn’t turn away trade. Instead, we just billed the credit card for damages and nobody thought to complain to the Premier or the US Ambassador.
The teams created havoc and mayhem well beyond the average imagination to predict. These were adult men and not teenagers. I find it a little hard to believe Polish hoteliers find Israeli teen behaviour so outrageous and/or so incredibly out of line with their experience that they are reduced to laying complaints at the Israeli Embassy. I suspect from the nature of the complaints there are more than a few Poles who would rather go back to the old days, when all you had to do was hang a sign outside the hotel saying, “No Jews Allowed.”
Nor am apt to emphasize with the alleged slight to Polish honour, which is apparently offended by Israeli teenagers walking the street of Krakow while wearing an Israeli flag and accompanied by the Israeli internal security service personnel. Let me speak frankly. The last time Jews had to rely on the Poles for their physical well-being, the Jews mostly ended up in places just like Auschwitz. The only thing preventing another mass worldwide bloodletting of Jews (in the here and now) is the state of Israel backed up the might of the Israeli security forces. Furthermore, I do find it quite a stretch to believe any organizer with March of the Living actually suggested the organization was considering excluding groups of Israeli teens from the March of the Living tours - regardless of what security requirements are required to ensure the teenagers’ safety.
I am going to speak as a mother and as a woman not unacquainted with death and loss. I find solace in the thought of Israeli teens lighting candles in the barracks of death. I find it a downright comforting notion that Israeli teenagers are calling to speak to their mothers as they stand in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The very fact these Israeli teens can stand, in Auschwitz, and have a mother, a father, a sister, a brother or even a friend to call on their cell phones is a living testament to a great miracle.
I am sure my friend’s father at the age of 17 would have given up the use of his arm to be able to speak to his mother on the last day he spent in Auschwitz. Oh my bad…he was forced to give up the use of his left arm but he still had no mother, father, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins to speak to on the day he left Auschwitz.
I can think of nothing more life affirming, in a place where the souls of the living was devoured by a great and insatiable evil than to have Israeli teenagers talk, and laugh, and let their joy in living ring out. Nothing says “Am Yisrael Chai” more, and in this case; joyful living is the ultimate revenge. In the end, it reminds me of this much misquoted line from Isaiah – I will give you beauty for ashes, and for those who mourn in Zion, I will bring the oil of joy. So let the dead hear the living’s laughter and be at peace knowing - some have survived and even managed to thrive.
7 comments:
I can think of nothing more life affirming, in a place where the souls of the living was devoured by a great and insatiable evil than to have Israeli teenagers talk, and laugh, and let their joy in living ring out.
What I always marvel at is the lack of bitterness in the Jewish people as a whole. I love that verse from Isaiah. Enjoyed your post.
Much thanks, and I too stand in awe of Israelis' ability to live joyfully in spite of war & suffering -
While I love that quote from Isaiah, and there is a personal story concerning a dream, that line and the name of my youngest son, it actually doesn't read that way in Hebrew.
A couple of weeks ago I had that passage rolling over and over in my head.
How does it read in Hebrew?
I am going to disagree with you on this one, Kate. The cell phone argument could apply to say, somebody talking on a cell phone during Remembrance Day ceremonies, or any any given funeral. The dead would probably not begrudge them that.
But some of the living do consider it to be rather profoundly disrespectful. Millions of people died in gas chambers against their will; that turf is in a very real sense hallowed ground, consecrated by the blood of innocents.
I would not single out Israeli teens for being wireless blabbermouths, and that is where the Poles are fools. But I wouldn't think too highly of anybody who can't contemplate the gravitas of such a place without even an insincere outward fakery of respect.
Chris, I do see your point and in a way agree with you, but I am reminded of an incident from years ago when my daughter when my daughter was researching for a project. She stumbled upon some archived pictures of a group of victims in a death camp. The pictures disturbed her greatly because she could see a family resemblance to pictures of her relatives hanging in the hallway of our home. She asked permission to leave the classroom and ran down to the office to call me. She was overwhelmed with the need to speak to me – to reconnect with life as fear touched her in such an elementary way it is difficult to describe it words. I suspect some of these same teens were undergoing a very similar compulsion. It would be nice if we could all maintain our dignity and self-composure in grave circumstances but sometimes our emotional responses have a way of running ahead of common sense –especially when we are young.
While there are periods in Poland’s history when the Jews thrived, nor would I deny that among all nations, Polish gentiles represented the largest single group of recognized righteous souls (6,004) what does it tell us about the other 32.5 million Poles? Its a bit of a stretch to base Polish resistance because their were fighting for their "Jews". Let us not forget 85% of Polish Jewry perished in WW2.
And I would never for a minute not point a finger at my own country’s record both; before or immediately after WW2, and not say - shame, but anti-Semitism was not a little known fact of life under Polish rule. Pogroms were not an experience limited strictly to Russian Jews alone. In fact, a rise of anti-Semitism after WW1 washed over Poland like a tidal wave. Let us not forget the Polish pogrom in the city of Kielce in July 1946 when there were no Nazis left to excuse the anti-Semitic behaviour of the Poles.
Nor am I ignorant of just who died in the Nazi death camps or in what numbers. Take the Roma, who are by a culture a private people, but one of their experiences of WW2 also represents one of their most shameful memories which many would choose simply to forget. The Nazi’s, at first, attempted to divide the Rom into groups of “pure-blood” and "mixed blood". Roma families complied and turned over the “mixed-blood” (those born of non-Rom mothers and which was later extended - by Nazi request to those possessing even two great-grandparents of non-Roma blood) for death. Those privileges ended in horrendous scientific experiments performed on purebloods and ultimately death in the camps. While one Jewish grandparent was enough to unite the Jews, the Roma allowed one gagjov great-grandparent to kill their heart which is why the Roma refer to the holocaust as the great devouring of souls, because for the first time, the Rom allowed the gagjov to divide and deny their own.
As far as the emotional responses of the cell phones uses go – how about we let each heart pass judgment on their own conduct?
Interesting comments about the cell phones...
Personally, I find excessive public cell phone use to be rather rude, but there are time when you just need to call someone...
And just as a cultural point, it's probably easier to pry the gun out of Charleton Heston's hands than to get the cell phone away from an Israeli...
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