Written by JCC Denver member, Rebecca Gart. She resides in Denver, CO with her husband and teenage son.
When my husband first suggested going to Krakow, Poland, for our joint 25th anniversary and (my) 55th birthday trip, I have to admit, I wasn’t too excited. Krakow, really? I mean, Poland doesn’t exactly scream romance. It honestly wasn’t my first choice for a summer European destination, but little did I know the trip would deliver one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Celebrating my birthday in Krakow was profoundly hopeful and life affirming. Instead of facing the sadness and tragedy of the Holocaust with tears, anger and despair, I celebrated the renewal of Jewish life. We are alive. We are surviving, and we are thriving. And, we are not going anywhere.
My husband, Ken (a third-generation Coloradan), initially found out about Ride for the Living through a friend in Denver. Then, another long-time pal temporarily located in Krakow reached out to him to gauge his interest in the event, a four-day experience combining spirituality, Jewish culture and education, featuring a 60-mile bicycle ride from the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau to the JCC Krakow. I was skeptical about visiting Poland After all, this is where my family members were murdered by the Nazis. My grandmother never stepped foot in Vienna since the day she and my grandfather left in 1938, saying it was too painful to go back. I felt similarly. I had been to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., so really, how necessary was it to tour Auschwitz-Birkenau? Yet, Ken was adamant about attending the event, so I grudgingly agreed. I had no idea it would be one of the defining moments of my life, filled with great hope and meaning for both my ancestors and my family of today.
Now in its 10th year, Ride for Living is organized by the JCC Krakow, which is helping to build a Jewish future in the city that is best known for its Nazi death camps. Jonathan Ornstein, Executive Director of the the JCC Krakow, is committed to growing the Jewish population and community, serving as the focal point for the rebirth of Jewish life in Krakow. Before the Holocaust, there were 3.3 million Jews in Poland, yet most were killed in the Ghettos, Auschtwitz-Birkenau and other concentration camps. Today, there are around 1,110 Jews in the vibrant city of Krakow, many whom had hidden their Jewish heritage in order to survive. They are welcomed back into the fold of the JCC Krakow to rediscover their heritage and regrow from their remaining roots.
The day before our bicycle ride, our group toured Auschwitz-Birkenau, as part of an astounding 1.7 million people from around the world each year. We gathered under the large tree next to the ruins of the gas chambers at Birkenau, the tree’s canopy of leaves shading us from the extreme heat of the summer day. Our group stood in a circle on the very spot that contained so much death. Rabbi Avi Baumol of Krakow lead us in the Mourner’s Kaddish in the words of Elie Wiesel, with each verse followed by the name of a concentration camp. Next, we sang Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and that is when the most miraculous thing occurred: A group of 20 or so young women from southern Israel, the Star of David flag draped over the their shoulders, stopped mid-track on their walk and stared at us. Smiles emerged. They jumped over a ditch and joined our group, arm in in arm, singing with us at the top of their lungs. My new friend, a 70-something man in our group, turned to me with tears running down his face. “I haven’t cried all day. But here I am, seeing these young women offering me hope. They are our future.”
Then, we rode. Ken and I stood with our bikes at the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau with about 200 (mostly Jewish American) riders, along with seven Rabbis, members of the Israeli and Polish consulate, and two Holocaust survivors (Bernard Offen, who spoke to our 17-year-old son’s Israel Study Tour group the previous week in Krakow), and Marcel Zielinski, who, as a five-year-old Jewish boy in Krakow was sent to Auschwitz, where his father was killed. After the Russian liberation on January 27th, 1945, the 10-year-old Marcel and a group of boys walked by foot from Auschwitz in search of their families in Krakow. After several months in the Krakow orphanage, in August 1945, Marcel was finally reunited with his mother, who had miraculously survived. Since 2015, Marcel has joined Ride for the Living to make his same journey — this time on a bicycle — from the death camps to the JCC Krakow, celebrating his story of victory and life. Our group followed his route through the Polish countryside to honor his journey back home.
In our 60-mile journey, families and local residents would come outside to cheer us on. There were no riots or demonstrations; I never once felt afraid or nervous for my safety as a Jew. As Ornstein often says, it’s more dangerous to be a Jew in NYC than in Poland. And, as our tour guide pointed out, there aren’t any Holocaust deniers in Poland. Why? Because their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents all lived through the horrors. They knew exactly what happened, as they saw the smoke rising from the chimneys of the crematoriums. They knew that 1.1 million European Jews were murdered steps from their villages. There is simply nothing to deny.
Although we began our ride that morning as strangers, separated into our own families, we ended the day as friends. Every conversation along the route was deep and thoughtful, with explanations of why each person chose to do participate in Ride for the Living. And although every story was different, we bonded through the shared commonality of our Jewish heritage and culture. At the end of the ride, as we cycled into Krakow toward a celebration at the JCC with brightly colored balloons, cold beer and loud music, a man came up to me on the street and asked me how much money it cost to participate in the ride. My response? Not enough. There is no price-tag on the experience of connecting with others in the hope of promise for the future. I am not a religious Jew, but I take enormous pride in my identity. The Ride for the Living was overwhelming at times, and sadness overtook my joy at different points during the course of the event. But I left with a story of hope, attending a celebratory Shabbat dinner for 700 people in the center of Krakow. We will never forget what we saw and experienced, and I am most grateful to my husband for the idea and gentle nudge. It was well worth it, and more.
My Family’s Holocaust Story
Written by JCC Denver member, Rebecca Gart.
As for my own family, my grandmother, Frances was one of four siblings living in Vienna when things started to turn horrific for Jews in Austria. Her older sister Helen and her family survived in hiding from 1938 to 1944, while her brother Dov was recruited into the British army… but her brother Max was with the Belgium resistance and was captured by the Gestapo and ultimately killed (our 17-year-old son Max is named in his honor). My grandfather Paul’s sister Valli, survived the war by fleeing to Siberia. After the war ended, she and her husband and new son, born in 1940, emigrated to British-controlled Palestine, soon to become the new State of Israel. Paul’s brother, Arnold, fled Vienna for Greece, which was occupied by the British. But the Germans soon invaded, kicked out the British, and Arnold was captured and perished in a concentration camp. Dov, after leaving the British army, joined the Jewish army Haganah, and fought in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. He met his wife in Israel and they had two sons.
Meanwhile, my grandparents, Paul and Frances, married in Vienna in 1937, were still there in March 1938, when Anschluss occurred (“unity” in German, meaning that German and Austria united into one country, but in truth, the German invasion of Austria was taking over the country). Everything for Jewish Austrians changed overnight, for the worse. Paul’s father was the head of a large printing company, and in June was captured by the Germans and executed, probably part of an effort by the Germans to eliminate Jews in high leadership positions. That served as the handwriting on the wall. Paul and Frances immediately got visas to Italy, but in Milan, they realized that they could not get to their destination, America, so they returned to Vienna. They finally received visas to Switzerland, where hey applied for visas to the United States.
Finally, in 1940, with severe immigration restrictions emanating from the 1924 anti-immigration law designed mostly to keep Jews out, Paul and Frances traveled from Switzerland, across Europe to Portugal, boarded a ship, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and arrived in the United States of America. It took them between 10 and 20 years to finally be reunited with their surviving siblings in Washington, D.C. While my grandparents and some of their family members survived the Holocaust, Paul’s father, mother and brother, and Frances’ brother and two aunts and countless other relatives of both Paul and Frances were murdered in the Holocaust, many at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where I stood earlier this summer.