Sródborow

On May 9th, thirty Holocaust survivors throughout Poland gathered in the town of Sródborow for a 10-day bi-annual retreat. When I organized programs at the same retreat in September, it was during my first few months in Poland. Now, the second time around, I was especially moved.

On Friday afternoon, I facilitated a Polish-Jewish poetry "coffee house" so with my song sheets, Lag B’Omer information, and candles, wine, challah, and spices for Shabbat and Havdalah (all in my backpack), I carried ten books of poetry written by famous Polish-Jewish poets. One of the books was a volume of poetry written by A. Ziemny. Little did I know that Mr. Ziemny is alive and well and would be one of the 30 Holocaust survivors attending the retreat!

Outside, I arranged chairs in a circle and in my broken Polish asked everyone to sit down. I passed out the books of poetry and it didn’t take long before Mr. Ziemny was reading poems from his own book, answering questions, and initiating a conversation about the Jewish literary movement in Poland. After the discussion, he spoke with me in English and we talked about famous American poets.

"So who do you like?” he asked.
“Well, I like a lot of poets.” Trying to think of poets whom he’d know, I rattled off a few names.
“Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Jack Kerouac..."
“Yes, yes, I like them.”
“Sylvia Plath, Gertrude Stein...”
“Stein mostly writes prose, but I like her.”
“Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg—”
“Carl Sandburg?! You know Carl Sandburg? He’s the greatest.”

And so we talked about Carl Sandburg and tried to quote his poems as best as we could remember...

The child’s wonder
At the old moon
Comes back nightly.
She points her finger
To the far silent yellow thing
Shining through the branches
Filtering on the leaves a golden sand,
Crying with her little tongue, "See the moon!"
And in her bed fading to sleep
With babblings of the moon on her little mouth.

...

There are no handles upon a language
Whereby men take hold of it
And mark it with signs for its remembrance.
It is a river, this language,
Once in a thousand years
Breaking a new course
Changing its way to the ocean.
It is mountain effluvia
Moving to valleys
And from nation to nation
Crossing borders and mixing.
Languages die like rivers.
Words wrapped round your tongue today
And broken to shape of thought
Between your teeth and lips speaking
Now and today
Shall be faded hieroglyphics
Ten thousand years from now.
Sing--and singing--remember
Your song dies and changes
And is not here to-morrow
Any more than the wind
Blowing ten thousand years ago.

- Carl Sandburg

On another continent, in a language you hardly understand or speak, it’s quite astounding to find yourself sitting on the grass talking about the works of Carl Sandburg with a famous Jewish poet who survived the Holocaust. Before dinner, I asked Mr. Ziemny how he felt about living in Poland. He said: “It is hard to love Poland. Very hard. I don’t love this country. But we have to live. That’s the only thing to do. Am I right?”

* * *

Friday night during Shabbat dinner, I passed out song sheets (Polish transliteration of Hebrew) and Mr. Wajner told me that the women from Krakow are eager to sing. We had practiced some of the songs earlier in the afternoon so I was pleased with their enthusiasm. Mr. Wajner gave a short sermon about the meaning of Shabbat and then told me to light the candles and say the blessing. “Women light the candles, and men bless the wine,” he said. “This is the tradition. This is how it has always been.” After the blessings, we sang “Shalom Aleichem,” ate or meal, and then turned to our song sheets. Ms. Ela told me to “give everyone a note” so that they could start on key. I complied only to have all of the seniors chime in on a different key each at his or her own pace. But amazingly enough, they sang. Soon, they were banging their fists on the tables and singing songs in Polish and Yiddish in addition to Hebrew. I moved my seat when Ms. Maria motioned for me to sit next to her to look at her sheet music. She had the Yiddish verses of Dona Dona and even though I only know the English, I sat next to her and sang anyway babbling along in mis-pronounced Yiddish for as long as they wanted.

They could have been small children with their singing and their fist-banging. They could have been Ramahniks in the Berkshires. But then it hit me again that they had actually survived the Holocaust and I felt a little warm tear dribble down my cheek as I took in this joyous, holy, spirited scene of singing elders.

On Saturday, Laura came to Sródborow. Outside in the beautiful warm weather, she led a “Rainbow Sand-Art Landscape” workshop in conjunction with the holiday of Lag B’Omer. Lag B’Omer commemorates a time of rejoicing and Jewish mystics associate the Rainbow with a symbol of renewal. The seniors reflected upon sources of joy, color and renewal in their own lives as inspiration for their art. At first, many of the seniors remarked “Nie moge. Jestem bez talenta” – “I can’t. I am talentless.” But with a bit of persistence, they created the most beautiful landscapes of rainbows, mountains, bonfires, rivers, date palms and donkeys in Israel, and valleys and lakes in Poland. One woman made a picture of Moses at Mt. Sinai. Another drew a picture of the trees and flowers that surrounded us.

* * *

On Sunday, members of the Polish Union of Jewish Students joined the survivors to participate in an inter-generational dialogue about Polish-Jewish identity. The dialogue enabled younger and older community members to discuss the challenges and joys of expressing their Jewish identity over the decades. It was scheduled to last for one hour and lasted for nearly two. Never before had I seen Poles be so expressive and open with each other. They talked about real issues, real challenges, and real Jewish experiences with a deep sense of honesty. When an 85-year-old woman talked about the time she stood up for herself in school when her teacher made jokes about Jews, the 12-year-old boy I've been tutoring mentioned that he'd been teased and called names at school, too. He is the only Jew in his class. Several participants explained to me that this was the first time they had been able to have an open discussion about these issues without feeling a sense of anger, fear, or insecurity.

* * *

Today is Lag B'Omer and in a few hours I will be picnicing outside around a bonfire and eating good Kosher food and drinking not-so-good non-Kosher beer. It is a day to be joyous. Joyous and grateful I am.