When I’m in Eastern Europe I feel so pulled. On the one hand cities, like Krakow are so beautiful, Warsaw represents how all ruins don’t have to remain, but some should, and other cities, towns, villages, have their own sense of beauty and purpose. But still, I feel torn. I’m admiring the tenacity of the people, the structures they built, their attempts at preserving the memories of a culture and a people who to a large degree remain vacant from the places where they once represented more than 50% of the population. I’m also forever haunted by the energy of the people who were violently uprooted from their homes, their families, their lives, I have such trouble reconciling being here. I’m not here on a pleasure trip. My trips to Eastern Europe are all work trips. I can’t even imagine coming here for pleasure, for a vacation, although it’s clear that many do.

The streets here and elsewhere have reminders of what happened – it’s impossible to get away from the screams imbedded in the cobblestones, soaked into the soil. If we don’t bear witness, somehow live through the pain that threatens at every step to grab onto our ankles, and hold you fast to these stones, then no one will remember the events, the people, their names, something of their lives.

I feel that I’m missing the words that will clearly express the pain I feel, and yet, and yet…it’s not the fault of these cobblestones, the grains of sand, the bricks on the houses. Those things didn’t cause the horror. They, like we, stood as witnesses. What would or could we have done had we been here? How would we have responded to the events?

Growing up, there was an amazing couple who lived next door – Eli and Felicia. They were my parents’ age, but had seen and lived through so much more. I first knew them about 1960. They had mysterious numbers tattooed on their arms. They were warm, loving people, their daughter was my friend. Their son was just my friend’s little brother. In spite of growing up in Krakow and spending part of their teenage years in Auschwitz, they took such joy in their family, the people around them. They were gentle-spoken people, and were so kind. How did they come out of the terror intact at least outwardly? Could I have been that brave or would I have succumbed to the nightmare that life must have been? It’s hard to imagine how things would have been if I lived a slightly different life, if my ancestors had not, unknowingly, anticipated these events, and escaped them, fleeing from something not yet in existence, to find a relatively safe spot to live.

The yin and the yang of it all…