What could make a group of Jewish professionals – with all the stresses and hassles their busy lives entail – go halfway across the world? If you answered a free 10-day vacation to an exotic location with gorgeous beaches, guess again! Could such a trip be a “bucket-list” item, perhaps? A once-in-a-lifetime African safari jaunt? No, that answer would be incorrect as well. This may have been a once-in-a-lifetime trip, but the payoff wasn’t sand, sun, and fun.
We all know Jewish men and women, the world over, who will drop anything, at a moment’s notice, and travel to the farthest-flung country to help a Jew or non-Jew in distress, no matter observance level or political ideology. We have seen and continue to see all these wonderful people respond to chaos across the world, when people are at their most vulnerable after a terrible life event, even outside of Eretz Yisrael – places such as Houston, New Orleans, Long Island, New York, India, the Philippines, and many others.
But what about helping Jews who are no longer alive? What about the ultimate mitzva, kvod hames (respecting the dead)? During World War II, myriads of Jews, irrespective of age or observance level, suffered the horrors of being shot, left to freeze to death, or brutally murdered by the faces of evil. Of course, they were never given a proper Jewish burial. Are we currently thinking about these martyrs, to whom I am sure many of our readers, with their Eastern European lineage, could trace their roots? These are Jews whose bones still litter European countries, especially Ukraine.
This summer, a group from the Baltimore and Washington D.C. area traveled to Ukraine to observe the situation and try to do something about it. These are people who may not have the time but made the time to achieve this mission. The Gemara (Shavuot 39a) concludes with the Aramaic phrase, “Kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh,” meaning that all of Israel are responsible for each other. Maybe that responsibility is in our DNA, our genetic makeup, so that we know instinctively, that even the smallest bone of one unnamed Jew, wherever she or he may be, deserves a proper burial, a proper Kaddish, and a proper Kel Maleh Rachamim.
For the members of this group, applying these principles became their “vacation,” and they told their story to me.
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The “vacationers” knew from the start that this would not be a fun trip. The first stop was Kiev, where they explored the city and met with the local Jewish community. Kiev has a beis medrash where people learn all day; it even has a nice kosher restaurant! From there they went to Rovna/Ribna, where the Maggid of Mezeritch was born and died, and where the Ba’al HaTanya prayed. In Ostroh, the visitors were surprised to discover that the historic synagogue of the famous Maharsha is being restored by a non-religious Ukrainian Jew! At one of the shuls, a Chabad rabbi tries to provide for Jews looking to grow their religious observance.
There is no outward sign of the horrors that occurred 75 years ago. In fact, one might feel as if he is walking in any modern European nation, like Czechoslovakia, Estonia, etc. Distracted by lovely architecture, one could easily forget that tens of thousands of people were killed in these very streets, simply for being a Jew in Europe at the wrong time in history. Not far from the beautiful buildings, however, mass graves do exist; where skulls, vertebrae, and other bones are visible on the ground. The group couldn’t just walk by. They were shocked but had to act. Everyone on the trip agreed that these people had suffered during their lives, cruelly tortured by the Nazis and their willing helpers in Ukraine and other places. They should at least be respected now. They buried what they found and said Kaddish and Kel Maleh Rachamim.
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Each person on this trip, whether observant or not, had his or her reason to go. The following are some reflections of the travelers:
A lawyer writes: “For many, many years I had wanted to visit concentration camps and sites of mass shootings, where atrocities of the Holocaust took place. I wanted to visit the area where three of my four grandparents were born and where family members were killed. I wanted to do my part in honoring the memories of those killed. I expected to cry and to feel the impact of the horror. And I cried and felt pain. But even standing where these atrocities took place, the horror was beyond what I could comprehend.
“I had read about the Ukraine prior to coming. I knew we would not see proper monuments explaining what occurred and giving respect to those senselessly murdered. I even read about these areas being vandalized. But I was totally unprepared for how prevalent this was and is. Sites are overgrown with weeds, strewn with syringes and garbage. Mass burial pits are being dug up by people searching for valuables. Bones are being left unburied, totally disrespected. We saw recent evidence of this everywhere!
“I am coming home with a sense of urgency. We need to create an organization to enlighten the world and ensure that cemeteries and sites of mass shootings have proper protection. We need to preserve the memories. This will take work. We were told there are about 1,000 sites of mass shootings in the Ukraine.”
Another participant writes: “Jews who were murdered in Ukraine numbered 1.5 million, almost one quarter of Holocaust victims. We often think of Holocaust victims as having been burned, but that was not true in Ukraine. Their graves have been paved over, desecrated, and abandoned. I’ve been thinking a lot about whether we can find space in our collective memory to take in their stories, too. I want to hope that we can, but it will take the dedication and commitment of the entire klal Yisrael.”
A 10-year-old boy says: “When I go back to school in a couple of weeks, my teacher is going to ask everyone what we did this summer. Most kids are going to say they went to camp. Some are going to say they went to Florida or some other relaxing vacation place with their family. My summer was completely different. Yeah, I went to camp, but straight after I flew to Ukraine.
“The trip to Ukraine really wasn’t fun, but I learned so much from it. I was expecting to see big cemeteries filled with gravestones. When we got there, all I saw were holes in the ground with human bones spread around. It was horrible. The people of Ukraine seemed to not care at all about the Jews! How could they let something like this happen? We went from city to city, and I kept seeing the same horrible situation. There was garbage where humans were buried and holes dug up because people were searching for gold. The police, who were supposed to protect these places, were sometimes the ones who dug up the bodies.”
A 19-year-old woman says: “I went to Poland this past year with my seminary. Approximately 35 of us spent five days visiting concentration camps and Jewish cemeteries. It was one of my most memorable and moving experiences of my year. As I walked through Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek, I had mixed emotions. On one hand I was devastated at the cruelty of humans and felt so much pain for my Jewish brethren. However, as my friends and I held hands and exited the gates of the camps, I felt triumphant. Our grandparents merited children who follow in the ways of Judaism and have passed that on to their children. The Nazis entirely failed to wipe out Judaism. On this trip I also visited the kever of the Rebbe Elimelech of Lejansk, my great-grandfather. This message was again laid before my eyes. Our grandparents lived here, and we are back today.”
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Thankfully, not all the group members saw was bad. In contrast to the uprooted and desecrated graves in Babi Yar, Solenski, and Janowski, they also saw places where great, albeit humble, people had taken care of Jews. They saw a man who shut down an amusement park that was built over a Jewish cemetery and gathered all the headstones from around the city. They also saw a couple who dedicated their lives to preserving the Jewish legacy of Lviv. They saw rabbis and their families who live in places with barely any Jews, have no real friends, and homeschool their children – all for the sake of maintaining a Jewish presence despite everything that has happened.
The group described the many lessons they learned from the trip. First is the obligation to make sure the past is not forgotten. Second, they learned that one sometimes has to face evil people. Third, they learned that if people care about something, they will take care of it. Finally, they learned that sometimes it is better to have a meaningful time than a relaxing vacation.
Unlike places like Poland, with its well-known Holocaust memorials, there were no visitors centers and no tourists in Ukraine. Instead, the group found trash, needles, and empty bottles on the ashes of Jewish bodies. Holes existed where there should have been gravestones, because grave robbers had been searching the bodies for gold. The holy martyrs of the Jewish people deserve better. The group members buried their bones with their own hands.
These reflections would not be complete without noting a few real heroes, individual Jews and non-Jews who are working to return tombstones to cemeteries, to restore synagogues, and to establish a Jewish presence in Ukraine. All these individuals are lights in the darkness. The planners of this mission recognized the importance of structuring their trip so that the members of the group would see all the darkness as well as this little ray of light.
One member told me “I thought this was going to be a one-time trip to Ukraine. But I now think I will go back. We have an obligation. We say ‘never forget,’ but if you walk the streets of Ukraine, something is clearly forgotten. I did not have mixed emotions during this trip. I was simply angry: angry at the Nazis, who did cruel and horrifying deeds; angry at the Ukrainians, who seem to have chosen to ignore the past; and angry at my fellow Jews, who only go on established tours.
“The Torah tells us not to turn a blind eye to the blood of our brothers. Too many American Jews did that during the Holocaust, unfortunately. The blood is spilt, gone. But the bones are still there, subject to bizayon (humiliation), indignity, and robbery – in 2018, almost 80 years later! A huge number of Jews were murdered by bullets in Ukraine, in a thousand places. As it says in the 79th psalm, their bodies were eaten by the birds and human vultures. Now their bones are being trampled upon by some locals from these once Jewish Ukrainian towns as if it never happened.”
Well, some American Jews care – or do we?
