Monuments can be affecting due to their size, physical shape, coloration, symbolism, etc. Today when we visited the Warsaw Deportations Monument I was mostly affected by the adjacent physical space.
The monument itself is simple and reverent, split grey walls, with first names representing the 300,000 Jews corralled here, awaiting their fate. Within the monument itself Avi read to us accounts of what had taken place, I appreciated this opportunity to pause and listen. I closed my eyes to focus, but I had no reference point to place the emotions of people sitting in this place 8 decades before. My emotions were unclear, buffered by questions, “What did people know? The victims? The soldiers? The police?”
As we stood to leave another group, strangers to us, sat in our places, and I thought about the cycle of groups who must visit this place each day. I was lifted slightly by the image of wave after wave of pilgrims to this place of remembrance.
Then, as we walked up the street between the two buildings that formed the walls of the Umschlagplatz a heaviness in my chest was unmistakable. Standing here on what today looks like an ordinary street I had a distinct physical reaction I wasn’t ready for. There is an emotion growing as we stop along this journey. It’s familiar and unrecognizable, but in that place today, between those buildings, the weight I felt was real, and I want to carry it with me into tomorrow. I’m beginning to understand the responsibility we’ll all have to share with others when this trip ends.
