Today I went on a Warsaw Urban Walking Tour with Avi, one of our brilliant scholars in residence, who is teaching us on this journey.
It’s hard to put into words, but I’ll share a few things that really impacted me from today.
First, The Warsaw ghetto. Before WWII, 30% of Poland was Jewish(It’s actually where my great grandparents are from). In 1940, the Nazis forced the more than 400,000 of them into a small, sealed-off section of the city. Those that didn’t die from starvation or disease, were deported to extermination camps where they were murdered.
Second, Janusz Korczak. He was a Polish-Jewish pediatrician educator, children’s author, and advocate for children’s rights. During WWII, he started an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, when the Nazis deported the children to the extermination camp, the underground offered him opportunities to save himself(he was beloved by the Polish people), but he would not leave the orphaned children. They were all murdered at Treblinka.
And third, Warsaw is remarkable to me. Most of the historic center was deliberately destroyed during World War II, including churches, but after the war the Old Town was reconstructed from the rubble using any records they could find. It has been listed as an UNESCO Historic Site.
