Preparing for Auschwitz
Israel>Germany>Krakau

2003_11_16-20

Renata, who had served and saved "Succah in the Desert" for 2 years as a carpenter,
had been to the AUschwitz-BirkenAU Retreat twice.
One of those "Jewish stories":
Renata's Christian father and Jewish mother had fled Nazi-Germany to Spain,
only to escape from Spain, when Franco came to power, and settle in Argentine.
When Renata grew up and married, they tried Israel (Beersheva) for 2 years,
and finally settled for "the good life" ( judgment of an Israeli...) near New York.
When Renata told me about the retreat, I did not feel the slightest call to go there.

Yanina, my friend, was informed by "Hamakom" Community at the Dead Sea (!!!).
She told me on Sept. 10, 2003.
Nothing happened at first.
On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Sept. 26, she wrote with great excitement,
that she was ready to go on a great journey in a month's time.
Still nothing moved in me.
This was not for me.
My heart and mind had been "there" for 45 years, why should I go their physically?
On Oct. 3, a Shabbat morning and a day before the Day of Atonement, she wrote,
that she had read my presentation of Noah's Shore ,
while she herself was going more and more inside herself towards her journey to Auschwitz.
She asked, if I wanted to read something, - it was Peter Cunningham's report of 1996...

Completely taken by the image of "the bowl of soup without a spoon", I started to search for more information
and thus found the site of the Peacemaker Circle and the invitation to the "Bearing Witness Retreat" in Auschwitz.
That hour Yanina was not available.
I had to find the answer in myself.
And then I knew, I simply knew.
It was crazy - also concerning the costs..
I was in the middle of coping heavily with the rising financial toll on my children, who pay for my flat.
I felt, the journey had something to do with Noah's Shore.
Maybe the wonderful people who would participate would give me strength, or even support.

Israel

Going to Auschwitz: The Purpose of needing to beg for Money

What was a distress 6 weeks ago, became a blessing:
My inability to pay for the flight to Krakow and the participation in the Retreat:

http://www.wordwiseweb.com/AUSCHWITZ/auschwitz.html#4

"After the sitting period we did kinhin (slow walking meditation)
to the gas chamber-crematorium complex …
Back outside the main gate for a bowl of soup (no spoon) and a hunk of bread, …"

This simple image – "no spoon" – hit me like a lightening: "I've to be there this year!" An absurdity for one, who precariously juggles with her children's financial support. The Feeling became a Knowing, when I reached the following passages:

"Sleep was scheduled after the talks,
but ...all barbed wire has places you can pass through ...
We found the way into the maze
and we would walk slowly through the camp for hours in the darkness.
The silence was pierced by the wailing of a Shofar ... at the execution wall ...
I cannot fully express the reasons,
but we felt a complete sense of freedom and love
on those walks inside the barbed wire.
It was as if the souls of those who died
were handing over to us the   f e e l i n g s
that were prematurely taken away from them,
that they never got to use themselves.
This gift of life was completely unexpected and exhilerating."
...........................
"One is forced to integrate these interrupted lives… into one's consciousness,
they are looking over one's shoulder all the time,
they demand that you    PAY   ATTENTION,
not just to them, but to your own life and mind.
… when you are tempted to ... let your mind wander from the present moment ,
they immediately see, and they whack you hard over your shoulders;
you feel a fool, but you wake up right away.
On the other hand, when your concentration is complete,
when you are fully alive, awake in this place,
you feel in some way
that you are releasing these souls from their bondage.
If not literally, then in the sense
that you are breathing for them the breaths
that they were never allowed to take.
It is at once an inspiring opportunity and a heavy responsibility
to breathe or weep or smile or speak
or just maintain silence on behalf of these spirits.

[It was only in Birkenau itself,
that I started to rage with pain
against this grey conclusion!]

"This is a place of great intensity.
It is a place for great sorrow and great joy, for great bitterness and great love.
This mix of emotions was a complete surprise to me and to others in our group,
but I think this is why many people consider Auschwitz a Holy Place,
and why it was, for me, a pilgrimage that became a personal transformation."

For me, Christa, then Rachel, then Christa-Rachel, this Auschwitz has been ever-present.
[you may get an inkling of my life when leafing through the library "A Time to Harvest"…]
Has the time come, to experience this Auschwitz no longer alone but enfolded in you?
And to then let our evolved Feeling
and mature Understanding
affect Human Plight?"

Renata, who just happened to visit in Israel then,
was the first to give me a contribution.

And then I flew!
I flew from Israel to Germany.

Flooded by AUschwitz-BirkenAU,
I can hardly grasp this:

I AM FLYING FROM ISRAEL TO GERMANY...