Neshama 33 Travels to Tykocin and Treblinka to Bear Witness
By Shayne C. '25
Today was a long, busy day. At our Zman Mishpacha meeting at the end of the day, we talked a bit about how sometimes temporarily focusing on a smaller, more specific part of a massive tragedy can help you process it, and so I’m going to focus on music as a common thread.
We started our day bright and early at 7:00 AM for breakfast at our Warsaw hotel, before driving two hours northeast to the town of Tykocin.
Tykocin was once the site of a thriving Jewish community, and in 1642 they constructed a beautiful synagogue, with fortress-like walls several feet thick and a colorful ceiling and central frieze above the ark. Wealthy community members who had donated to the synagogue were honored with prayers, possibly of their own choosing, brightly painted onto the stucco walls inside the main sanctuary. I kid you not when I say that this was the most beautiful synagogue, I’ve ever been in. During our orientation day on Friday, we were asked where we felt most spiritual, and I answered that I don’t connect with most synagogue buildings; I typically feel much more inspired in places of nature, old cemeteries, ruins, even cathedrals and mosques. This synagogue, however, was unlike any I had ever seen.
Aly and I led a joyous Tefillah service (much less rushed this time!), and at Jesse’s request we sang Mah Tovu, which we probably have not sung as a full grade since fifth grade. We also sang Psalm 29 (Mizmor LeDavid, Havu LAdonai…) and danced the hora between the botanical patterns and Hebrew texts painted in bright blues and oranges and reds along the walls.
Those walls do not hear prayers anymore, except for when tour groups like us visit. There are no Jews left in Tykocin. In 1941, when the Nazis reconquered the village during Operation Barbarossa, the entire Jewish community of Tykocin was marched out to the Łopuchowo forest and shot beside large pits. Still in the synagogue, Katriela shared her family’s story from the shtetl of Radzilova, where, emboldened by the Nazis but fueled by long-standing antisemitism, local Poles forced all of the Jews into a barn and set it on fire. After a short visit to the poorly-maintained old Jewish cemetery, whose graves are mostly toppled and covered in grasses, we rode to the site of the death pits. We read the words of a woman who had survived a similar slaughter in another village, and who lived to testify at Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem in 1961.
We also had Noga share her family’s story from Łódź, and Aly talked about how her family survived by hiding in the forested mountains with a partisan cell. Our madrichah Shakked, inspired by Aly’s story, shared the English lyrics of Bella Ciao, an Italian song sung by a partisan to the Nazis, telling her to bury him in the mountains if the Nazis kill him and continue the fight for freedom.
After Tykocin, we drove an hour and a half to Treblinka. We first watched a short film in the small museum describing the layout and operation of the death camp: how it was disguised as a transit camp with a mock railway station and infirmary tent to avoid mass panic, how dogs and soldiers chased the naked Jews as they walked along the “Road to Heaven” gauntlet, how at least 850,000 people were murdered there. The Nazis razed the entire camp in 1943 to hide the evidence of their crimes, so all that stands today are memorials and stone markers denoting where guard towers and train tracks once stood. On the walk to the main memorial, Solomon told us about how his Polish great-grandfather escaped to France and managed to survive there, and Maya told us about how her great-great-grandparents were slaughtered at Babi Yar, a ravine near Kyiv, after surviving the first selection. She further explained how the Soviet authorities refused to acknowledge the Judaism of Babi Yar’s victims, and how a Russian rocket damaged the memorial site in 2022 during the ongoing War in Ukraine.
Rob also told us the story of how a Modzitzer Chasid, a sect known for their niggunim and songs, invented the popular melody to Ani Ma’amin while in a cattle car en route to Treblinka, and we sang the eery hymn as we walked to the main Treblinka memorial. The memorial features hundreds of upright stones, representing various Jewish communities destroyed at the death camp, with the exception of a single stone dedicated to the educator Janusz Korczak, who bravely marched to the death with the children of his orphanage despite being offered a chance to escape. In the center stands a tall stone monument, with bas-reliefs depicting Jews packed into the gas chambers, as well as a menorah on the back. I shared the story of my great-great-aunt Chaja Sura, who was murdered at Treblinka alongside her husband and five of her eight children, as well as the story of her son Moishe, who survived seven concentration camps and whose own son is the famous rock musician Geddy Lee. After strolling between the markers on our own for a few minutes, we gathered for our memorial ceremony, where Itai’s mishpacha read poems and prayers, holding Israeli flags.
Before reciting the Mourners’ Kaddish together, we sang the song Eli, Eli, written by Hannah Szenes, a Hungarian Jew who had made Aliyah but who returned as a paratrooper to support Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, before being captured and executed by Nazis. The song describes her hope that even as humans do great evil to each other, that the beauty of the natural world is never destroyed:
My God, my God,
may it never end –
the sand and the sea,
the rustle of the water,
the lightning of the sky,
the prayer of man.
I found this song strangely fitting: throughout our visit to Treblinka, flurries of snow sporadically fell from the sky, which was colored gold by one of the most vivid sunsets I have ever seen.
After leaving Treblinka, we drove three hours to Lublin, where we had dinner (much better than I expected!) and Zman Mishpacha. When we entered the city, the bus speakers began to play Bella Ciao again, and I thought about how even though over 850,000 souls of our people were murdered at Treblinka, we survived. We could still dance the hora to David’s psalm in ancient synagogues; we proclaimed our continued belief with Ani Ma’amin; we witnessed the juxtaposition of mass murder with a beautifully snowy sunset as we sang Eli, Eli; and with Bella Ciao, we expressed our dedication to freedom and the constant resistance that is Jewish life.
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