The Poland Journey Grows Nearer

Hello Workshop Family and Friends,

The past week has been an eventful one in the world of workshop!

Last weekend, the workshoppers headed off on Friday morning to the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, at the Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz. The museum was the first official holocaust commemorative museum in the world – established as a small exhibition of photographs from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1949. Today, the museum is still a huge part of the kibbutz history, which had a large number of Warsaw Ghetto fighters’ in the original kibbutz community.

The seminar started with an in-depth look at the Nazi rise to power, and the elements of the Nazi society. The workshoppers went through a few exhibitions – including the Nazi rise to power, the process of ghettoisation and deportation of the Jews, the world of camps that the Nazis created, and we also had some time to examine the newest exhibit to the museum – the experience of the Dutch Jewish community in the Shoah. Needless to say, it was a lot to take in!

The workshoppers headed from the museum to Shlomi hostel, where the seminar continued with a series of challenging peulot. Over Friday & Saturday, the workshoppers dealt with a range of topics, including anti-semitism in the medieval period and in the modern period, Diaspora Jewish communities and the characteristics of them created throughout the period of Exile, the beginnings of Jewish Zionist youth movements, as well as the act of rebellion – in their lives as individuals as well as within the movement.

On Sunday morning, the workshoppers headed back to the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, although this time a lot of the focus was on the resistance during the holocaust, and with a big emphasis on the acts of the youth movement during the shoah, and specifically the Dror movement – a name from which we draw our own heritage. The group went through the museum exhibition that examines the different types and levels of resistance and rebellion during the holocaust, as well as the exhibition that deals with the Warsaw Ghetto, including the Uprising of 1943. The workshoppers also spent some time at the Righteous Gentiles exhibit, as well as the “hall of the founders” a large central room of the museum which has riveting testimonies of the survivors of the uprisings that came to settle in the Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz.

The seminar was a challenging and inspiring experience for the workshoppers, one which has really laid down the groundwork for the next step in the Poland journey – the trip to Poland itself. We will be heading over there in the wee hours of the morning of March 12, and will return to Israel also in the very early hours of March 19. It will undoubtedly be an exciting educational and emotional experience for the workshoppers, one which they will certainly gain a lot from.

Happy Leap Day!