The Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw
We took the tram to the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe and the world. It dates back to 1806. During WWII it was a burial site for mass murders by the Nazis. After the war, the communist regime planned to build a highway through it. An American diplomat managed to help put a stop to that. There are more than 250,000 marked graves. It is on 83 acres.
Nissenbaum Family Foundation
The Nissenbaum Family Foundation helped restore the rundown cemetery in the 1990s. Nothing had been done for it since the 1930s. This building is right beside the cemetery. In front of this building, there is a paved area sloping down to a carved memorial stone. I walked down to read what was on the stone.
There was more information that explained who the victims were.
After reading this, I started to cry. I leaned against the low wall and just cried my heart out. Maybe it was visualizing old people being shot. That’s what it was. I realized that it was impossible to visit Warsaw without taking to heart all the horrors that had been visited on it. All of it was getting to me, and I needed to stop and regroup. I don’t know what Maureen did. She was somewhere nearby. We didn’t talk.
In the Cemetery
There were two guards in plainclothes wearing sunglasses near the entrance to the cemetery. They ignored us. That was good. The cemetery is a forest. Trees have grown up through and around the tombstones and crypts. They are mostly maples. At first, the cemetery looks forgotten. Headstones huddle against one another. But, it is very old and very crowded. A lot of love and care went into each headstone and grave marker. Funerals still take place here.
Angels
I have never seen anything like it. The sun was shining, the grass and leaves of the trees were a deep green, the shade was a respite from the heat, and it was quiet. I could no longer hear the city traffic. I stood and looked at the beauty around me. There were sculptures of angels hugging tombstones with long flowing wings covering their backs. All had their heads bowed, so you could not see their faces. There were exquisite stone carvings on crypts. Small columns and “lace” adorned the entrance to one crypt. I have never known that cemeteries could be the guardians of such elegant artwork.
One other person appeared in the cemetery. A woman. She spoke to Maureen in American English. She said, “Look at the top of the headstones and see what is sculpted there. If you see books, that means the person was a scholar.” I wanted to ask her more about the cemetery, but I didn’t want to intrude on her privacy. Besides, she disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.
Here is where the cream of European society lies. Europe is now reaping in the 21st century what she sowed in the 20th.
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