Guiding in Poland

Guide in Poland including March of the Living (MOL) and at Yad Vashem. She did her PhD with Elie Weisel on the transformation of the human condition during the Holocaust. She has made Aliya and works with students from many countries. She prefers 12-14 day trips she designs starting in Lithuania. Her first trip to Poland as a teenager was with NCSY for 6 weeks. First guiding experience was with MOL non Jewish program, MRH (March of Remembrance and Hope). She has written a book based on survivor testimony; a “book of life”. Her teaching philosophy: The new generation cannot understand the whole world of the Holocaust so her work has been to help people understand pieces of it. It is hard to convey both the destruction and the life during the Holocaust; tourists can see the death camps but not the ghettos. ; Over the years her guiding has evolved and now we have a generation that requires more than just guiding. The story must be approached differently for different groups - US, UK, Australia, South Africa, and Europe. Groups differ in their knowledge about the Shoah; she has to adapt to that and to their differing political views. She has dealt with anti-Zionists including Muslims chanting (while at Birkenau) about the Israelis being the Nazis now. She was devastated by the need for Jewish staff to tell participants that they could not wear an Israeli flag and by the terrible fighting on the trip's last night - amongst the ruins of the gas chambers, the participants “politicized history with modern politics as opposed to understanding”. Her assumptions concerning how to handle the subject of Poland have also had to change as there begins to be Jewish life in Poland and as anti-Semitism grows stronger all over the world. The Holocaust is not the defining factor of Jewish identity. She constantly renews and modifies her talks to adapt to what is going on in the world. She addresses Holocaust denial and modern anti-Semitism along with psychological aspects of how survivors have lived their lives. These subjects are more important now than even 10 years ago. ; On guiding: Because time is short, it is easier to guide if one has a pre-arranged story but that is not her style. She tries to adapt to her audience; if a survivor is with her, she treats the person as a “tandem guide”. If she knows the group in advance, it is easier to adapt her story. Being adaptable is always helpful although the presence of anti-Zionists in the group makes this more difficult. Today, it is easier to be a Holocaust denier than to believe it happened; therefore the museums and their historical photos are important. Most difficult sites:  Belzec - with its new memorial.  Auschwitz-Birkenau because it is numbing in its monstrosity.  Vilatovska Gora - a mass grave and memorial to 800 children murdered there on June 11, 1942.  Ruined synagogues are difficult in a different way; trying to impart the lesson of what was normality.