March of the Living 1999 Diary

April 15, 6:35 PM

Treblinka is. . . different. More personal, maybe. We haven’t even left yet (we’re on the bus), but I’m all confused.

I saw two memorial stones that affected me. The first was the Sochaczew [Note: I’m not sure if that’s spelt right. Ari, if you’re reading this, please feel free to correct me.] stone. I think you can figure out why if you know me at all. (Ari’s family came from there) The second was Wyszogrod. That’s where Bubby came from, when she was very young. It’s funny, just about all I know about it is that there was either an apple or plum tree outside Bubby’s house, and that her father worked on a ferry on the Boog river. Yet I found myself sitting on a rock in front of it, just looking.

This might sound strange, but I don’t know what or even if I was feeling. I don’t know if I was all worked up, or if I was worked up because I wasn’t. I don’t know if this makes any sense.

As we drove through the forests today, I kept thinking what it would be like to just run off into them, like the Partisans. Just running off and away. What would I find if I went far enough? Would I find remnants of partisan camps? I wish I had time to find out. I can see myself, sometime around 1943, maybe in the late spring, going off, and after a few hours being met by a young man or woman with a finger to their lips, motioning for me to come with them. That might be the start of a good story.

I got my Treblinka rocks today. I’ll put them with the others.

Later,
Julie