Suzanne hired a tour guide through a Jewish genealogical society in Warsaw to pick us up at our hotel and take us on a tour of Treblinka. It is a couple hours from Warsaw and in the middle of nowhere. I’m not kidding about it being in the middle of nowhere either. The location was picked because it was unlikely to be discovered yet at the same time also had a train stop so it was easy to transport people there. Seriously writing this post is making my stomach hurt.

On the way to Treblinka the tour guide explained to us the difference between a concentration camp and an extermination camp. In the former, some prisoners were forced to do labor while in the later people were murdered.

Treblinka was burned to the ground and a memorial now stands in its place. When we first arrived, we saw where the train tracks used to be both; both the train that ran through the town and the special section of the track at ran to the camp. My pictures are up on Facebook.

A fake station was built there to reassure people that they were indeed being relocated and there was nothing to fear. There were even signs for the bathrooms. People gave their suitcases and belongings to coat room counter, received a ticket, and then headed out to a changing area where there heads were shaved and they were given a towel. They were then told to head to the showers which of course weren’t really showers. Their valuables were sorted through and loaded back on the trains.

After seeing that, we went to the small museum where there is a model of Treblinka I and Treblinka II. Treblinka one was used for Polish prisoners who were forced to build Treblinka II. They were then murdered so they couldn’t tell anyone about it.

From there we went to the where Treblinka II was. Large stones lined where the border had been. A railroad track monument was also there as well as large boulders where the guards barracks had been.

Two gas chambers were housed behind the station. Behind that was a fire pit to burn the bodies and two large pits for the bodies and later the ashes. In memory of the victims, stones have been placed on top of the pits. There is a stone for each city where the Jewish people who were murdered at Treblinka lived. In addition, at the beginning of the memorial there are large stones with the names of the countries where the Jewish people who were murdered there lived.

To say it’s overwhelming in an understatement. To say it’s sickening doesn’t do it justice. I am definitely glad that I went, but I felt sick the entire time I was there.

The Big Giraffe dropped me off at the airport and after satisfying my CrackBerry addiction for a couple hours, I got on the airplane and popped my Valium. The Valium worked great in that it completely relaxed me. Also for some reason I swear it affected my sense of taste and caused me to think my airplane lasagna and salad was the best food I had ever eaten. It didn’t make me sleep. Hmm…perhaps it was the lack of sleep that made me think my meal was gourmet?

I arrived at the airport and had 2 hours to wait for Suzanne and another 4 before our flight. To sum it up, it involved being over tired, one waiter who totally thought I was trying to pick him up, and a bunch of slap happy conversations with Suzanne due to going for 24 + hours without sleep. Our flight from London to Warsaw seemed to be much longer and the airplane was old. We did wonder if they were using paper, pencil and a compass.

Yesterday we met up with Suzanne’s husband’s friend Tom, his girlfriend Ewa, friend Bagus and her husband Krystof. They took us on a five hour walking tour of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was totally depressing but at the same time I was so glad to be able to see it. Of course everything is different now because the city was completely destroyed. However, there were a lot of memorials along the way although they were mostly donated by Jewish people in the US in the 80’s and 90’s. There were also some sections of the wall.

At one point I asked Bagus about her husband’s name because I swear he had told me that he was Jewish. Then again with his name I wasn’t sure if maybe I hadn’t heard him correctly. It turns out that his mother was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto and lived under a Christian identity. When Krystof was 15 his parents sat him down and told him that he was really Jewish. He and B sent their daughter to Jewish schools and his sister works for a Jewish foundation in Chicago. On the tour, Krystof showed us the courts where his mother went in the Jewish only side and was smuggled by a police officer she bribed out the Polish side. He also showed us the sewer where she escaped outside the Ghetto. A monument was put there to her and others about a month ago.

The walk was really informative. Interestingly, none of our group had been to many of these sites before yesterday. Although there were many, it did seem like you had to know where you were going and where to look from them or you could just walk by without recognizing them. In other words, it’s not like the Freedom Trail in Boston where a red line is painted on the sidewalks.

Afterward we went to the Jewish cemetery to try and find Suzanne’s great-grandfather’s grave. He died in 1939 before the ghetto. Unfortunately we could not find his grave. The cemetery is massive and many of the gravestones were falling over on top of each other. Of course they are also not written in English. We plan on going back later this week.

Tom took us all out to dinner where we learned a lot more about Poland. I also shared some of my family’s Polish traditions. Yeah…you know how Chicago is very different from Southern IL. Afterward he dropped us off at our hotel and Suzanne and I explored Warsaw some more.

This morning we went to the Jewish Heritage Museum where Suzanne was able to meet with a genealogy researcher. She was able to give Suzanne some more information. We also saw the exhibit on the Warsaw Ghetto. Afterward we went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum and then the Novyk Synagogue which was the only synagogue to survive because it was outside the Ghetto and Nazis used it as a stable for their horses.

I’m having a terrific time with Suzanne and am enjoying being here but needless to say it is also emotionally draining. Tomorrow we will be going on a tour of Treblinka.

I’m going to Poland! Suzanne and her hubby got me a ticket. Needless to say I’m pretty excited. I’ve been obsessively going over tour guide books and researching Poland on-line. I’ve sent Suzanne far too many emails about sights I would like to see and little travel tips I’ve picked up here and there. Alright quite honestly I went with a group of friends to see Sex and the City II last week and found myself identifying with Miranda.

Obviously I’m excited…but…at the same time I’ve also…do I dare say it? I’m having just a tad bit of anxiety. Just a touch. The teeniest tiniest bit that in all honesty seems to pick up in speed and size like a snowball down a hill when I think about it too much: I’m scared about flying over water. The five hour flight to Aruba was about my limit. And yes I’ve had a drink on the airplane and yes I do feel more relaxed, but not that much more and airplane drinks aren’t anything to write home about so to speak.

Hence my phone call to the doctor. I was all prepared to give my long-winded explanation of why I have a fear of flying over the water. Let’s just say that it’s tied in to my fear I had of wearing my wet suit in the ocean when Aunt Flow came to town. Before I could even begin the verbal diarrhea that would undoubtedly leave me feeling overexposed, she simply said that a fear of flying was quite common and wrote me a prescription. That’s it? I was glad I didn’t go into my fear because I might have left with a prescription and a referral to a psychiatrist.

In the meantime, I’ve heard from countless people that I shouldn’t be scared about crashing in the ocean because there’s never any survivors. Um..yeah.. that’s not helpful. You’re telling a person who has openly told you she has anxiety about flying that she wouldn’t survive a crash because why?

Last week when I was cycling someone repeated those idiotic words words meant to soothe and said that given the odds between crashing during our bike ride and my airplane crashing I should go with the former. Guess he was right because about 5 minutes later I completely wiped out on my bike.

Next week, my sore body and I will be boarding the airplane and popping a happy med; or as the bottle reads, “two if needed”.

A. Elliot’s Lesson Learned: 1)Anxiety over flying is common 2)The last thing someone who has a fear of flying wants to hear is statistics on survivors or therefore lack of survivors.