Entry 5 Oct. 30, 9:15, Warsaw to Bialystok

There's something in the way the trees stop. Large sections of infinity tall skinny trees with graduating bark from dark brown to light, the branches stop miles from the ground and even then only short twigs protrude from either side, oddly mangled or perfectly straight pointing out. The leaves only cover the upper tops of the trees, creating the effect of a densely filled forest, but when driven by closely one might notice from the bus window that you can see right through them, from one end to another, you can see the next field and forest without even squinting an eye. The colors are bright like newly fall, yellows, orange, light green and dark green, sometimes the odd white as a ghost tree can be seen slightly hidden behind all the others. What had been here before? 60 years ago, had this been the same image an individual would of seen driving down these roads or walking through a field, running through a field. There’s something to be said about the way the trees stop, and the cast, empty fields begin, the sea of mulched bright green grass. Have people once sprinted or crawled, jogged, or walked into these forests? Taken cover behind the tall skinny trees which offer hardly any coverage, which can been seen through from one end to another, with their mangled branches which protrude only slightly from either side of their skinny bodies, of the stark non threatening, unmoving planted to the ground, roots firmly spread through the soil, trees.
There's something to be said about comparing a Jew to a tree in the holocaust, standing in rows, in crowds, in sectioned off areas which eventually just stop, bodies in a line standing still, standing tall and skinny. Their mangled arms and legs clinging pathetically to their body, hanging limp at the sides of their ribs. Their sunken eyes looking out, looking straight through, looking at nothing and everything, their eyes, dark brown to black, their clothes a gradient from muddy brown to off grey stripes. Their roots once firmly placed in the ground, their families once densely scattered across the land, coming together once a week, or five times in a year for the holidays, for Passover, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, Chanukah, and Yom Kippur. Please pass over them. Please give them three and a half walls to take cover in. please give them a new year. Please light 8 candles for all they once knew. Please break their fast. Please notice the way the trees stop; the way their bodies stand tall, and skinny, the leaves only covering the upper tops; the way they stand helpless and stuck, strongly rooted in the ground, the way you can see straight through them, from one end to the other, straight through to the next forest, straight through to the next body. Straight through to the hearts and souls and prayers of every one of them. 60 years back from now, did they see this? Did they see what I see now?

-Netanya Bushewsky