Entry 7 11:48, Juduabe, Bus

We just walked the same path as 1,600 Jews ran down as they were chased and abused by Polish hooligans carrying home made weapons into a barn. There, the barn was covered in Kerosene, and lit on fire, an entire community left to burn and smoke away, including the town's 90 year old Rabbi. Polish bystanders stood watching as the Juduabne Jewish community scratched and clawed the inside of the barn walls, screamed in agony, profusely whispered prayers, and held their babies close. The hooligans went back into town to make sure they didn't miss even one lonely Jew, and grabbed all remaining children, tied roped onto their legs, and dragged them kicking and screaming. They were out on pitchforks and lofted into the fire. Other women with their babies drowned themselves before, not wanting to endure such a grotesque death. The souls and bodies of these Jews curdled and evaporated, rose up with the thick black smoke and blew away in the wind, the soot and ashes of their clothes never got the chance to sink down, deep into the ground, as their bodies were later hacked and torn apart by the hooligans and townspeople, ripped apart for any left over valuables, their dismembered bodies and limbs were thrown into a pile and lit on fire.
Other Jews were also brutally murdered with homemade weapons, bats with nails sticking out on the ends, axes, and anything imaginable. We stood in commemoration in the invisible barn, envisioning vividly the sight of terrified, chaotic men and demon running in horror towards this very spot, turning around the corner and being pushed, shoved, squished against one another all around us. Pushing me out of their way, hearing the spark of flames, the crackle of hot red wood turning black, feeling the overwhelming smoldering heat and fire, hurling their bodies, screaming in agony. We stood around the memorial grave, a large rock with the remains of a charred barn door melded in front. We listened to Beshame Hashem, walking back down the road, so yielding to visibly imagine all that had happened. I looked around at the houses and various old people walking on the streets and I knew it was the same. The same families and homes, which had lived there during this massacre, perhaps a few generations down, but the history the same. These windows of the few houses lining the road, of the neighborhood surrounding, witnessed something awful and inhumane. These windows with eyes peering through, hands pressing up against glass, stood by standing, lent not one finger, covered their ears instead of helping their neighbour Jew. Covered their eyes instead of watching the 90-year-old Rabbi pant for air. Looking into those windows, I know they've seen terrible things, but looking out those windows, I know they did nothing.

Netanya Bushewsky