Darchei Binah seminary girls were incensed after being denied access to the Auschwitz gas chambers during a tour of the infamous camp on Friday, with some girls accusing the site’s administrators of antisemitism.
One of the people on the tour told YWN that the group was surprised to find a gate leading to the gas chambers locked, as it had never been locked in the close to 20 years that Darchei Binah girls have gone on tours of Auschwitz. The group went around the locked gate and stopped by the Photographs of Our Lost Ones on the trail leading to the gas chambers.
As the girls listened to a speech, a camp guard came walking up to them holding a camera and speaking in Polish. After asking him to speak in English, he finally told them to leave and walked away.
The girls complied, but say they were shocked at what had happened.
“We were told that it was possible the gate was closed because it was drizzling rain,” one of the tour group participants said. “If our ancestors could walk that very path through blistering heat and bone-chilling cold for their Nazi captors to brutally kill them, I think we could walk the path when it’s gray and cloudy.”
“To be brutally honest, I think this was a pathetic excuse to keep a group of Jewish girls away from the most shocking evidence of Nazi atrocities, and it was quite simply an act of antisemitism on the very spot where Jew-hatred reared its ugly head in the worst possible way during the Holocaust,” she added.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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22 Responses
I do not believe teenage girls are mature enough to tour these sites anyways.
Personally, I don’t think I would ever want to go and visit these places. But nobody should visit these places unless they are holding by crying through the tour. The light attitude and smiles in these videoes is a total biazyon to those who perished on that spot.
This brings us back to questioning why the bloodthirsty Poles should have a booming tourist industry fueled by the obsession to see where our grandparents, uncles and aunts were tortured, asphyxiated and dismembered. Auschwitz should not have become a macabre Disneyland that self-respecting yeshivas and seminaries go to.Read the Holocaust books, diaries and records. Listen to speeches by the survivors! Don’t invest any more tourist dollars into that accursed country
Is the cost of this trip included in the $30k tuition the seminary charges or did they charge an additional fee?
seems a little ridiculous to label every little thing as anti semitism…. quite obviously the gate was closed because of the rain, which is quite rational. these types of labels trivilizes real anti semitism
Why is it anti-Semitism if the gate was locked before these girls arrived? Maybe the organizer of the tour needed to contact the office before heading there so they were aware of the hours. It is very nice the girls came to pay their respects to a place of such great sadness.
Can You please ask the polish authorities to explain why the Jewish girls traveling half way around the world to see polish and Nazi atrocities were prevented from entry to where the massacre of millions of Jews occurred?
There was someone on the other side of walkie-talkie who was giving the orders.
Who? And
Why?
Never again should Jew to go slaughter houses.
While I do feel bad that they were not able to see whatever they want to see on this trip however I do not see any anti-semitism
Full of it stupid seminary girls. If it was locked there was a good reason for it.
They didn’t hate you for being jews rather for being annoying seminary girls.
I don’t get it You are with 1+ rabbi 2+morot and 50+ girls just put guard,in gas chamber it’s sold out it’s so simpel
Shocking! Did they really experience anti-Semitism in Poland? Who could ever have imagined such a thing?!
These girls had the courage and felt a responsibility to go to these sites to keep the memories of past generations alive and to say tehillim for the holy neshamos lost at the site of their murder. Unlike all the couch potato critics who negatively chimed in earlier, they went on what they knew would be a heart breaking, emotional trip to visit death camps, kevarim of tzadikkim, etc and should be commended and admired. The fact that during the many days of touring these sites there were a few light moments or that the actions of an aggressive guard may (or may not) have been taken a bit out of context, does not diminish the credit these girls deserve, as well as the Seminary staff for taking them.
The thousands of kapitlach tehillim these girls collectively said, the tears they shed, and the stories they heard and internalized, should be a zchus for all the lost neshamas and for all of us.
To negatively comment about these brave girls who went to such a difficult place that most of you trolls don’t have the guts to go to yourselves is shameful. I’m sure you all lost someone at these camps, you should ask their neshamos mechilla for bashing those that actually go to keep their memories alive and say tehillim for them. Shame on you.
something else: my chabbad friend lives is krakow he has complained by police they are going to investigate from my site sound anti Semitic
They’re a lot of opinions here, but let’s state the absolute facts:
1- There was no antisemitism present, clearly the polish guard would not allow a group across that gate, we are not presented with all the facts, so that could be for a number of reasons they could not go across.
2- The girls are smiling and some even laughing. If that is your reaction by visiting a concentration camp, you should not be there. I am sure I am other sons/daughters/grandchildren of holocaust survivors will be similarly repulsed at the display of joy from the girls.
In my opinion: People like this are not particularly great just because they’re saying tehilim. One can say thousands of kapililach of tehilim without causing the blatant chilul Hashem that we witnessed in the videos above. If one is unable to remain composed in one of the most dreary locations in our history, they should not be there. When one has the maturity to visit such a location, go ahead, but must I add, it’s not a particularly Jewish thing to visit our sites of execution, yet I do not wish to impose all my opinions on everyone.
I’m just going to state that I believe these girls have made more of a chilul Hashem by openly smiling and giggling in such a solemn location.
This cry Antisemitism over everything is getting pathetic and not winning us any friends.
Is Auschwitz one of the most well known sites in the world? Yes.
Has it’s documents, photos, videos and artifacts been seen around the world? Yes.
Have millions of people visited the site including Jews alone and in groups like March of the Living? Yes.
A group of girls find a locked gate. It must be Antisemitism!!!
So sad we’ve become what people accuse us of being.
The ONLY way a jew should be visiting these countries is as a pilot of a fighter plane with a Nuclear warhead ready for release.
Another clickbait headline. There is no substance to these girls claims.
I agree with nebuch, anonymous and others. Why is everything antisemitism when it doesn’t work out the way you wanted? Anyone heard of the boy who cried “Wolf!!”?
Besides…. if this is an official trip, surely the site managers knew they were coming. Didn’t the seminary make arrangements? That’s what groups usually do. My best guess is, they just showed up, maybe early, late or unannounced and that sense of entitlement annoyed the workers.
And for the record, I would never visit such a place. It’s important that the world sees what was done to us, but I certainly don’t need to be reminded, I spent years teaching Holocaust Studies. For me, it’s a tourist attraction, not one I have any desire to visit. I understand for others it’s important. My opinion and feelings, which are very deep and painful, don’t make me a troll. “Get a life you trolls” is a very disturbed and angry creature. What are YOU doing for Klal Yisrael, and in particular, Holocaust survivors? No need to answer, I doubt you’d be truthful anyway.
This was requested to be TAKEN DOWN by the seminary that ran this trip, and they would never have wanted this story to be exposed in this way!!! Please take this down and respect the seminary!!!
The seminary did not feel it was at all antisemitism one girl decided to send it to yeshiva world!
The bottom line was there were some new enactments at the site since pre-corona days. New rules that all the trips now know about. There is stricter access to some parts of the camps because some nut heads decided to spray graffiti on the some baracks a few months back. Nothing much else to the story besides for the decision of YWN to post it despite various messages requesting for it to be taken down.
I’m a DB alumni. That trip I took years ago, changed my outlook in life and not to take things for granted. My friend got spat at from the balcony from only a 8 year old boy, we saw swastikas writers all over the highway billboards, etc. I will never forget how they STILL treated Jews and confused me for a “shiksa” because of my dark Sepharadi skin. Yes, you see a few immature girls on the clip laughing- but that doesn’t represent the whole group who has shocked faces. There has to be an EXPLANATION for this. Last thing, Gd Bless Rabbi Kurland for being the one of the few Seminary Rabbies to include Poland in the tuition as many had to pay out of pocket for the same amount of tuition the parents were paying before. Since that trip, I have been telling my students till this day what Zechor Amalek is. Would much appreciate it if YWN could give us the full details. Thank you
Also, this is NOT new. The same thing happened to my sisters group as well and Rabbi Kurland told them to walk in. They are unbelievably anti-Semitic. When we sang in the barracks ani ma’amin during my year at DB, and then came out, the Polish had such a look of disgust. Like what are we still doing here. I felt it was the sweetest revenge we could give them. Thank you Rabbi Kurland for showing all of us what Zechor Amalek means.
att e/o who’s knocking those girls for laughing. Would u laugh of cry at age 18 when security came over to you speaking weirdly in Polish and disrupting your tour?
Give the poor girls some space.
Why “The Yeshivah World” is publishing such a silly video, and with “anti-Semitism” label?
Polish shomer did his job, and he did it calmly and politely (I know Polish). Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most horrible Jewish graveyard, but also Polish State Museum, with its regulations defining when and where visitors may go.