The true story about a turtle that flew over a barbed-wired fence of a concentration camp.

By Max Newman

Earlier this week we visited the concentration camp of Majdanak just outside the city of Lublin, Poland and to be very honest, until seeing its name on our itinerary, I had never heard of this place.

Auschwitz. Sobibor. Treblinka. These were the “main attractions” of my Holocaust education growing up and frankly already having a moving experience at Auschwitz I just days prior, I was worried I would not be able to internalize this new stop on the journey. But quickly into the visit, our tour guide educated us about the various forms of resistance these prisoners would exhibit, one of which was that they’d work at a substantially slower pace than necessary in protest of the exhaustive and humiliating labor at the hands of the Nazis.  What really piqued my interest was how the prisoners were asked to decorate the camp; sometimes beautify the grass or take artistic liberties building various structures within the camp… and this effort, was another example of their resistance. In fact, this was the point where the turtle came into existence, but its color was unclear…And I personally, would argue, it was blue. But as mentioned, the prisoners had license to decorate the camp, and they decided to build a sculpture of a turtle. To the Nazis the turtle was just a decoration, but to the Jews it was defiance personified: work slowly, live another day, sustain dignity, outlive evil.

Now it’s always good to be honest in telling a story, and to be very honest, I did not personally see the turtle that the prisoners built at Majdanek. My mind was elsewhere standing outside Majdanek’s crematorium, the culminating location of the concentration camp’s visit.

Standing outside the location of where many of the 78,000 Jews & Poles were burned to ashes, two very important things happened to put my mind in the state it was in. First, I had learned that the turtle sculpture, the object that so greatly compelled me to see, sat inside Barrack 63, a place I could easily peruse on my way back to the bus on my way out of the camp. And second, our group partook in a private ceremony to codify the visit. Here, we read poems, we lit memorial candles, and we all were handed rocks “borrowed” from our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau days prior and we were to write or draw on these rocks anything we wanted - then leave them in a meaningful place near the crematorium as the ancient Jewish custom would instruct us to do at a gravesite. 

After making my illustration and taking some minutes to ponder where’d I’d leave my rock, a lifechanging moment that none of us could have predicted, completely unearthed the prisoners’ resistance before our very eyes and more importantly - our ears.

A chilling voice began to sing the words “El Malei Rachamim.” 

As this somber tune began, I, along with every person in our group could feel the memory of every Jew and Pole perished at this concentration camp defy the Nazi’s order. I immediately looked up and saw another group nearby the crematorium in a private ceremony of their own and a white-bearded gentleman surely over the age of 75 was chanting this ancient prayer to pay respect to the deceased. 

I made no conscious decision to join them, my body however began to gravitate to their circle with no remorse that I was American and they were Israeli (I knew their nationality as I had overheard them speaking Hebrew earlier). I could sense others from our group joining too; with me, before me, after me – I have no idea, but it felt like we were all figuratively giving a hand to the inmates, sweating and laboring on a hot Majdanek afternoon.

As the bearded man continued in his haunting completion of the prayer, I could sense these Israelis were not done with their ceremony but I had no idea what was next. All I knew was, survival was happening. Resistance was building. And we were a part of it.

At the conclusion of “El Malai Rachamim”, another person from the Israeli’s group blew a shofar – the ancient wake-up call that is done daily in the month of Elul (the month we are currently in) that leads up to the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah. Our resilience was escalating at a rate that no one could keep up with, and truly the effort of every antisemite in this world was dwindling.

Then, with not only every member of our group’s gaze, but our absolute full attention, the Israelis began to sing the Jewish people’s homeland national anthem, HaTikvah (“the hope”). 

If our ears began to ring at the chanting of “El Malei Rachamim”, our souls were now triumphantly boiling over.

While some from their group held the Israel flag, others from our group either held back tears or let them flow while we all joined them in singing as most of us by now were encircled together with them. American or Israeli, we were a united people together in song defeating evil with our voices.

Afterwards, many of us thanked them in Hebrew or in English, and I still had to decide what to do with the rock I designed just a little bit earlier. Realizing I was still in a deficit of emotion and that I had no capacity to visit Barrack 63 where the actual turtle sculpture sat, I made my decision: I wanted the turtle to fly.

In a place where turtles have wings, I gripped my rock illustrated with a blue-shelled reptilian drawn no better than a preschooler and threw it over the barbed-wire into the open field where the departed souls of Majdanek have infinitely soared beyond.

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The Maurer Koach Program  (Koach means "strength" in Hebrew) is experiential and provides exposure and experiences that equip the cohort with tools to educate, lead, and advocate for themselves and others. It is currently in its second year. The program includes 8 monthly interactive sessions, where local, national, and international leaders address current approaches to understanding and combatting antisemitism as well as provide insights into Jewish life, leadership, and social justice. In addition to the sessions, the cohort takes a trip to Poland and Hungry to learn and experience historical moments. This blog is part of a series of reflections from members of the cohort while on this trip.