Welcome back, it's Local Edition, I'm Brad Pomerance. We thank you for joining us. Our
guest is Jennifer Weed she is a Ph.D. student at UC Riverside and she
recently returned from a trip to Poland as part of a fellowship with the Auschwitz
Jewish Center. Congratulations on your fellowship, how did you come to get
this honor?
[Weed] Actually it was recommended to me by one of my professors at Cal State
San Bernardino.
And he said it was a long shot, but you might as well apply and I applied and I was one
of the 10 graduate students to make it.
[Pomerance] And what are you getting your Ph.D. in? What is your focus? [Weed] My focus, my research area
actually, is a modern European history.
And my focus is Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. So that's what I wrote on.
And I have to ask, you told me that you're not a Jewish-Americans so I'm
just wondering how did you come to be interested in this space?
[Weed] I started reading about it when I was younger.
I had some tragedy in my family that made it resonate with me, and then once
I started reading I really just
could not stop.
[Pomerance] Talk to me about your trip to Poland and Auschwitz.
[Weed] Poland is amazing. Poland is not just Auschwitz. [Pomerance] Of course. [Weed] A lot of people think
that that's all it is. That its one big death camp, but it's not.
Krakow is the most beautiful city I've ever been to. [Pomerance] I have been and it is stunning.
[Weed] It is amazing and... [Pomerance] Warsaw is a big city... [Weed] Warsaw is a huge city.
[Pomerance] Krakow is stunning... [Weed] Krakow is beautiful and old and very typical European.
As far as Auschwitz, Auschwitz
is... is a very... very interesting
place to visit. The birds still sing there... [Pomerance] Right...
[Weed] Which is odd. [Pomerance) The sky is still blue...
[Weed] Exactly. It was a beautiful day when we went and
and it's... it's very emotional, I think.
[Pomerance] I want to talk to you about your perception of the Polish people today. As you know
Poland before the Holocaust was 12% Jewish, Warsaw was a third Jewish, Lodz
was a third Jewish.
Now the number of Jews in Poland is probably not five figures.
And so what's the Polish people's
perception of the Nazi era, Jews?
Your perception?
[Weed] Well from what I understand the Holocaust history resonates very
strongly there. They live with it every day, it's a very much a part of how
they live, but they're not overall
fiercely anti-Semitic from what I've noticed. Now the older population maybe a
little different, but for the younger population I interacted with, I can see
that they think this is a huge gap in their history. The loss of Polish Jewry
is a problem. [Pomerance] Do they see that? Because I know I've read about it, as
our viewers know, there was an 800 year history of Jews living in Poland and
now it's just vanished.
So do they see it as a loss or "I'm glad their gone."
[Weed] I don't think it's they see it as "I'm glad they’re gone." Like I said, the older generation may feel
differently, the younger generation very much sees it as a hole.
that they're trying to refill.
So they're doing it with things like the Krakow Jewish festival,
they're looking into Jewish culture and history, the preservation. I don't think
that they're "glad they're gone." I think the younger people are stumbling upon
this hole and finding it a problem and trying to fill it. [Pomerance] And I understand that some younger
people are stumbling upon their own history realizing that they have
Jewish ancestry. [Weed] Absolutely. [Pomerance] I mean it's hard not to when such a large part of population
was Jewish at one time.
I've been to Poland and I've met with many of these older people
and it was interesting; my experience was that they wanted to help, they wanted to
answer questions. They wanted... it was as if they were waiting for someone to
come and ask what happened 65 years ago.
Did you have that experience as well?
[Weed] We constantly had older people coming up to us at certain stages, like at
the ghetto wall in Warsaw
and at the ghettos in Krakow... Krakow and Warsaw. They came up to us a lot
to ask us
what we thought, if we wanted anything more. [Pomerance] I want to hear about
your dissertation because it is a fascinating one. Tell us about it, and how this
trip informs your dissertation?
[Weed] Okay, well my dissertation is on the zonder-commandos of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
They're the Jewish crematorium workers. They did everything from the undressing
room to the gas chamber to crematoria.
They handled all of that. It was probably the most horrific job you can imagine
but a lot of people don't write on them necessarily because it's so horrific.
So my visiting Auschwitz was huge because it's mostly spatial.
But not only was I there where they lived and they worked and they died,
but spatially I could understand where they did so, and that's hard to get
from a book. [Pomerance] I want to congratulate you on your fellowship, I want to thank you
for your wisdom about your recent trip to Poland and I can't wait to read
your dissertation. I'm that guy who would read it. [Weed] {laughing} Thank you. [Pomerance] Her name is Jennifer Weed,
she is a Ph.D. student at UC Riverside.
My name is Brad Pomerance, we're going to send you back to HLN.