North American Police Leaders Participate in the Abraham Global Peace Initiative
Chief Danny Smyth
We are living in a very polarized and volatile time. Peace and security are fragile. There are signs of rising antisemitism throughout the world. It is important that the leaders of today remember the lessons of the past and speak out.
I recently joined police leaders from Canada and the United States who travelled to Poland and Israel to retrace parts of the journey that many Jewish Holocaust survivors endured many years earlier.
The trip was facilitated by the Abraham Global Peace Initiative and our host Avi Benlolo, one of Canada’s most prominent experts in Holocaust studies and advocacy against antisemitism and discrimination. I detailed my experience in a recent article published by the Canadian Association of Chief of Police.
Our first outing: a memorial service on the grounds of the former Plaszow Concentration Camp. This camp was established at the end of 1942 when Jewish occupants of the Krakow ghetto were forced to build the camp on the site of two Jewish cemeteries in the Plaszow district, on the outskirts of Krakow. The camp operated between February 1943 and January 1945, under the command of the Schutzstaffel (SS).
Today, little remains of the original forced labour camp. In 1944, the last prisoners were ordered to take down the barracks and exhume corpses from mass graves to burn them. It was an attempt to cover up the camp’s existence and the crimes that were committed there. Afterwards, the remaining prisoners were forced to march to Auschwitz.
The Plaszow site has since been transformed into a memorial park where, in 1964, a seven-meter-high Memorial to the Victims of Fascism in Krakow was unveiled.
After finishing our tour to Krakow, we traveled to the city of Oswiecim, about 65 km west of Krakow. Like many cities and towns in occupied Poland, it became known by its German name: Auschwitz. The infamous death and concentration camps were built on the city's outskirts. I didn't realize that what started as a single camp with twenty-two buildings soon expanded into three camps and forty sub-camps. Our group would see the camps known as Auschwitz I (known as the Main Camp) and Auschwitz II (known as Auschwitz-Birkenau).
Admittedly, I began the tour of the Main Camp with trepidation. Like most of my generation, I had been educated about the Holocaust, but now I was about to see what has become known as a universal symbol of the Holocaust.
At first glance, it has the look and feel of a military base, but that is where the similarities end. The Polish government has done a remarkable job preserving the camp. This was not the case for many of the death camps in other parts of Europe. Within the walls, laid out for the world to see, was the cruelty of "the final solution." Words could never do justice to the things we all witnessed during the tour of the Main Camp:
· The selection process was where families were separated, stripped of their belongings, and designated for forced labour or death.
· The detailed records and photos of the people selected to labour in the camp.
· The “black wall” used to routinely execute camp occupants, nestled between the infamous Block 10 (used for medical experimentation) and Block 11 (used to punish and torture)
After Poland, our journey continued to Israel. We arrived in Tel Aviv on a Friday morning. Security is tight, and it takes over an hour to clear customs. We immediately boarded a bus to travel to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is much larger than I realize, with nearly one million people inhabiting the greater metropolitan area. It has expanded beyond the Old City that most think of when imagining Jerusalem.
Walking to the Old City, one does not have to look hard for evidence of conflict—bullet holes and other ordnance damage from the Six-Day War scar many of the buildings. This ancient walled city has been the center of trade and culture for a millennium.
You soon realize that the Old City is inhabited by very diverse groups of people. There is, at times, tension, but somehow people learn to live with each other. The four quarters of the city reflect that diversity. You also realize that security is paramount to this co-existence.
We tour the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem and meet several local politicians and authorities for a briefing and lunch. It is during lunch that I meet Canadian Ambassador Lisa Stadelbauer. She is a career Ambassador. This is her second assignment in Israel, having served in Tel Aviv in the early 1990s. Her perspective, having witnessed Israel's development over the span of her career, was insightful. Again, I appreciate how complicated peace and security are in this region.
We take a bus from Jerusalem to the Golan Heights and then back to Tel Aviv, from where we return to Canada. Avi Benlolo has given us a remarkable gift – a variation of The March of the Living. He has brought together police leaders from Canada and the United States and educated us about the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. From Yom HaShoah to Yom HaZikaron, and Israel's Independence Day, he has given us context into the struggles of the Jewish people.
It was a remarkable experience and will be the foundation for the responsibility we as leaders must accept to oppose racism, injustice, and antisemitism.