I'm here in Krakow about to head into SteemFest 3.
Being an observant Jew and an Israeli, Poland is a place with very mixed feelings and a lots of baggage.
I had heard good things about Poland from other Israelis who had visited, but equally most Jews consider it a graveyard, a place where you cannot go anywhere without thinking "how many Jews did the Nazis murder here?"
Similarly to what 
So you must be wondering, who, what or where is Szczebrzeszyn? And how do you pronounce it?!
Szczebrzeszyn is a tiny Polish village about 250km east of Krakow. My wife's maternal grandparents were both born there and left as a young couple in the 1930s to immigrate to Israel, much against the rest of their families' wishes.
They and one cousin were the only ones who survived!
Their entire families and extended families on both sides were wiped out by the Nazis, along with hundreds of other Jews in the village.
My mother-in-law grew up without grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins. It was, and still is, an emptiness that affects many Jews of her generation. Even today, it impacts on her ability to be a grandparent to my children.
My wife & her family did a "roots tour" to Szczebrzeszyn around 15 years ago to try to trace what happened to their family and see if anything was left.
Here are some videos of what they found.
Today, in Krakow, I was able to add one interesting bit of information to the story.
My wife had always said that it was a tiny, insignificant village in the middle of nowhere. And this is true.
But, it turns out that Szczebrzeszyn is famous in Poland for being extremely difficult to pronounce!
There is a famous Polish film which mentions Szczebrzeszyn as a Polish solider tries to confound the Nazis with its difficult pronunciation.
This I learned today from one Polish lady I briefly mentioned Szczebrzeszyn to.
It is so well known that another Polish lady noticed it in my Google Maps search when giving me directions to a kosher restaurant and laughed. She told me it is part of a common saying used to help children learn Polish.
So after an interesting and educational day in Krakow learning out the past, I now head into SteemFest to learn about the future!
