Day 4: Stairs Are a Place to Climb – By Adam Reinherz
Stairs are a place to climb. Yet the staircase inside the Sugihara House forces you down, andaround, before reaching its point. Initially, the structure feels similar to many residential stairwells. Plastered spaces are paintedwhite. Photos adorn the walls. Neatly placed beside the other, muted pictures of varying sizesare housed in identical dark frames. In someone’s […]
Day 3: Sounds From a Forest – By Adam Reinherz
When you walk in Ponary there are sounds: the crackling of leaves beneath your feet, the strikeof a lighter as a flame ignites, the placing of a memorial candle near a marker. That’s what we heard in the Ponary Forest. Kazimierz Sakowicz heard something else. The Polish-born journalist, we were told, had relocated to Ponary, […]
Day 1: Understanding Vilnius Through Its Stones and Legends – By Adam Reinherz
The day began with a charge, our tour guide Ernest said. This venture, and its two parts, should“provide the historical context of Vilna.” Representing our morning and afternoon excursions, the two pieces consisted of a walking tourof Vilnius’ Old Town and chartered bus ride to several Jewish cemeteries. Standing on Pilies Street, a historic road […]
What Remains Are Questions By Alexis Bloom
Every day I think about what I learned during my time in Germany last month. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap my head around it …or there will be details that I forget and will need to look up online. I am still surprised by the sheer magnitude of the whole Nazi operation: how quickly it […]
Art and Identity by Cate Sindler
July 20, 2025 Art is a universal language—we are able to use it to communicate without words. Being in another country where there is a language barrier can be challenging. When visiting the Munich museum of modern art, it didn’t feel like I was in another country. However, even without a language barrier, there are […]
From Germany to My Children’s Hearts by Erin LaCkore
Since coming home from Germany, I have been trying to figure out how to put this experience into words. I am truly so grateful that I stepped out of my comfort zone and went on this trip. Not only did we visit so many historical and powerful landmarks we also bonded with total strangers and […]
One Quote, Two Scenes, Three Sounds by Michelle Merson
One quote:It’s been over a month, and I am still not yet confident in how best to present my experiences with Classrooms without Borders in Poland. There’s no clear way to encapsulate the range of emotions, the vast horror of the Holocaust, the sensitive and skilled scholarship and care of every one of our guides. […]
The Other Half of Never Again by Alex Zaloum
Towards the end of our three-hour tour of Dachau, walking through the parted rows of poplar trees and freely out through the gates that read Arbeit Macht Frei, our German guide’s voice quivered for the first time as he said, “…what we did to ourselves here, and what we all lost.” We? A presumptuous pairing […]
A Memory Culture Under Scrutiny: Reflections from the Germany Close Up Fellowship by Ali DeLambo
I came to Germany searching for history. What I found was memory. Public. Curated. Complicated. And at times, conspicuously incomplete. The Germany Close Up fellowship was designed to immerse young Jewish professionals in the landscape of modern Germany’s remembrance culture. From diplomatic meetings to guided visits of Holocaust memorials and concentration camps, the program offered […]