Poland 2019: 7/6/19 blog by Renee Worst
After a long and difficult day yesterday, today started off at a leisurely pace. While some teachers chose to participate in tai chi, others decided to ease into the morning with a leisurely breakfast and an extra cup of coffee. Then it was off to Kazimier, the former Jewish ghetto. On the way we passed […]
Poland 2019: 7/5/19 blog by Emma Stewart
Today we woke up early and took the bus to Auschwitz. Auschwitz had 40 sub camps. First we saw Auschwitz 1. It was originally a Polish military base, but the Nazis turned it into a concentration camp and then later an extermination camp. However, the main extermination camp is Auschwitz 2, more commonly known as […]
Poland 2019: 7/5/19 blog by Deb Kruger
When we entered Auschwitz 1 early on Friday morning, many of us were taken aback at the crowds and frenetic busyness of the place. We remembered the somber sacred quietude of Treblinka and this cacophony almost felt wrong. Yet it reminded me of the fact that when the prisoners were brought here from 1940-1944, it […]
Poland 2019: 7/4/19 blog by Emma Stewart
After breakfast, we all gathered in the hotel’s conference room. There we met with the deputy mayor, the former deputy mayor, and a historian who works for the town. We spoke about how the citizens of the city treated Jews and what they are doing now to preserve the memory of Jewish life in the […]
Poland 2019: 7/4/19 blog by Alison Doyle-Hoover
Yesterday, while in Lublin, I was taken by the rows and rows of nameless visages depicted in black and white photos. To leave this Earth without anyone to remember you is perhaps one of humans’ deepest fears. To think of the innumerable personal histories lost in the events surrounding WWII is overwhelming. This morning, to […]
Poland 2019: 7/4/19 blog by Julie Schultz
Day 4 of the “Poland Personally” seminar is complete. Today we stopped in Wierzbnik-Starachowice, Howard Chandler’s home town. As we entered the town, the first thing we saw was the train station. As we passed the station, it brought me sadness. A train station that was such an integral part of daily life very quickly […]
Poland 2019: 7/3/19 blog by Emma Stewart
Today we woke up early in order to be on the bus by 8:00 for our ride to Lublin. On the way there, we started learning some songs for memorial services, and watched the movie ‘The Pianist’. In Lublin, we went to the Godzka Gate NN Theatre. It was a museum dedicated to the Jews […]
Poland 2019: 7/3/19 blog by Meg Frank
Today we left Warsaw and made our way to Lublin to visit the Grodzka Gate. The town of Lublin once had a thriving Jewish neighborhood that was completely destroyed during the war. The Grodzka Gate used to be the passage from the Christian to the Jewish part of the city. The theater was created to […]
Poland 2019: 7/3/19 blog by Crista Good
The Flowers of Majdanek How many feet had shuffled down this lane? I couldn’t begin to imagine. The suffering. the pain, the overwhelming fear…these life draining forces still evident no matter the passage of time. As I walked from barrack to barrack these forces began to weigh on me. Was I even worthy to trod […]