Starachowice (Ross) – Poland Personally 2017 Students
By: Ross Tedder It was a pleasant Thursday morning. Our group had just spent two very emotionally intense days at Treblinka, and at Majdanek. We were all looking forward to what was supposed to be a more relaxed day. We left early, hopped on the bus and listened to Howard’s story on the journey to […]
Wierzbnik-Starachowice (Whitney) – Poland Personally
By: Whitney Conjeski I have not yet figured out how to process everything I have seen so far on this trip. Meeting students that currently live in Starachowice-Wierzbnik and learning of their shock of Howard’s story made me realize their local history is censured. Realizing that today, in the actual place of where Howard’s life […]
Wierzbnik-Starachowice (Matthew) – Poland Personally 2017
By: Matthew Marraway Today we visited Howard’s hometown of Wierzbnik. This was a very surreal experience. First, we met with students from the local school and completed ice breaking exercises. I was quite surprised by the students understanding of English. It was exciting for both teachers and students to have the opportunity to interact with […]
Majdanek (Ben) – Poland Personally 2017 Students
By: Ben Brandeis The grass swayed back and fourth, a vibrant sea of green in a peaceful valley. This valley, located just north of the picturesque town of Lublin, is flooded with a never ceasing onslaught of crows which appear to emulate the raven in Poe’s work “The Raven” and cry “nevermore” as they sail […]
Majdanek (Paul) – Poland Personally
By: Paul Eiss On our journey, we have encountered many kinds of memorials and we have also witnessed and participated in commemorative acts, from reading testimonies of witnesses and survivors, to leaving pebbles atop the memorial stones of Treblinka, to lighting candles and saying kaddish for the dead. There are many commemorative sites and structures […]
Grodzka Gate NN Theater (Roberta) – Poland Personally 2017
By: Roberta Brandau Hope. How does anyone remain hopeful under the hopeless conditions we heard about today? Today, as we visited a center in Lublin that aims to preserve Jewish history during WWII, the notion of “hope” – particularly when it comes to Jewish children – kept coming back to my mind and capturing my heart. […]
Lublin & Majdanek (Brittany) – Poland Personally 2017
By: Brittany Pack The “fun fact” I shared with my fellow travellers upon group introductions was that I am getting married in about a month – one month and a day from the day we get back, actually – and it’s definitely something I think/talk about quite a bit. When we had six hours to […]
Treblinka (Keiron) – Poland Personally 2017
By: Keiron O’Connell In Warsaw. Up at 6:15 am (Paula was up earlier), had breakfast at the hotel. We boarded the bus at 8:00 am and drove to the Umschlagplatz, the final staging area before deportees from the ghetto were loaded on the trains to Treblinka. We left the Umschlagplatz and began the drive to […]
Treblinka (Ellen) – Poland Personally 2017
By: Ellen Resnek How do we preserve the memories of the souls who perished at the site of Treblinka? The memorial we traveled to today cannot in its entirety speak to the lives erased by the horrors of the Holocaust. For me, the jagged edges combined with quiet singing of birds, and the ever present […]