Realizing, Processing, and Planning
It seems to be the general consensus among my fellow travelers that we all need a day or two (or maybe a week) to process the trip—everything we learned and felt and everything we are still piecing together. Here it is day two back home, and I am still processing. I am actually only in […]
Poland Personally 2014
As our group of 70+ educators, students, and adults return home from the 2014 Poland Personally Study Seminar, Classrooms Without Borders would like to thank every person and organization who made this trip possible. Classrooms Without Borders envisions itself as the premier professional and educational development organization in the Pittsburgh area, and we operate on the idea […]
Feeling Numbers
As with everyone else on this trip, I was not prepared for the scope of these camps at an emotional level. I had been to Dachau and Buchenwald, I had read of the size of Auschwitz, the numbers of people murdered in extermination camps, the amount of goods plundered by the Nazis, etc. It’s another […]
So many emotions
I have been trying to put my experience at Auschwitz into words for two days now and I simply can’t yet. Seeing the exhibits of the horrors and hearing about everything that happened has made it all far more real but also that much more surreal. I hope I can find a way to talk […]
Thoughts from July 6, 2014
It is 11:40 in Cracow and even though our wake up call is at 3AM, I find I am not the only one awake in our lobby using the wifi connection. Tonight our final gathering was amazing! Our shirts say, “changing lives one trip at a time.” This final dinner brought out more than I […]
A Fragile Peace
With great sadness , I learned that the three kidnapped teenagers from the Yeshiva school were found dead yesterday. It was evident that their disappearance weighed heavily on the hearts of all of the Israelis we met throughout our journey. I fear that the fragile coexistence of the Israeli Jews and the Palestinians, and the […]
Picture and summary by Josh Andy
This photo and caption speaks volumes about the power of traveling with a survivor. During our visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau yesterday, the students and teachers heard Howard’s testimony about the camps and witnessed two other survivors (& possibly more) walk the grounds and share their stories with other groups. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154364885770501&substory_index=0&id=500140500
Journey Through Sadness
Following a one hour bus ride from Krakow through modern architecture and lush Polish countryside we arrived at Auschwitz I. Walking through the iron gates that lied, “Work Will Set You Free”, I was immediately confronted with the vast visuals of the Nazi’s Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Images of the machinery of the […]
Two days of sadness and one of hope
I had planned to blog every day, but I hadn’t accounted for the emotions that would hit me when we went to Treblinka and Majdanek. I have been teaching about the Holocaust forf twenty years and I have been to Dachau and Mauthausen. I thought I was ready. I wasn’t. I have been struggling to […]