Day 3
I’m not sure what I expected on this trip. I’ve been studying the Holocaust and World War II since I was in the fifth grade. Never once did it ever occur to me that I would get the opportunity to travel to Poland and see these places with my own eyes. Yesterday, we were able […]
Tracing the path in Warsaw & beyond
Hello, I composed this blog while on our early bus ride from Warsaw to Lublin. It is now 12:08am and currently I am one day behind on the progress of our journey. This evening we had a meaningful reflection between teens and adults about our day at Madjanek concentration & extermination camp as well as […]
Day 2 in Poland
This morning the educators and students walked through parts of Warsaw, a city that was 85% destroyed during the war. The wealth of archived historical information allowed us to learn how the Warsaw Ghetto eventually contained up to 450,000 Jews within the brick walls that cut off freedom for its inhabitants. We discussed the Warsaw […]
Poland day one
We arrived in Warsaw, tired and hungry, but eager to begin our journey. The educators and students went to their separate buses and headed to the Jewish cemetery and then to the oldest remaining pre-war synagogue in Warsaw. I knew the experience would educational, but I truly had no idea how much we would learn. […]
History Preserved?
It’s 2:30 am here in Warsaw and despite the fact that I’m truly learning exactly what the meaning of “jet lag” is, I find myself wide awake. We’ve been in Europe for less than 24 hours and in Poland only for about 12, but already my mind is going. Maybe it’s the idea of going […]
Arrival & Day 1
Thankfully, after delays…I can report that the planes have landed, the first day of touring has concluded, and we have had our welcome dinner. It is 10:50 in Poland and many are probably drifting into dreamland to adjust to the time change. The first day was a soggy one, yet we persevered on into the […]
Anger on the Rock
When you visit Temple Mount, you are visiting a place so holy that, in ancient times, only the highest Jewish priest was allowed to visit once a year. And you are stepping your feet upon “Haram al-Sharif,” or “Noble Sanctuary,” which Muslims claim to be the point of ascension for the Prophet Mohammed to heaven, […]
Train Stations
It is widely known that trains and train stations had a traumatic effect on the Jewish people. Even the movie Paperclips honors Shoah deaths by collecting 6 million Paperclips in a train-car-turned museum. At Yad Vashem, we learned about the twisted Nazi plot that tricked Macedonian Jews into buying their own train tickets to the death […]