This past week, my class took a week off from touring around in Israel to learn about the Holocaust by visiting Majdanek death camp, Plaschau death camp, and Auschwitz I and Auschwitz Birkenau. At our first stop in Majdanek, we were told ahead of time that despite the infamous connotation with Auschwitz, that Majdanek may be the hardest stop on our trip emotionally. As we pulled up to Majdanek, I understood why we were told to brace ourselves.

The first thing that we saw was a row of barracks off in the distance, along with a crematorium and more buildings that we didn’t know their use yet, but it almost seemed like the camp was still being used– it was that intact. As we walked in the front gate, it was definitely a haunting experience. We were first showed the white house that belonged to the overseers of the camp over the five years that it was up and running, and it was quite disturbing to see that the children of the people in charge of the camp could probably see the atrocities happening right in their backyard from their bedroom window. As we walked through the death camp, I only got emotional when we walked through the former gas chamber, but besides that, I didn’t feel much emotion at all for some reason. It kind of just seem to be bizarre to no longer read about death camps, and to not hear the stories of the death camp, but to actually walk through it, it’s a feeling that I’m having an extreme difficulty with explaining here in a blog. Something that will definitely stick with me that I saw at Majdanek was a memorial for all of the people who were murdered at the camp– it was a pile of the human ashes with a large stone kippah overhead. I didn’t ever think that a pile of human ashes could be so big, and those were just from the victims of Majdanek. It made me wonder what the ashes of all 6,000,000 victims from the Holocaust would look like, or what the 11,000,000 total victims’ ashes would look like. The next camp that we went to was Plaschau death camp, however this experience was completely different from Majdanek. There is nothing left of Plaschau, and I mean nothing. It was just a park with people walking their dogs through, and women pushing their children on strollers. The only teller that the place that we were standing on was even a death camp at all at one point was a sign that told us exactly where we were standing. Plaschau didn’t make me emotional at all, probably because nothing is left. The next camps that we went to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz Birkenau, which I thought would be the hardest day because of the infamous nature of the two camps, but yet again for some reason I didn’t get very emotional at all. So in the morning we went to Auschwitz I, which is a lot smaller than Auschwitz Birkenau, and has a lot of the original brick buildings that were used for storage back during WWII. We were on a guided tour so the whole camp sort of felt like a museum rather than a death camp, but there was one thing that stuck out to me that really made me stop. There was an entire room dedicated to videos of Jews before the Holocaust, projected all over the room. Everyone looked so happy, and it was very sad to know what the future had in store for them, so it was very haunting to watch. Besides that, Auschwitz I didn’t make much of an impact on me. The last concentration camp that we went to was Auschwitz Birkenau, which I’ve seen the most pictures from. As we pulled up, I saw the railroad tracks that went through the middle of the camp, also the scene of many pictures that I saw others post from the camp. I don’t know what I was expecting to see at Auschwitz Birkenau, nothing really stood out to me that much, it was more so the feeling that was very special to me. I brought with me an Israeli flag, and I felt so much pride in it, so along with some other kids from my group, we tied the flags around our shoulders like capes or a tallis and walked with pride in our people as we had to stare at the sites where they were murdered.

Overall, I didn’t feel nearly as much emotion as I thought, or wanted to feel. I’m usually able to show my emotions really well and express how I feel, but this entire week I felt more numb to emotions than anything. My core teacher told me that all the feelings could hit at a random moment back in the states, such as when we’re sitting in history class learning about World War II. I think it will hit me at some point or another, but not yet.