While being a tour guide at Yad Vashem there is one principal rule all tour guides must follow: never, ever, bring your modern 21st century life into the Holocaust narrative. Tour guides are forbidden to compare or even contrast their personal lives with exhibitions in the museum. Quite rightfully so. It’s impossible for the countless visitors to relate to the traumatic stories of various survivors or imagine the hopelessness of a world without humanity. The Holocaust is such an emotional section in our history because while every jew learns about it in school very few, if any, truly understand.

In a few weeks, at the Peach seder we will read: בכל דור ודור איש חיב לראות את עצמו כילו הוא יצה ממיצרים or in other words: In every generation everyone must see themselves as if he or she exited from Egypt. If we annually visualize our ruthless slavery in Egypt and our liberation from it, why not the devastating Crusades? Why not the Pogroms? Why not Auschwitz or Majdonek or Treblinka or Belzec? It’s impossible for the countless visitors to relate to the traumatic stories of various survivors or imagine the hopelessness of a world without humanity but at the same time, it’s impossible for me not to try. While walking around the ruins of Auschwitz in the middle of March with the wind blowing and the temperature dipping into the thirties, it’s impossible for me not to be aware of the 5 layers of shirts I’m wearing and the two pairs of pants I put on that morning and the thick pairs of socks keeping my feet warm inside my winter boots. I think about the think clothes given to those living in the camp and for me, it’s humbling. As my mom nervously packed me for this trip reminding me over and over and over again that I was going to “the North Pole in the middle of winter” only after visiting these terminals of death did I realize that I took that for granted.

As we stood outside the ruins of the Auschwitz gas chambers, a place where over a million jews were brought to their deaths, Benjy motioned towards the sky and pointed out that less than eighty years ago, men, women, and children looked up at the sky knowing that it would be their last chance to appreciate its beauty. Not only is it humbling but it forced me to look up at the sky and appreciate each shade of blue and white.  

Just like the Muslims have their Haj or sacred pilgrimage where they are obligated once in their life to trace Mohammad’s footsteps from Mecca to Medina, I believe that each member of the Jewish people חייב or must make their own pilgrimage to Poland to truly see themselves as if they walked out of the hell of the Shaoh. By visiting these camps it is more than blending the past with the present. Ultimately, the journey to Poland is meant to inspire us to act for a better future by evoking a sense of empathy that will remain in our hearts forever.