We are now more than halfway done, or more exact, about three fourths into this amazing semester at AMHSI. I have learned many things, school wise, and as well as learning things that I will keep for the rest of my life, and that will help me a lot. In our core Jewish history class, which is the where we learn a lot about our own history and our identity, we have gone through all the history until the Holocaust. In class we learned about the Holocaust for the whole day, or eight hours, and then we actually went to Poland, where most of it happened. This is what we usually do in this class, learn about it, and then go to the actual place. Poland was very hard, and it made me realize many things, as well as feeling many emotions.

Some of the expectations that I had before going to Poland, was to learn more about how the Nazis treated people, and also to see all the concentration camps in where a lot of my family had died because of the horrendous acts of the Nazis. Another thing that I expected to see was the history of how good the Jews lived in Poland before, and fast transition to those horrible years of the war.

After traveling all around Poland, and visiting all the camps, seeing where many Jews died, while also celebrating life, and seeing how Judaism resulted in Poland, all together as a group, made us all more connected and we bonded much more experiencing the barbarous behavior made by the Nazis against our own people. Also the whole trip made me very emotionally drained, sad, and most of all, proud. I felt sad and drained of seeing all the cruel acts made by the Nazis, but also very proud of seeing how Judaism resulted after everything that happened. There is still a few Jews living in Poland and it still feels as if there is kind of a strong community, seeing all the synagogues that are left, as well as the Jewish Community Center.

Overall, Poland really made me realize how you should never give up physically or even give up on our own faith. We should always believe that God will help us out in the end, and even though many bad things will happen, at the end many things will end up being well. Before going on this trip I hadn’t really known how bad the Holocaust was and how much people suffered, but now seeing everything in real life, and up close, I see how much crueler the Nazis were than I actually thought. I also learned how at the end we should celebrate life instead of only thinking of death.