Hello everyone.  Poland was jaw-dropping. It was a trip like no other.  Luckily, the plane ride wasn’t as long as I thought.  Once we arrived at Warsaw, we went to a beautiful Jewish cemetery in the city.  Since it was coming to the end of autumn, the leaves were a bright yellow and they were falling on the ground.  The combination of the tall trees, seemingly golden leaves twinkling as they fall, and the clouds obscuring the image of the yellow sun carpeting the sky with a gray fleece.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Before we went in to see the cemetery, Aubrey asked if anyone liked going to cemeteries.  I was the only one who raised their hand.  It was interesting how Japanese culture had influenced me and comparing me to the different people in the group dynamic. 

As we walked through the cemetery we got to see many interesting tombstones.  Some were embellished in carvings of lions and falcons protecting the crest of a family and others were left with simple carvings and Hebrew written to describe the grave.  We got to do an activity where we go to imprint a gravestone onto paper using a crayon or charcoal.  After, we went to some of the famous graves in the cemetery.  We got to see Adam Czerniakow’s grave, the first Jew in charge of the Judenrat who committed suicide because he didn’t want to start the transport of Jews to Treblinka from Warsaw.  Much to his dismay, the next day after his death, the transport started and thousands of Jews were killed.  We also got to see L.L. Zamenhoff’s grave, the person who created Esperanto, an international language that would in theory suppress anti-Semitism and other types of persecution.  Too bad that dreamed died. 

We soon moved on and were taken to two empty plots.  I knew exactly where we were.  This was the place where over 80,000 Jews were buried from monstrous acts like from the Einzattsgrupen and deaths that took place in the Warsaw Ghetto.  The sheer idea of it was hard to grasp.  It was so beautiful, how the leaves fell on the ground and how the soil was tainted with green and yellow marks like as if it were an impressionist painting.  

We soon went to visit other places like Auschwitz-Birkenau near the town of Oscweitzcm and Majdanek in Lublin.  At the end, Aubrey took us to a forest in a small town.  We were sat in the forest and were told about the story of hundreds of Jewish children who were slaughtered by the Einzattsgrupen.  That was the first time I cried during the trip.  They sat us around in a circle and told us our favorite childhood memory, highlighting that these children had memories like us and how innocent they were when they died.  Aubrey then handed us letters that our parents wrote to us before the trip.  Tears were shed as I read.  I felt gratitude.  I finally realized how lucky I was in that moment in time to have a loving family, security, and friends.  We then got onto the bus and headed back towards the airport in Warsaw after a heart wrenching trip.