I’m going to keep it real with everybody, Poland was not easy. In fact it was probably one of the hardest experiences of my life. The fun parts of the trip were very enjoyable, but the sad parts were extremely difficult to cope with. So these are my thoughts on Poland.

From hearing what the other group had said about the experience it was very unpleasant. The weather was stormy, it was cold, it was depressing, etc. This made me a little nervous and as it was coming up in just a few short days I felt very unprepared. I came to the conclusion that Poland would be hard no matter how I looked at it but I decided that I wanted to get a lot out of it anyways because it is important to me to learn about myself and about my Jewish history and identity. The morning of the plane ride was difficult to say the least. A 1:15 am wake up, a nearly lost wallet, and many hours of waiting to get a party of 40 plus people onto a plane. We arrived in Poland at around 10 am that same day and started from there. We began our journey at the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, home of roughly 230,000 graves. It was interesting to see the recurring etchings on the tombstones and to find out what some of them meant.

For the first two days it was fairly laid back, limited to mostly walking and note taking about pre Holocaust conditions in Warsaw. By the third day, however we went to our first death camp, Majdanek. This day trip was incredibly challenging and the atmosphere of a once death camp where hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered was indescribable and unreal. You could almost hear the terror all around you and it was intimidating.

After Majdanek we continued to explore Poland traveling down toward Lublin and eventually Krakow. We spent three nights in Krakow and each day brought a new challenging topic. The most challenging of those three days and overall the whole trip was Auschwitz day. This day was the most emotionally stressing and probably my least favorite day as well. Starting in Auschwitz 1, which is now a museum, we spent three to four hours visiting exhibits of evidence from the Holocaust. Some exhibits that really jumped out and affected me were these three rooms: the exhibit filled with victim’s hair, with victim’s shoes, and with victim’s luggage. I think that these rooms change my perspective on the Holocaust because it shows how the Nazis stripped Jews of not just their property, but their identity and humanity. They took away everything that allows people to express themselves. The last stop at Auschwitz 1 was the last remaining gas chambers there. This room I felt was the closest to hell I have been in my life. The claustrophobic low ceilings, the darkness, the wet mustiness of the walls and air sent constant chills down my back. We were told to remain in the room for as long as possible and in doing so we were able go back and re-live what had happened here in our heads. Everyone was a little shaken up when leaving the chamber. Already exhausted, the group then took a short bus ride to Auschwitz 2 - Birkenau, the death camp. I will keep this one short because if I were to explain what we did and what I felt that afternoon into evening I would be writing for pages. But the camp was overwhelming in it’s vastness. It seemed the end of the camp was beyond the horizon almost. We walked through and across the camp in silence and were told stories and testimonies of Holocaust victims. Listening to their words while standing in the exact places they mention allows you to envision the grounds in a way so vivid it seemed almost as a memory. After 4 maybe 5 hours of wandering through the land we finished the day dangling from the strings of keeping things together. The whole day and overall trip affected me so deeply and I think changed me as a person. With a much better understanding, I feel as if it is my responsibility as a Jew to spread my knowledge and experience to people around me so they too can understand the immensity of the horrors of the Holocaust.