Before this trip, I never expected that I would go to Poland and see the horrors I saw. I always thought that my knowledge of the Shoah was enough, and that I could go through my life knowing these horrible experiences but never going too in-depth with them. But when I arrived, I was shocked. Shocked by the amount of Jewish culture remaining, and shocked by the amount of Jews left in Poland in general. To me, it was so confusing why Jews would choose to live in Poland after the Shoah. Why would they choose to live in a place that treated them so horribly? But after spending time in the hauntingly beautiful country, I began to understand. People’s lives had been there for centuries, and even though their families had been tortured and destroyed there, they could not bear to leave home. This past week has changed me so much as a human, but most importantly a Jew. I have a new appreciation for my religion and my culture, and it is all thanks to the moments, both small and large, that left a real impact on me while we traveled around the country.

When we went to Auschwitz I, we explored some of the exhibits that the concentration camp-turned-museum had to offer. A few of the exhibits really stuck out to me, and made me realize even more that the people killed were real people, and that their story deserved to be told just as much as the next one. One of the exhibits in one of the barracks was a room full of two tons of hair from the female victims, much of it still in braids. The braids really got to me, as it showed that it was real people, not just a jumble of hair. There was a story behind each and every one of those braids, and it was overwhelming. I can remember the first time I learned to braid. My mom pulled out some friendship bracelet string, and took my hands, leading me through the motions, until I was able to do it myself. I remember choir in fifth grade. My friend sitting in front of me had this beautiful, thick, long hair, and I would make the tiniest braids ever in her hair. I would try to take them out by the end of class, but sometimes she’d go through her day with tiny braids in her hair. I remember sitting in science class in sixth grade, bored out of my mind, and braiding my own hair. That was when I experimented, and taught myself how to French braid on my own head, something I have always been very proud of. Braiding is an essential part of many girls’ lives, and hold lots of memories. Seeing those braids was like seeing those memories be taken away. Another exhibit in the same barrack was a room full of shoes that were taken from the victims before they were gassed. But this room was not just filled with any shoes — it was filled with children’s shoes. Baby shoes. Seeing it was shocking. Whenever I go shopping for shoes, I always get distracted by the baby shoes that they have on display. I always talk to my friends and family about how I cannot wait to get cute shoes like that for my kid, and how my child will be the most fashionable kid of his/her generation. I love looking at those small shoes, planning for the future. Seeing those shoes was like a stab in the gut. Those parents could have had the same goals for their kids. They could have looked at those shoes in a store window when they were teenagers, dreaming of when they had their own kid. But when they finally do have their own kid, everything is cut short. What if that child had a mom like me, who spent her whole life anticipating having a child, anticipating the true love and getting excited to care for them? I would never want my child to go through what those children had to. Standing in that room, looking at all the shoes, broke my heart in half. The combination of the hair and the shoes made me sick to my stomach, and made the horrors that I had heard about my entire life extremely real.

This trip really made me look inside myself, and really made me search to find out who I really am, what I really believe, and what I want to do with this information. I am yet to process everything that happened while in Poland, but I do know that I will not let this information go to waste. I will share it, teach others, and never let the horrors and the victims of the Shoah be forgotten. I also know that I will take what I have learned, and use to be the best Jew that I can be. Never again will I be ashamed of my Judaism, and never again will I take it for granted. And I pray that never again will the Jews be persecuted at such an extreme level.