Reflections on Poland
Over this past January term, I had the opportunity to take a trip to Poland with a group of 30 Jewish college students from various universities to visit many sites important in our Jewish history. On this journey, we visited neighborhoods that used to be full of Jewish life, burial grounds that commemorate our ancestors, and sites where
our people were killed. While this opportunity was heartbreaking, it was one of the greatest experiences I have had the privilege to learn from. On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, I am experiencing a whole new level of grief after my experience. Below is an excerpt from my journal after a day on my trip:
"When we arrived at Treblinka, we saw a huge field filled with gravestones. In the middle, there was a large
memorial and behind that was a large fire pit. It wasn't what I expected a concentration camp to look like today. We walked to the graves and on each one was the name of a community that was destroyed
there. Because so many people died at Treblinka, they were not able to remember each and every name but instead, they wrote names of cities and towns where there were Jewish populations taken in order to still honor their memory. It was really powerful to walk around and see where so many Jews perished yet it was heartbreaking to see that entire communities were wiped out and more people were killed than can be remembered. As I mentioned, Treblinka was not what I expected a death camp to look like. When we were first walked through, the sun
was beaming onto a beautiful forest of trees and the area looked so serene. It baffled me that a place that was full of so much hate, pain, and death could hold so much beauty. It upset me that such a place could be so peaceful but it made me stop and reflect on those who perished at Treblinka. I felt so connected at that moment to my
people: I felt like with every individual snowflake, each pine on the tree, each beam of warm sunlight, was filled with the life that the Jewish people once lost."
~Lauren Somers, ‘24
