This week we boarded a 4am flight to Poland! I have never been to Poland let alone the Eastern side of Europe, so as someone who loves travel, I was excited to go somewhere new. 🙂

We began our travel adventure by boarding a bus at 12am to Ben Gurian Airport. By the time we made it through bag check and security it was 2:30am. Our flight was at 4:00 so my friends and I had time to grab food and go shopping in the duty free stores. We boarded our 3 hour flight and I got a solid 2 hours of sleep between the 30 hour door to door travel day. When we landed, I was really excited to get a new stamp on my passport. Thankfully, everyone’s luggage made it to Poland so we could quickly leave the airport, board our bus and begin our adventure. 

I just stared out the window at the foreign city of Warsaw. I immediately noticed the different architecture in the buildings, and the different style of clothing people wore, how different they looked and how I didn’t look like any of them.  With this week’s blog, I will share my different journal entries I wrote while in Poland throughout the different days as opposed to my weekly blog entries I’ve been sharing. Enjoy my journey.

March 12th, 2024: Today was our first full day in Poland. We woke up in Warsaw at 6:30am and we boarded the bus that drove us to an old Jewish Schtettle (town). We toured the town and learned about what life was like before the holocaust. We played a game where we threw a ball made out of newspaper onto peanuts. This is what the children used to play in the town. After, we went to an old synagogue that hasn’t been used since before the Holocaust. We sang, danced, and prayed together which was really meaningful to see us bring the life back into the temple. Right outside of the temple is what used to be the town center. We listened to a story about how the Nazi’s gathered all the Jews here and put them into trucks. I can’t imagine how this really happened yet it did, and being here and feeling it is like an out of body experience. 

Once again we boarded the bus and this time we followed the tracks the Nazi’s dragged the Jews on. We spent the bus ride in silence to try and enter a state of mind and simulate what the Jews went through as they were dragged to their death. It was indescribable. The bus parked outside of an eerie forest. The forest had trees so high I could barely see the grey sky.

We started walking onto the path that led us to multiple memorials. The memorials were plots of dirt and grass surrounded by a gate. On each gate, were rocks and Israeli flags tied on. We listened to a testimony written by a survivor who described her experience in this forest. She witnessed each and every family member of hers get shot. While hearing and seeing where this took place, I felt very overwhelmed. I couldn’t comprehend the fact that I was standing on the same soil where all the Jews were murdered. The forest I was in was unlike anything I have ever been in before. It had no life to it. Not one ray of sunshine, animal, or sound. It had a deafening silence. It made me reflect and appreciate that I am here with 40 other Jews standing in a place where Jews were murdered because they were Jewish. How could this happen? How could this happen I kept repeating to myself. On a positive note, I felt extremely fortunate to be allowed to openly express my Judaism in a place that never allowed this before. 

After this, we went to one of the most infamous death camps, Treblinka. This place was completely and utterly destroyed. There was no original building structures left because the Nazi’s destroyed all their tracts when they realized they were losing the war. It was turned into almost an art exhibit as there were lots of different stones that were designed to symbolize something. It was really hard for me to understand how many Jews died in the place I was standing. There was almost no trace left except for the trees. The trees witnessed it all. I noticed the difference in color on the trunks. It started out as darker and then the color changed and faded into a lighter amber. As I looked at the town around the forest, I saw that they have grown and moved on from the Holocaust. They still memorialize it, but they still live their lives. The change in color on tree trunks for me, symbolizes the growth from the Holocaust. When we were walking on the train track back, my Israel Studies teacher, Donny told us a story about this specific spot we were standing in outside of the camp. This was where the Jews spent their last couple of seconds of “freedom” as they were never coming out. An avalanche of emotions hit me and I looked up and around and saw I was with 40 other Jews, so many of them friends and fortunately we were the ones who we’re going to be able to leave. I was crying.  We followed their tracks in, but how horrifically tragic that they couldn’t follow ours out. 

March 13th, 2024: I am sitting right now in Mydonik Death Camp. My view is currently a field of grass with barbed wire and barracks. Today was yet another emotional day for me. As I looked around, I noticed everything was still intact. We went into the gas-chambers. It was a wooden building with a bricked chimney. It was scary.  The first room we went into was the “bathing room.’ There were dozens of shower heads on the ceiling and there was a bath tub in the corner. On the walls, you could see the blueish-green stains from the poison gasses that were released into the air. I also noticed different scratch marks on the wall from the all the people, mother’s and fathers, grandparents, children, babies who were all trying to escape. I can’t even put into words the emotions that hit me. I just couldn’t stop crying. I was literally standing on the same floorboard that hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. One of my teachers read us a testimony of a 13-year old girl who was in the gas-chambers but escaped. She told us about how she lost her mom in it that very gas chamber. I tried to imagine myself as her and just kept breaking down crying. Another thing that made this visit really significant is that I found out my great-grandfather was sent to a Prisoner of War camp after he was caught in North Africa by the Nazis as he fought for the British Army . I am not sure which one he was in but it was in Poland he spent years there under horrific conditions. He was one of the lucky ones to survive, especially as he was Jewish. I never knew him personally but I tried to imagine and ask myself if maybe he experienced something like this camp. 

By physically being in this camp, I now feel very motivated to educate my fellowJews back in Park City. I realized most people don’t really know about what actually happened in the Holocaust. Some even denies its very existence. I really don’t think people my age know the extent of the brutality, the abuse and torture the Nazis inflicted upon the Jews and I feel like every single Jew needs to see a camp like this to really understand what happened to us, and to do everything in our power to never let this happen again. 

March 14th, 2024: Today we spent most of the day on the bus to the city of Krakow. Our first stop was at an old Yeshivah temple where Hasidic Jews use to study the Talmud (Torah) before the Holocaust. The Yeshivah was modernized and turned into a hotel. This was a unique experience and again, another eye opening experience.  We learned about how they study one page of the Talmud a day which takes 7 years to finish and we got to study one of the pages. It was interesting to learn about the different lifestyle Hasidic Jews lived. We are all Jewish but I feel like there are so many different types of Jews, traditions, beliefs, and lifestyles. It made me want to learn more. 

This trip to Poland we are especially on the go so much that bus time tends to be our main source of sleep, so most of us nap as much as we can while we’re on the bus. 

We visited another synagogue and this one was still standing because the Nazi’s didn’t destroy it. The temple was absolutely beautiful. It looked very different from any synagogue that I have seen in the West. This one was built with beautiful marble and gold pieces on the wall with Hebrew prayers. Some people in my program haven’t had their Bar/Bat Mitzvah, the Jewish right of passage of when a girl becomes a woman and an boy becomes a man, and were able to experience reading from the Torah for the first time. This enabled them to become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. It was so awesome to be apart of their life changing moment.  My brother and I were fortunate to have had our Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and they were amazing, but this was beyond incredible to watch. We sang and danced to Israeli and traditional Jewish songs, laughed and celebrated.  We brought the life back to a synagogue that hasn’t been used for almost 80 years. We will never forget this moment. 

Later that night, we continued our way to Krakow and we had DOTS which basically is free time with our friends. I loved having free time in this new city for 2 reasons, there was a Starbucks and Sephora. 🙂 In Israel they don’t have any of those so I was super excited. 

The city of Krakow was probably my favorite city we went to. It was really fun because we also were able to try some new Polish food. Whenever I go to a new country, I play a game where I try to taste 10 new foods. I didn’t reach my goal in Poland but we did try different types of Perigees and Polish hot dogs. 🙂

March 17th, 2024: Right now I am sitting in a patch of grass at the Aushwitz-Birkanau camp. We started our day by touring Aushwitz 1 which is the labor camp. There isn’t much left so we saw the different barracks and the museum. We saw the building where Dr. Mengele performed his monstrous experiments on Jews. We listened to a testimony delivered by my friend, Mia, who spoke to us about her great-aunt and how she was a victim of Mengele’s experiments. While I stood outside of this rustic door that protected the outside world from the horrors that took place within, I felt the chills.

All the stories I have heard previously about Mengle’s experiments almost seemed fictional and seeing the building where it actually took place was completely surreal. Another room that stood out to me was the stolen belongings room. In this room, there were glass cases filled to the max with different belongings that were stolen from the Jews. I saw hair, glasses, shoes, suitcases, crutches, tallit, and so many other personal belongings resembling the life of what once was. What really hit me was the case of hair. The case was filled to the top with shaved hair. I noticed braids from little girls heads which was absolutely disgusting to see. The case with crutches and wheelchairs also made me sick to my stomach to not only see with my own eyes that it wasn’t just Jews who were persecuted, it was people with special needs. 

Another room we saw was filled with drawings that were illustrated by children during their time at Aushwitz. A specific drawing that stood out to me was the tally marks. The marks resembled the amount of days this child has spent at the camp before he/she was gassed. It reminded me of the pictures of tally marks made by the children held captive by Hamas in present day. This picture really hit me hard because we are experiencing this all over again; just in a different way. 

This is what the image looked like:

Another drawing that stood out to me was a wall that had 15 different people, animals, and other things. At first it was hard for me to understand what the meaning of this was until I realized it demonstrated all of the things this child loved in their time before it was stolen from them. It was drawn to remind herself that they still exist, even though they never saw them again. After we toured the Aushwitz museum, we made our way to Birkanau. To illustrate the setting of the day, we saw the sun for the first time during the entire trip to Poland. The weather was perfect and the sky was completely blue. When we first arrived, we immediately saw the huge main gate into Birkanau. It was intimidating because that’s the gate where the trains carried millions of Jews. It was surreal seeing this in person. All my life I have heard hundreds of stories about this exact place. I have seen movies and now I’m standing on this ground paved with the lost souls of all the victims. We walked along the train track and I saw how huge this camp really was. It was enormous! As we continued touring the camp, we all wore the Israeli flags on out backs in pride. In a sense, it was an F-U to the Nazi’s.  We are still here!

We saw the woman’s barracks which is where they slept. It was disgusting to see how they were treated like complete animals. We continued our tour around the camp, and we saw the gas chambers and crematorium. Now back to the weather. The weather surprisingly impacted my experience at Aushwitz. It was hard to really see and feel it like I felt it at the Mydonick Death Camp when the skies were appropriately grey and dark; however, it was super impactful to see, to feel, to listen and to really understand these horrors. 

Overall, my trip to Poland was beyond difficult and draining. The emotions I felt each day, I am still trying to comprehend and put into context of my everyday life. The lack of sleep, walking, and concentration camps definitely took a toll on me. These experiences will stay with me for ever.

Just as I thought our trip was over, my next adventure took place at the Warsaw Airport.  Little travel tip, don’t pack at 6am and forget to put your toiletries in your check bag. I packed at 6am running on 4 hours of sleep and I accidentally put some of my oversized products in my carry-on bag and had them taken away by airport security. They even took my deodorant which was totally ridiculous. It was a sh*t show. I was so mad. I started yelling at them and I called my mom so mad.  Note, do not yell at airport security… Travel no-no #2! Let’s just say that I was lucky to not get in trouble. Our flight was also delayed so we all plotted ourselves on the floor at the airport, zoned out and then practically sleep walked onto the plane. We landed back in Israel at 5am and got back to campus at 7am. It was a very long travel day. 

As I shared before a bit, Poland was an emotionally draining, mentally and physically exhausting trip and yet as hard and awful as it was experiencing the horrors of mankind, my Jewish our past, it was incredibly eye opening and I made unforgettable memories and experiences with my friends that I plan to share with my friends back home to make sure this can never happen again. 

Thanks for following along. Stay tuned for more adventures, but hopefully on more sleep next week.

Xoxo,