Poland is such an amazing country and after being there I hope to go again next summer. The hotel we stayed at was fantastic, I could go to a 24 hour pierogi place, and I went gallivanting looking for street art in the Jewish Quarter.
The events we did in Poland were stirring. We went to the Schlinder Museum and I was shocked by the layout. After a few minutes in the museum, I reached a room with Nazi flags from ceiling to a little above the floor. I was frozen because I have only seen Nazi flags on walls in museums and this forced me to walk through them. I ended up waiting for another student to walk through with me. I can’t believe the Poles and French had to walk through these flags and had this fear passing by them. Eventually another section had large walls that matched the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. They looked like tombstones and a few quotes within the section talked about how the tombstones were eerily showing that they would be dead there. One quote made me burst into tears. “The ghetto has four huge gates. And through these gates we are not allowed. It is strictly prohibited. The no. 3 tram passes up and down the main street. We are not allowed on the tram. It is strictly prohibited either. That is why the tram never stops in the ghetto […]. Once a boy tossed few loaves of bread through a tram window to our feet.” This quote sounds normal till you see that it is attributed to “Roma Liebing, aged 5.” Sometimes you can forget how innocent the children were that had to go through this. That they didn’t know why they couldn’t ride the tram, go out the gates, or be like the little boy. The museum overall made me uncomfortable and sad and this was probably the most effective museum in understanding the pain and sorrow the population underwent.
Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau were very emotional places and I don’t think I can address all of the emotions. I did want to address my anger at certain peoples’ actions of disrespect in both locations. In Auschwitz I I saw couples take selfies and people take photos in areas where it specifically says no photos. I was sickened by the camp and already wanted to go back to the hotel. We headed to Auschwitz II- Birkenau. While crossing the street to head in, a car speeding down the road almost hit one of our study tour members, Patrick O’Connor. I walked out behind the car to cross the road and saw four white males in their late twenties in the car laughing. All of a sudden, the man in the back left corner did the Nazi salute and all the men cracked up and drove away. I still cannot believe that they would do such an action outside of a concentration camp where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. My faith in humanity was questioned at that moment because people find if funny to do things such as that.