Day 3

I’m not sure what I expected on this trip. I’ve been studying the Holocaust and World War II since I was in the fifth grade. Never once did it ever occur to me that I would get the opportunity to travel to Poland and see these places with my own eyes.
Yesterday, we were able to travel to Treblinka. It was out in the middle of no where. It’s hidden by tall, green trees and there is nothing there. The Nazis successfully got rid of the evidence a death camp had existed here. I was shocked at the atmosphere of Treblinka. I had this picture in my mind after reading and studying the horrible things that had happened here, I was shocked to see how calm and peaceful the land looked. There are train track markers and a memorial for the camp, but nothing original remains. When we were walking towards the memorial, I counted three butterflies flying by. The birds were chirping. There were some wild flowers growing in the field. Life went on after Treblinka. I’ve studied black and white pictures of this place and it looked nothing like it did from 1942 to 1944 when the Nazis operated the camp.
I’m a quiet person about my emotions and I can’t say I like expressing my feelings in a big group. Though, I must write, today has been the hardest. Today started when we toured Lublin and played stereotypical teenage tourists by taking selfies in front of the castle and old buildings. The tone of the day switched quickly when we arrived after a twenty minute drive at Majdanek.
It was intimidating. As we drove, our view transferred from residential houses and shops to the death camp. Unlike Treblinka, Mandanek is still there. I walked along the barbed wire fences. I touched the gas chamber door. Finally, I reached barracks with bunks inside. Seeing bunks in the barracks at the camp is a different experience than seeing a few bunks in the D.C. museum. Words cannot describe the eerie feeling of the hot barracks. The next barrack we walked through held shoes. To think that every pair of shoes once belonged to a person is almost unimaginable. I walked every row and looked at the shoes up and down the aisles. Most were a black work shoe or had white laced pattern. As I was about to exit, a small, red shoe caught my eye. As I walked back to it, I realized that it was small enough to resemble shoes my six year old sister wears. I’ve taken her shoe shopping countless times. I know that she has a similiar style and color to the shoe I saw in the barrack. This was one of the hardest moments of today. There were people in this camp. There were women and men of all ages. But there were also children. And that statement was very hard for me to see today.