It seems to be the general consensus among my fellow travelers that we all need a day or two (or maybe a week) to process the trip—everything we learned and felt and everything we are still piecing together. Here it is day two back home, and I am still processing. I am actually only in the early stages of organizing. While in Poland, I filled up my camera’s memory card and took many pictures on my phone. I also kept a notebook of notes, furiously writing anytime Avi or Howard opened their mouths. Now, I am sitting here trying to type up the chicken scratch as an articulate journal that goes along with my pictures. I am hoping to use this not only as a tool in my classroom but also something from which I can effectively share all of the stories I have heard and information I have learned with anyone willing to listen. I have been working on this for an hour, and I have not finished day one, a day in which we did not put in nearly as many hours or stories or facts as the rest of the week. Again, this is going to take a lot of processing, but I do recognize already several ways in which this trip has been and will be life-changing for me.
I went into this trip thinking only of my students and how I can better teach them about the atrocities of the Holocaust. This past year was my first year of teaching. Of course, I had several ups and downs, but one major down that sticks out to me is the reception I got from the students when we began the Holocaust unit. I teach both ninth and eleventh grade English. Sadly, after the ninth grade, there is not really a space in the curriculum for Holocaust literature. This age group may seem too young to some to cover everything about the Holocaust, but I feel it is something that needs to be done, so I do what I can. This year, going into the ninth grade unit, in which we read Night among other articles and texts, I was optimistic. I figured they had studied the Holocaust in history classes (just as I had), and they would be able to connect to the literature. This did not happen. They could not wrap their minds around the events Elie Wiesel describes, and there seemed to be an overall lack of connection to the people, the numbers, the happenings. Therefore, one of my main goals of the trip was to bring back pictures and stories to help my students better connect to the individuals instead of relying on only the numbers to make the impact.
On the other hand, in all of my meetings with Tsipy, she always made some comment about this trip being for “you,” the educator. We all know Tsipy’s passion for educators. Nevertheless, I still had it in the back of my mind that I was just doing this in order to teach the subject matter to my students more effectively. As usual, though, Tsipy was right. It is my experience, at least, that this trip effected me more than anything.
By the time I was sitting on the steps of memorial to those who lost their lives at Birkenau, everything began to click into place for me. Looking out over the tracks, I began coming up with ideas of how to apply all of this information to different classroom projects. I was just spitting everything out to my colleague, Jamie (to whom I owe many thanks as I would not have participated on this trip without her encouragement). Then, another side of things began to dawn on me. I had never learned about the Polish attitudes toward the Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust. I had never thought of all of these horrible places being in my Poland. I knew they were there. I had learned about them, but I never really thought about it. Growing up, my grandparents instilled in me a strong pride in our Polish heritage. Then, there I was mid-way through the trip, developing a complex.
Something that has now moved to the top of my to-do list is researching my family history. I need to know more about my Polish ancestors, and like many of the powerful people I met on this trip, I think that knowing something about them—whether they played roles in the Holocaust or not—will give me some peace of mind. After learning all that I did and seeing all that I saw, there are now too many questions that I had never even thought about before. In the end, not only am I coming away having learned more than I thought possible, I am now motivated to learn more about the me side of things.