Traveling with a Holocaust survivor and doing the things planned was one of the most interesting experiences of my life

The most intense ideas or experiences from Poland Personally: A Study Seminar to Poland are impossible to choose because traveling with a Holocaust survivor and doing the things planned was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. I’d say that, if I had to choose, the most moving experiences would be between hearing Howard Chancellor’s stories in the barracks of Birkenau, bonding with him and the others, learning all I could from Avi and the Reform Shabbat service at the Galicia Museum with a Reform congregation that was the only one in Krakow only two years old. After this experience,  I can’t understand how Holocaust education can happen without going to the sites. I look back and my whole Holocaust education in school seemed black and white, two dimensional. There is something to be said about seeing that wild flowers grow in concentration camps after all that had happened. It is incredibly important to view the amount of human hair and collection of prosthetic legs and crutches that are exhibited behind glass at Auschwitz and to experience the human connection felt from the group hugs and sharing these moments together with everyone.