For as long as I can remember, I have always been interested in the Holocaust.\u00a0 In fact, I can hardly remember a time when I wasn\u2019t trying to learn more about it.\u00a0 Of course, like many young children, I read Anne Frank\u2019s Diary of a Young Girl<\/em>. \u00a0At the time, I don\u2019t think anything I had read before that resonated with me quite like the words of Anne Frank, a girl who was not much older than I was when I read her diary for the first time.\u00a0 I still remember what it was like to read these words: \u201cDespite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.\u201d\u00a0 After everything she had endured, I wondered how Anne could maintain such a positive outlook on life.\u00a0 Reading her diary filled me a desire to read more.\u00a0 I wanted to know everything I could about the Holocaust and the people who were forever impacted by it, particularly the survivors and the victims.\u00a0 I pored over historical accounts, survivor memoirs, eyewitness testimonies; I watched movies and documentaries.\u00a0 After a while, I started to believe I knew everything there was to know about the Holocaust.\u00a0 I learned this semester, through countless humbling experiences, that I\u2019ve barely scratched the surface.<\/p>\n When I found out last semester that Wagner was offering an EYH class on the Holocaust which would be traveling to Germany and Poland, I knew I wanted to sign up without a second thought.\u00a0 Not only would I get to travel to two new countries I\u2019d never seen before (I\u2019ve been consumed by wanderlust since studying abroad in Rome last spring), but I\u2019d get to do so all while learning about a subject that has been so important to me for years.\u00a0 I knew even before we left on the trip that this EYH was going to be a life-changing experience for me.\u00a0 Who could see Auschwitz with their own eyes and not be changed?\u00a0 But the expectations I had were blown completely out of the water when we actually arrived in Berlin, our first stop on the trip.\u00a0 In the week that followed, I learned so much more than I ever thought I would have and was moved beyond words on countless occasions.\u00a0 I also had the amazing privilege and opportunity to learn from my classmates and to grow closer to them as we all experienced this incredible journey together.<\/p>\n While I still sometimes find it difficult to coherently put into words everything I feel about what I saw and experienced on my trip to Germany and Poland, this reflection is an attempt to share with anyone who reads it the powerful impact this EYH had on me.\u00a0 Throughout the course of our trip, we journeyed from Berlin to Warsaw, then from Warsaw to Krakow.\u00a0 It was while we were in Krakow that we made the emotional and crucial trip to Auschwitz.\u00a0 Throughout the rest of my post, I will be sharing my reflections on one site from each of the four places we visited: Berlin, Warsaw, Auschwitz, and Krakow.\u00a0 It is my hope that whoever reads these reflections may be able to take something out of them and may even be inspired to take advantage of future EYH trips or to travel the world.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Berlin Reflection<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Berlin site I chose to reflect on is the remains of the Gestapo Headquarters, which today serves as the Topography of Terror Museum of Berlin.\u00a0 I was first struck by the symbolism of the picture I took before we entered the Museum.\u00a0 Without even realizing it, I had captured together in one photograph two of the biggest representations of oppression Germany has ever known.\u00a0 At the bottom of the picture is what remains of the foundation of the SS Main Office.\u00a0 Above it stands the Berlin Wall.\u00a0 In the twentieth century, these two institutions served as symbols of fear of tyranny.\u00a0 It is no wonder that the Topography of Terror Museum stands just a few feet away.\u00a0 Both the Gestapo Headquarters and the Berlin Wall are sites that are inherently unique to the city of Berlin.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be focusing on the former in this reflection.<\/p>\n When Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in 1933, they took over the city of Berlin and completely changed its culture and landscape.\u00a0 Though most of them apparently quite disliked the city and preferred Munich, they saw Berlin as a particularly advantageous capital of the superpower they envisioned Germany would become. \u00a0As David Clay Large notes in his book Berlin<\/em>, Hitler hoped to “remedy” the problem of the so-called “moral decay” that had been in place since the Weimar era by “tearing out the heart of Old Berlin and building a brand new capital in its place.” \u00a0And, as Large argues, for a time he succeeded. \u00a0All that remains of the Nazis’ supposed invincible power today, however, are crumbling foundations.\u00a0 In the Topography of Terror Museum, located quite strategically above the remains of the SS Headquarters, the exhibitions are dedicated to the history of the site and the Nazi officials who perpetrated such heinous crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n I think the reason I was so deeply struck by this site was because of the wonderful tour guide my group had inside the Museum.\u00a0 He was so incredibly knowledgeable and, while I can\u2019t speak for everyone, I would argue that he made my entire group really think and even surprised us with some of the information he shared.\u00a0 I thought his approach of trying to make us understand the psychology behind the Nazis was fascinating.\u00a0 He truly caught us all off guard when he told us that, strange as it may seem to say, Heinrich Himmler was actually a good boss who cared about his workers, which was how he got so many men to follow him.\u00a0 I saw images I had never seen before and while listening to real stories recounted by our guide, I realized just how easy it truly is for people to get caught up in mob mentalities and be swept away by hatred and bigotry.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s what\u2019s so terrifying about the Topography of Terror\u2014realizing that many of the Nazi officers and the citizens who supported them were just ordinary people before Hitler came to power.\u00a0 Yet, through the power of persuasion and deception, they would become perpetrators in one of the most horrifying genocides history has ever known.<\/p>\n Additionally, this particular site impacted me in another way, a way I didn’t realize until well after we had returned from the trip. \u00a0Everything we talked about at the Topography of Terror really stuck with me and because of it, I decided to write my research paper for this class on Heinrich Himmler and the SS. \u00a0My thesis is that Himmler was one of the most ruthless, calculating members of the Nazi Party and that he, and by extension the SS, were primarily responsible for the horrendous crimes against humanity that were perpetrated during the war.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Warsaw Reflection<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Warsaw site I chose to reflect on is a memorial housed inside the Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw, dedicated to Janusz Korczak and his orphans, who were all rounded up during an Aktion from the Warsaw Ghetto and murdered in the Treblinka extermination camp. \u00a0I had heard the story of Korczak before, but seeing this monument really hit home for me and moved me deeply.\u00a0 Mr. Korczak was a Polish Jew who, before the war, had been a teacher, children\u2019s author, and pediatrician.\u00a0 Within the confining walls of the ghetto, he took charge of the orphanage and cared for the children who had no one else to look out for them.\u00a0 When the Nazis arrived in August of 1942, seeking to round up approximately two hundred children from the orphanage, they offered Korczak sanctuary if he abandoned the orphans.\u00a0 Korczak refused, however, knowing how scared his children would be if they had to go alone.\u00a0 He held their hands and accompanied them out of the ghetto, to deportation at the Umschlagplatz, and finally to death at Treblinka.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure Janusz Korczak\u2019s story touches everyone who hears it, as must his monument in the Jewish Cemetery.\u00a0 The base of the memorial is covered in small stones and candles, signs of the many visitors who have been moved by its presence.\u00a0 I myself placed a stone at the feet of Korczak and the children, praying and hoping that they are now at peace.\u00a0 Seeing the depiction of \u201cMr. Doctor,\u201d as many called Korczak, holding one child in his arms and guiding the others in a fatherly fashion made me think of what it must have been like to witness their deportation from the ghetto.\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of a more crushing blow than seeing nearly two hundred innocent children being led to their deaths.\u00a0 Perhaps this round up of Korczak and the orphans contributed to the planning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which would take place less than a year later.<\/p>\n The story of Janusz Korczak is unique to Warsaw in that he spent his entire life in that city.\u00a0 He was born and raised there, did his life\u2019s work there, and was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto when the Nazis invaded his city.\u00a0 Warsaw will always remember him, as will others who hear of his bravery and dedication.\u00a0 But as I learned during our trip, Korczak is not the only man who acted so courageously.\u00a0 While at Shabbat dinner at the Jewish Community Center of Krakow, I had the privilege of hearing testimony from a Krakow survivor, who told us of his grandfather.\u00a0 Like Korczak, he was the head of the orphanage in the Krakow Ghetto and also accompanied his children to deportation and death in one of the extermination camps.\u00a0 I learned then that though Janusz Korczak is the man everyone remembers, there were many unsung heroes who acted as he did.\u00a0 He is special in the city of Warsaw, but I believe there were men and women like him in cities throughout Poland, and perhaps even throughout Europe.<\/p>\n As we traveled throughout Warsaw, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the memoir we had read in class before our departure, Here There is No Why<\/em> by survivor Rachel Roth. \u00a0We had the tremendous privilege to meet Rachel before we left and to hear her tell her story in person. \u00a0Rachel spent her entire childhood in Warsaw, a very happy childhood with her parents, her siblings, her grandparents, and all her extended family. \u00a0But that idyllic childhood came to an abrupt end when the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. \u00a0As we walked the streets of Warsaw, I wondered if I was walking on sidewalks where Rachel and her family and friends had once stood. \u00a0When we talked about the Warsaw Ghetto, saw remains of the ghetto wall, and watched horrifying film footage of life inside the ghetto, I imagined what it was like for Rachel, witnessing such atrocities on a daily basis. \u00a0I wonder if she had seen Janusz Korczak and the orphans being led off to their deaths. \u00a0One particular passage in Rachel’s memoir stands out me, a testament to the horrors that were endured:<\/p>\n “As winter takes hold, hunger grows more widespread. \u00a0The lack of food and the unhygienic conditions create fertile ground for typhoid, which spreads like wildfire among the poorer Jews in the ghetto. \u00a0The only Jewish hospital, on Leszno Street, is full, and it is not admitting patients. \u00a0Wrapped in rags, wracked with hunger, frozen with cold, Jewish children beg in the streets.”<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"EYH](\"http:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/files\/2015\/04\/EYH-Berlin-Wall-and-Gestapo.jpg\")
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