I returned from my 9 days in Poland with the ability to say that I have never been on a trip that has taught me more about myself, my family, my religion, history, or life itself. I had many apprehensions and fears about the trip. I had the image in my head that Poland was a place of death and that the concentration camps were the only reason I was going. I was sure that this would be a place I would never want to return to. I could not have been more wrong.

On my second day in Poland, I went to the Center for Jewish Life, located in the area of the Krakow Ghetto. There, we met Robert, a Polish man around thirty years old who spoke to us about his career and what he does. Though he is not Jewish, he runs the Center which has worked very hard to educate Poles about Jewish life before the war and also works with the tine Jewish community in Krakow to preserve artifacts left behind during the war. Before World War II there were 30,000 Jews living in Krakow. Today, there are 150. All I could think about was that if it weren't for people like him, much of our heritage would certainly be lost or forgotten. Robert was one of many Poles who would surprise and enlighten me throughout my trip to the individuals and institutions who dedicate themselves to preserving Poland's collective Holocaust history.

Later that day, we met with several students from the university in Krakow, all of whom had only recently met a Jewish person for the first time in their lives. We asked them what stories their parents told them about the war, what it was like living under Communism, and what they were taught in their schools about the Holocaust. It was fascinating to learn then(and throughout the trip) that these people, who literally lived only hours from the concentration and death camps, knew very little about the details of the Holocaust. As we learned throughout our trip, Communist rule prevented Poles not only from practicing their separate faiths, but from learning history as it actually occurred. They told us that their teachers taught them that 3.5 million Poles died during the Holocaust, not mentioning that 90% of them were Jewish. I definitely realized how much I take democracy for granted. I just couldn't fathom that it was 55 years since the end of the war and these people were just starting to learn that 6 millions Jews perished under the Nazi regime. It was unbelievable.

The next morning we went to Lublin. We were going to Majdanek where my grandfather was imprisoned for several months. Although I have heard many horrible stories about my grandparents' Holocaust experiences, my grandfather always said that his months in Majdanek were worse than the year and a half he spent in Auschwitz. What I found remarkable about Majdanek is that unlike Auschwitz, it is untouched. We were told that Majdanek could be up and running as a camp in one hour because it is so well preserved. To say the least, I was definitely nervous. As we pulled up, I saw the dark wooden barracks lined up behind the barbed wire and the butterflies in my stomach were going crazy. After only ten minutes of being in the camp I was already in the gas chambers stained with blue from the Zyklon B. The camp had been opened only for us and it was extremely quiet and eerie.

The next morning we left for Auschwitz-Birkenau. When we arrived, we went into the original gas chamber and crematoria. As we entered, a group of young Israeli boys was sitting in a circle inside the crematoria room singing the Mourner's Kaddish at the top of their lungs, holding Israeli flags. My emotions at this point are difficult to put into words. Perhaps it was the fact that the Jewish people survived and came back to mourn for our ancestors that shook me. Perhaps it was the sight of the Israeli flags - I was there in a room of people that embody the spirit of Jews throughout the world. These boys came as messengers from the holy land to pay their respects to those who never lvied to see the state of Israel established.

We had seen Majdanek and Auschwitz, thus the Holocaust (we thought) was real for us. Our visits to these two camps, however, only slightly prepared us for Birkenau. Wen one imagines a concentration camp they imagine Birkenau. Birkenau expands over countless acres, now ironically covered b lush green grass. We began our tour of Birkenau at the back of the camp. We stood at the end of the train track that eerily stopped several feet from the mouths of the now-demolished gas chambers and crematoria. I had never seen the end of train track before. I guess I never really thought of them as having an end-point. But here, in Birkenau, the fact that train tracks end has piercing significance. Not only do they signify that this was the last stop for the innocent men, woman and children who lost their lives here, but it also denotes that in order for the trains to leave, they must go in reverse, they must go back to the cities and villages and refill the cattle cars with more innocent victims who will also be brought here, to the end of the tracks in Birkenau.

Although we left the camp, we were not going far because we were actually staying the night in the town of Oscwiecim (Auschwitz in German). The last thing we wanted to do was stay in the town where the greatest of wartime atrocities were committed down the road. Our night in Oswiecim, however, proved to be one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life, any by far the most memorable evening of our nine-day trip. After dropping our backpacks off at the youth hostel, we went to the Auschwitz Jewish Center which is a building that memorializes the 20,000 Jewish residents that lives in the town before the war. Today, there is not one Jewish person living in the town of Oswiecim, Poland. The Center is run entirely by non-Jewish staff. Here we were to have a dialogue with "international youth." There was not set agenda, no specific questions or topics we were to discuss. When we arrived we met four students our age who grew up in Oswicecim and two Austrian students currently living and working there. Our emotions were mixed - how could these people live in this town? How could their parents have raised them down the street from Auschwitz-Birkenau? What did their teachers teach them about the Holocaust and what happened in their own backyard? Our conversation last for over two hours and I will try to abbreviate it as much as possible without losing the incredible import of the discussion.

The students explained to use that their families neglected to discuss the war with them, especially their grandparents who stood by as their Jewish neighbors were taken en masse. Further, during Communism, the Holocaust was a minor topic to say the least in history classes in their schools. When they would ask what happened in the camps, they were met with short answers that Poles died there during the war, or their questions were disregarded altogether. Throughout the discussion we learned so much about life under communism, about how much our own educations failed to teach us about the extreme hold communism had over all aspects of society. How under communism people who lived down the street from Auschwitz did not know that Jews died there. We talked about the infamous debate to build a night club in Oswiecim and I certainly left the discussion with a new view. Should these people be forced to live in a town whose notoriety supersedes positive change?

We learned that anti-Semitism does still exist in Poland, yet these people and others like them were the exception. They told us, in their own incredible monologues, that they were there that evening because we were all students who have the opportunity to learn much from each other. These people renewed so many hopes for us. It is people like them who will continue to change Polish society for the better.

So few people that come to Poland, and specifically to Oswiecim (Auschwitz), have had the incredible opportunity that we had that evening. These students took it upon themselves to reach out to a group of Jewish American students and explain to us who they were and where they came from. In return we taught them about American education, about Judaism, about life. We left our discussion that evening with more knowledge than we could have ever imagined gaining. How ironic that we would have concluded our day in Auschwitz on such an optimistic note. We were so thankful that these people existed, to explain to us what we never realized, and to tell their friends and families that Jewish students are not all that different from themselves. The next day we were off to Warsaw, the birthplace of my grandparents.

Although 84% of Warsaw was destroyed during the war, it was still exciting knowing that I was going to "Varshava" because that is where my roots lay. During our three days in Warsaw we toured the old Jewish cemetery and saw the numerous memorials that the city has put up honoring the thousands of Warsaw Jews who died in the ghetto and concentration camps. There is a large memorial honoring those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. My grandfather is among those who survived to tell about the uprising which stands as a symbol of Jewish heroism at its highest during the war.

We also went to the Jewish Historical Institute where the director proceeded to tell us the most remarkable stories. Not only does the institute house most of the original Holocaust and wartime documents, but it also serves as an informational headquarters for those still searching for loves ones who may have survived the war, and for those who recently (over fifty years since the end of the war) find out that they are Jewish. During his presentation, he asked us if we had all seen the movie Schindler's List. Then he proceeded to take Schindler's actual list out of a folder for us to see. It had yellowed over the years but it was documents like these that astounded us during the presentation. He told us stories of a Catholic priest who recently discovered that he had been raised by the neighbors of his Jewish parents that had had been taken during the war. His brother actually survived and was now living in a Hassidic community in Israel. The stories went on and on.

I was particularly intrigued by the numerous original documents that he continued to describe so the next day I returned to the Center and went to his office. I staid there for over three hours as I told him all that I could about my grandparents' families and war experiences. He proceeded to go through Warsaw's 1910, 1929 and 1939 phonebooks to see if my grandparents or great-grandparents even had telephones during that time. After my afternoon at the Center, I came away with photocopies of both my grandmother's and grandfather's original displaced persons cards that they filled out after the war, a picture of the apartment my grandmother grew up in, and information about my great-grandfather's birth in the town of Pultusk, Poland. I couldn't believe that such records of my family existed.

That night, we met Jewish youth from Warsaw and were continually amazed by their stories of how their parents raised them Catholic and they had only recently learned they were Jewish. Though their parents are not practicing Jews, they have taken it upon themselves to learn Judaism and embrace their religion. After meeting Jacob, who learned he was Jewish at the age of 16 and is now studying to be a rabbi, we kept telling him how amazing his story was. He said, "Welcome to Poland." He then said, "Want to hear a really amazing story?" So here is the story of Paul and Olga:

When Jacob was young, he had a friend and neighbor named Olga. When he was 12 he moved to a different part of Warsaw and they lost touch. A few years prior they had reconnected and Olga asked Jacob what he was doing with his life. He told her about his newfound Jewish identity and was now studying to be a rabbi. He told her that he had also heard through the grapevine that she recently discovered her own Jewish origins. She confirmed this and told Jacob that she had gotten pregnant and married to a man named Paul at the age of 17 whom she met in a Skinhead youth movement! She said that her involvement in the movement was a silly childhood thing and was embarrassed that she had ever been involved. She now has two children, ages 7 and 3. She knew very little about Judaism and asked Jacob if she could join him at Shabbat services. The next Friday at synagogue, Olga was completely overcome with emotion and realized that she wanted to fully embrace her true religion. She told Paul, her husband, about her Judaism and continued to go to services from then on. Meanwhile, Paul had been raised a very religious Catholoc. The following week Paul and Olga were at his parents' house for dinner when his parents told them about a relative that was getting married the next Saturday morning. Olga told them that she would not be able to attend because she would be at Shabbat services. She said that she was Jewish and so were their grandchildren. Astonished, Paul's parents got up from the table and left the room. A few days later, Paul's father asked him to come to their house. When he got there, he said that they needed to talk about what happened at dinner the previous night. His parents told him that they got up from the table because they couldn't believe what they had heard. "Paul," they said, "you are Jewish, too." Paul and Olga are now observant Jews, raising their children in a Jewish home.

As I reflect on my experiences in Poland, I am amazed at what I have seen, heard, and felt. My entire life I knew that one day I would visit the concentration camps, however I could have never anticipated learning all that I did during my nine days in Poland. I come away from this experience with further knowledge of the Jewish life that once existed in Poland. I now know more about Communism from those that lived under its jurisdictions and ideology. I saw the crematoria and gas chambers. I spent the night in Auschwitz. I know that people are still working to preserve the memory of a lost people and a damaged country. I am amazed at how, fifty years later, people are just learning that they are Jewish. I am amazed that after those fifty years, these people want to be Jewish.
After my trip to Poland, I am proud of my heritage. I am in awe of my grandparents who survived the unimaginable. I am proud to call myself Polish. I am thankful that my parents raised me with such a strong religious faith. I am proud of my history, my family, and am so lucky to have seen and experienced all that I have. I will never forget what I have witnessed.