A Journey to Poland

by Odaya Benisti, Safed

Last year, a group of girls from the eleventh and twelfth grades went on a trip to Poland.

I made a survey about the journey to Poland. I interviewed both girls who made the trip and those who didn't.

Those who made the trip said they did so from a need to contribute something to the Jewish people and because they felt an obligation to pass on the message of what happened there to the world. They were afraid before they went and they were certain that everything there would be gray and black and terrifying and that they would cry for the whole trip.

I asked one of the girls what was the most shocking thing that she saw. She said that in the Museum at Maidenek they had seen four dolls that had belonged to little girls, and that the dolls had been crushed. They feld that the shadows fo the people who had died in those places and been tortured there were with them all the way.

I asked them what had most helped them to feel that way and they said it was mostly survivors who had accompanied them on the trip, in particular Moshe Porat, the blowing of the shofar and their own imagination.

Most girls said that they would definitely go back again if they had the chance.

When they came back after the tip they all felt that they had changed. They had become more adult and their world view had changed. They had learned to appreciate everything they had: their family, their country and their friends, and most important of all, being alive.

The girls who didn't go with the group didn't feel mentally and emotionally able to cope with the experience. They admired the girls who went and said, "good for them. They learned a lot and it's very important that they pass it on to others who didn't go." They felt that it was best to go in the twelfth grade, when they were more ready to cope with it.

This article previously appeared in TEN - The Youth Newspaper of the Amit & Amal Schools in Safed, Spring 1998.

For additional student writing on this subject, see Poland, Back from Poland, and We Marched with the Living.

For other related materials, check out the following Amalnet sites (in Hebrew):
The Holocaust, Holocaust Literature, and Journey to Poland