We Marched with the Living (Part 2)

by Ariel Shimanov, Amal Aleph Comprehensive School, Ramla

A delegation of Amal students traveled to Poland and visited the death camps - Auschwitz, Birkenau, Maedanek and Treblinka.

I saw a mountain of ash and endless graves of Jews.

I would like to share with ;you the sight that shocked my the most; the alter (the mizbe'ach). It was a long table with a hole (drain) in the middle. Little children were opened up alive because the Nazis thought that inside their bodies there were treasures - gold, diamons, etc...

The thought that little children were killed there made me feel physically sick. I wanted to cry, but I held back. This mizbe'ach was in the death camp, Maedanek. The camp has been kept exactly the way it was after the war.

The next day, we marched with 7000 people to the ceremony in Birkenau. We were all together. This journey was very meaningful. I think that everyone should take this journey.

This article previously appeared in The Amal Sun - The Student Newspaper of Amal Aleph Ramla, May 1998.

For additional student writing on this subject, see A Journey to Poland, Back from Poland, We Marched with the Living (1), and Poland.

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

Amal Aleph Ramla school site

© 1998, Amal Pedagogical Technological Center