By Capriana Cormier KL Płaszów was a Nazi concentration camp in Płaszów, a southern district in Kraków, during the Second World War. This camp was built on two Jewish cemeteries. It was opened, by the Nazis, from late 1942 until early 1945, and was intended to hold about 4,000 prisoners in, what was supposed to […]
By Max Goldberg Current headlines about the state of political and social affairs in Poland and on its borders are not positive, to say the least. The predominant crisis at the time of writing this piece is the story of the 5,000 or so migrants, mostly of Middle Eastern origin corralled in the freezing woods […]
By Ella Farrell With over fifty memorials and monuments, the city of Berlin is no stranger to remembrance. Two memorials in particular, the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Places of Remembrance, stand out from our visit to the city. Both are integrated into the urban fabric of the city, yet the […]
By Harrison Vogt In the poem Campo Dei Fiori, Czesław Miłosz describes a scene of human indifference and suffering during the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The story depicts the contrast between non-Jewish residents of Warsaw enjoying their leisure time by “flying high” on a sky carousel and listening to carnival toons. Meters away the Warsaw Ghetto’s […]
By Connor Arneson In Kraków, south of Old Town, near the intersection of Wielicka and Dworcowa streets, there’s a McDonald’s. It has a patio, a playpen, and – according to Google reviews – does a terrible job at disinfecting its tables. On the surface, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here, except for one thing: […]
By Sophie Creager-Roberts This semester I participated in courses devoted to studying historic conflict and atrocity and the ways in which it has shaped contemporary socio-political climates and reconciliatory efforts. It is therefore unsurprising, thanks to diligence and expertise of our professors, that I have been able to visit sites such as the International Center for […]
By Capriana Cormier While in Poland, I had been able to visit three impressive castles. Castles are astounding to me; I have always loved them growing up. I have always seen them as magical, whether in fairytales or movies due to the dramatic narrative they have to them, that has always piqued my interest. On the […]
By Ella Farrell On our bus ride to Treblinka, I remember not knowing what to expect. I had never visited a death camp before and didn’t know the specifics about this site. Throughout my secondary education, and even in my Jewish education, we were only taught about Auschwitz-Birkenau and general information about the Holocaust. I […]
By Max Goldberg A week before I was set to arrive in Wrocław, my Grandpa Ted passed away. I was fortunate enough to have spent the final moments of his life alongside him in the very same hospital he had worked in for more than 40 years, in Phoenix, Arizona. His story is incredible. We […]
By Anna Sebree There are no two ways about it: life after war is a trying time. Whether a country “wins” or “loses”, there are bodies left to bury, buildings to brush up, and traumas to bear. Scars are left on a country and collective memory that may never fully heal. Whether the ends justify the […]