By Kennedy Snyder Throughout our time on the traveling seminar, I have found myself repeatedly becoming confused and uncertain about the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Heritage Sites. I had so many questions that returned at the many sites we visited. Three sites in Poland particularly caught my attention: Malbork […]
By Ian Eisenbrand In Polish, Kotwica means anchor. It is also the term used to describe an enduring, highly contested symbol of Polish resistance dating back to World War II. The Kotwica was conceived in Warsaw in 1942 as an emblem for the Home Army, the leading underground resistance movement in Poland during German occupation. During […]
By Maddie Hartog When walking through Krakow, I was inclined to purchase a multi-colored stuffed dragon. I do not collect stuffed animals, nor do I love dragons, but the different colors, sizes and shapes made this dragon stuffed animal compelling to my tourist mind. Instead of purchasing, I began questioning… What is the story behind the […]
By Suryansh Singh For me, visiting a castle is a mystical affair. Almost like a teleportation device, these architectural marvels hold the power to transcend one into a world very different from their daily existence, seamlessly coalescing the domains of fantasy and reality. While they are built to withstand arrows and cannonballs, more importantly, they […]
By Sofia DaCruz I have visited many museums in my life, subconsciously consuming the collections and messages they portray with little analysis of their function or purpose. As we have moved through museums in Poland, guided by questions and discussions about their purposes, I have found a new lens to examine museums beyond their literal […]
By Abigail Wright Do not think, do not look, persevere, survive. Do not think, do not look, persevere, survive. Do not think, do not look, persevere, survive. In “Around Us a Sea of Fire,” the first exhibition solely dedicated to the fate of Jewish civilians during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, echoes of Jewish […]
By Anna Meehan You can tell a lot about a city from the sights and sounds of their centers. Home to restaurants, cafes, statues and gift shops, Wroclaw’s Old Town serves as the heart of this exuberant Polish city. While the visual nature of Wroclaw harkens back to its medieval past and Polish present, the […]
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 […]