People

I'm 17 years old and I was born in Israel but grew up in New York. My family and I returned to live in Israel in 2015 and I am here, in large part, because of the selfless acts of the non-jews during the Holocaust who saved the lives of my great grandparents. My mother's grandmother lived in Berlin until the age of 18 when her family was hunted down by the Nazis. Her entire family was killed in concentration camps, except for two twin brothers who had moved to Israel prior to the war. She managed to escape to Holland where a Christian family took her in as their maid and pretended she was also Christian. On her escape through Spain to France, she met my great grandfather who was from Holland. On the other side of my mother's family, my great grandparents from Austria and Czechoslovakia, coincidentally vacationed in Israel during the summer before the war and their lives were spared as a result. Unfortunately, however, the rest of my great grandfathers' family weren't as lucky and they perished in concentration camps. Visiting Poland will allow me to try to understand what members of my family endured and give me a better appreciation of the people who risked their lives and their families to save people like my great grandmother.

I was born in Israel, but my parents both immigrated to Israel from Sweden and South Africa. My great grandparents on my father’s side escaped to Sweden during the war, from their home in Germany.

As a Jew who has lived abroad, I’ve experienced mild forms of antisemitism and have had to explain the holocaust and it’s impact to numerous individuals uneducated on the matter. I feel obligated to join this trip, in order to properly respect my own Jewish identity and the millions of people who perished and were personally affected by the holocaust. I know that this journey will be extremely emotional and touching, and I feel ready to experience it for myself. Moreover, besides my Jewish interest in the Shoa, I’m bewildered by the harm that humans perpetrate on each other, and I hope this trip can give me deeper insight into what leads people to behave in such inconceivable ways.

I’m on this journey because I feel that it is a dutty for me to learn about my ancestors life and how the world was before. I love learning about the past and the things that shaped our lives and cultures.

I am currently 17 years old. I was born and raised in California till 13 when I moved out to Israel. Before I moved, I had only been taught a limited amount of Jewish history and the events of the Holocaust in Jewish Sunday school. Following my move to Israel, I have had the opportunity to visit Jewish museums locally and internationally with family and Jewish youth programs. I have had the opportunity to hear the stories of Holocaust survivors, visit Anne Frank's house, and experience Yad Vashem. Whenever we travel as a family, my father will find old synagogs and museums located in historically Jewish areas of the travel destination for us to explore. These small historical artifacts have taught me a lot about the individual lives of Jews in the past and the communities which share my traditions.

I would like to go on this trip to spend time forming new thoughts and options about my Jewish heritage and build upon my current knowledge of the Holocaust. Just as visiting these sights has taught me a great deal about the history of my people, I know that going on this trip to Poland would help me learn more about the Holocaust. This trip also gives me the opportunity to explore Poland with a group, so I don't have to experience Poland alone. I hope to come away from the trip with new knowledge and ideas about myself and Jewish history and hopefully, serve as an ambassador for information about the Holocaust.

I am 17 years old and i'm from Denmark. I was born in Copenhagen, Denmark which I consider my home. Throughout my life i've moved around a bit to a few different countries in South America, but coming back to Denmark in between. Therefore, I've lived most of my life in Denmark.

Growing up I learned quite a bit about World War II and the horrible things that happened to the jews, but no matter how many questions I asked or how much I researched, I never understood one thing: Why did it all happen? I never understood how the jewish people weren't seen as humans like everyone else and how so many people felt the urge to eradicate the jews solely based on their religion.

Even though I don't have any jewish roots and have only lived in Israel for one year, I still think i'm inclined to go on this journey. I feel like it's very important when you live in a country like Israel to truly understand the history of the Israeli people. For me this Journey is about learning people's stories and being a witness to the atrocities that happened in order to help ensure that nothing like this shall never happen again.

Hi, my name is Daniel. I was born and raised in Israel until the age of 6. My dads job has given me the privilege to live and experience various countries and cultures from around the world as I grew up. I’ve lived in Mexico, Finland, and Greece. Living in these countries has taught me to accept and understand humanity. Which is why I think it is important to learn about the concentration camps of Poland. I want to try and understand as best as I can the tragedy that 12 million people went through. I want to continue exploring this journey of understanding how an average human has the capacity to commit such atrocities. Through this journey I want to become more knowledge about the greatest genocide ever known to mankind but also try and empathize with those who were brutally murdered. Going on this journey will give me a better understanding of this.

My grandmother was born and raised in Tunisia. Towards the end of the Nazi Regime, the Nazis reached Tunisia and started implementing their system within the country. When my grandmother was in Elementary School, she was kicked out of school and her father was fired from his job. Luckily, World War II came to an end and my grandmother thankfully was never sent to concentrations camps.

Although my family was never sent to concentration camps, as a proud Jew, I not only want to go on this journey but feel an obligation to go and learn.

I'm coming on this journey because as an Israeli and a Jew I feel that it's very important for me to rememeber my roots and what happened to my people. I always learned about the holocaust and all of it's tragedies at school in history classes. But now I want to expand my knowledge and actually visit the death camps and actually be in all the places in order to experience it in real life. My family luckily realized that life was getting tough in Poland as Jews so they left earlier and moved to Israel, that's how they survived. But all of my great grandmas siblings that stayed in Poland, they all died. I think it's important for me to on this journey so that I know that I can never forget what happened during the holocaust.

I'm 16 years old. I'm from Perth, Australia but my parents are originally from Iran. I am not Jewish nor am I connected to Poland in anyway; but, I've been living in Israel for a little over four years now. Each year of living in Israel has taught me more about the Holocaust. Being in a place where people are so connected to the Holocaust has given me opportunities to listen to people's personal stories, something I wouldn't have been able to experience back home. I would like to know go on this journey so I can see the circumstances these Jews were put through for a better understanding of it. I've had the privilege of hearing people's stories but it will so different and impactful to visit these camps.

I was born in France, but I haved lived in Israel my entire life. I have a strong feeling of identity to Judaism, which has developed over the years. As a result, I have a good understanding of the history of Jewish people, and I feel very connected to my religion on commemoration days. Every year of my education during the Holocaust Remembrance Day, I have met survivors and listened to their personal stories and what they have been through. Unfortunately, there are barely any survivors still alive, and soon, there won’t be any. Therefore, I feel an obligation as a Jew and as an Israeli living in Israel to pass these stories to the next generation so they will have a better understanding of how people suffered during those times. I am coming to this journey to have a better understanding of this event in history. I want to be able to see and not only imagine what happened there. In addition, this journey will teach me a lot more about the Holocaust in a different way than studying it in a history class. This dark period was an important aspect in the creation of our country, and we have a goal to never make it happen again.

I am coming to this journey for many valuable reasons. Firstly, I’ve always been passionate about history and in particular WWII. I find all the facts and history interesting, but in this case atrocious. Secondly, I’m Jewish and I believe that it is a duty for all the Jews especially to learn and see what happened to our past generations. Seeing what the Holocaust was like and how people used to live their lives there is important in order to remember this hard time period. Thirdly, unfortunately, all of the survivors are slowly perishing and few of them are left. It is important to hear their story in order to never forget the Holocaust and pass on the knowledge to futur generations. Fourthly, the rise of antisemitsm is becoming important and it is crucial to keep the Jewish history alive in order to stay strong and not be let down because we are Jewish. I know it will be a hard experience to live, but I can’t wait to learn and expand my knowledge on this topic. I hope to get a lot from it and appreciate life better for the one who perished and lived a miserable life in camps. Life is not to be taken for granted.

I am interested in this journey due to my Jewish Heritage. I am very familiar with my family's history. On my mother's side, her grandmother coming from Odessa (Ukraine) had a very difficult time trying to outrun the Nazi Germans. She embarked and left everything but her prized possessions. Once in France she went to Paris and then the south where it was marked French territory. However the French needed to cooperate with the Germans and my great-grand mother was found and sent to one of the harshest concentration camps, Auschwitz. She was released once the Nazis fell from power. Thankfully she lived a long and happy life as I spent many days in Belgium with her before she passed away about a decade ago. My relations to this journey are at the core of my beliefs as I carry my family history wherever I go, which define my judaism and values.

I'm coming on this Journey because I think it is incredibly important that we don't forget about the Holocaust. For me, as a Jew, remembering the past holds significance because it tells me about the history and struggle of my people. However going on this Journey is valuable, more importantly, for me just as a person because I need to be aware of what humanity is capable of when power gets into the hands of the wrong people. Whether Jewish or not, everybody should understand how the Holocaust occurred to realize how easily anybody could have done the same. I think actually visiting the places where all of these horrors occur will be extremely painful for me, but definitely necessary. It's one thing to see it in movies and museums, but witnessing this tragedy first hand will hopefully motivate me to not allow myself to ever become a bystander or start doing things against my moral code because everybody else is doing so.

Ever since I've moved to Israel I started discovering more and more about my families past and my Jewish heritage. My grandparents have told me stories of their life during the WWII, especially about having to hide their Jewish roots. I've always been interested in learning more about the Holocaust and I believe this journey is the perfect opportunity.

I'm currently 17 years old and as my family made Aliyah in 2008, I experienced my childhood in both England and Israel. Despite moving back to England a few years later, then back to Israel again, I feel that Israel is my home land.

Ever since I was 7 I learnt about the Holocaust almost every single year; I watched many documentaries and read various books. As the years progress, however, I realize how little I actually know and how much more there is to learn about what happened. Regardless of how many lessons I have about it, I feel that visiting the actual sights and seeing the concentration camps first hand would add an entirely new dimension to my understanding of the Holocaust. Despite the promise of ""never again"" genocides keep recurring and I think the first step to tackle these perpetuating atrocities is awareness. With the rise of antisemitism and holocaust denial, as well as the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya today, I think it's crucial that my generation grasps the magnitude of what happened, and there is no better way to do that than actually visiting the places.

I am currently 17 years old. Although my family is from Israel, I grew up in the United States. My great grandparents all went through the Holocaust and lost their entire families. In my childhood I learned about and researched the Holocaust on multiple occasions, but I always felt that there is a lot more that I need to know and see. I want to go to Poland to see and try to comprehend the things that happened.

Hello, my name is Luc. I am an American by birth, living a majority of my life over overseas in the Middle East and Europe. Unlike most, I have no physical connection to the holocaust. However, as a human, I have an emotional connection to the genocide that took place during WW2. My motivation for coming is twofold. Firstly, for remembrance. We cannot forget those who perished, nor the atrocities that were committed. The sooner we forget, the sooner it will happen again. Secondly, as someone who is considering joining the U.S Armed Forces, I believe that this trip will instill upon me the importance of individuality morality, and the duty of each soldier to maintain his dignity, even when pressured to do otherwise.

In my 17 years of life, I have had the privilege to gain exposure to various cultures, as well experience and connect with them. However, I feel like this vast exposure has caused me to miss out on the chance to connect to one culture specifically, my own. Despite originally being from Israel, I have lived in Serbia for most of my life, and due to the small-scale Jewish community there, I inevitably began to grow further apart from my roots and thus they began to lose their significance on my daily life. Although my family tried to maintain a strong connection to Judaism and to Israel during our time abroad and having had relatives who first-handedly endured the atrocities of the Holocaust, time has caused our attachment to fade. Now that my family and I have moved back to Israel after 10 years of living abroad, I feel that embarking on this journey is my opportunity to reconnect with my roots and to become closer to my heritage, making up for the lost years.

I chose to come on this journey because it’s important to remember the past, the horrific tragedy that my family, and the 6 million others Jews who suffered along with them. It’s a part of history that we need to understand and mourn, to make sure that such thing won’t happen again. - Mia Romem

Hello, my name is Michael Westman, and I am 16 years old. You could say I have had an exciting life. I was born in Tel Aviv but shortly after moved to Singapore, and then in 2008 moved to New York City where I would spend the next ten years of my life. Now I am back where it all started. I am not coming on this trip specifically to learn about the Holocaust. I am sure I will learn a lot, but I will embark on this trip to visualize what my ancestors not too long ago endured.

My grandfather is from Bulgaria, and his family was not sent to concentration camps nor extermination camps. A couple of years ago he went on a business trip to Poland, with no intention to visit camps. But his host insisted that he should go, and so he did. So when I was contemplating coming on this trip, my grandfather spoke to me and said: "you have to go on this trip, it will be a part of you for the rest of your life." Thus, he convinced me, and I hope this trip has a positive impact on my life and the way I perceive life itself.

I am 16 years old, and as all my great grandparents came from Europe trying to escape antisemitism prior or during the war, I feel as if it is my obligation to remember and pass on the story of the holocaust. My great grandparents never told their stories since it wasn't common for people to ask or tell about those times. Through out the years we were able to gather some information to add the missing pieces together, but their story still remains untold. I think that as the next few generations of holocaust survivors, we have no choice but to continue telling the stories of all those who are and aren't remembered. Almost every single great grandparent of mine had lost all or most of their family during the war, and so I feel a deep connection with those stories. As the years go by I realize the gap between what I understand and the atrocities that occurred in reality. As hard as it is, the more we know, the more we can pass on, and maybe prevent other future events by not ignoring that hard past. I hope this journey will bring me closer to the many people whom we, and every single other family lost.

Since I was born I was always taught to remember my nationality, to remember that I am a Jewish girl from Israel. They made me feel special about it, they made me love my religion and country. Knowing the pros and cons of being a Jewish Israeli, I still respected it. I knew not to speak Hebrew in public places in Europe and even though I never hid behind my Russian roots, I still knew when speaking Hebrew was ok and when it wasn’t. I was sitting with my dad about two years ago and we were casually speaking about their move to Israel 28 years ago. I always knew my dad wasn’t Jewish, but I never thought about it. I was shocked when my dad said that he always felt Jewish. He never converted but still always said he was Jewish. After what he said next, I knew how much it really meant to him. “If I had a gun pointed to my head and I would’ve been shot if I say that I am Jewish, I would say that I am Jewish without thinking twice,” I was shocked. Just imagining what the Jews in the holocaust went through, how proud they were but at the same time, mad. It always made me stronger. I knew that no matter how many times they tried to make us disappear from the world, and we still survived through everything. I started respecting my identity even more. I think that every person should go to the trip not just to see how bad it was, but also to remember to never repeat something like this again. We, the next the generation can change the mentality and help this world be so much better.

I am in 11th grade. I always wanted to learn more about something that is connected to me by my religion. Holocaust and World War 2 were always one my favorite topics in history, but I never had a chance to relate to it, only study from the internet and textbooks. I want to see where it all happened and learn even more than I already know.

I've never been that connected to my Jewish roots. I look at this journey as an opportunity to establish an understanding for my heritage.

My name is Nora and I am 17 years old. I was born in Russia, but moved to Norway, my home, four months later. There I lived for seven years before moving to Serbia for two years. I briefly returned to Norway, but eventually came to Haifa, Israel, where my parents serve at the Baha’i World Centre. I am of the Baha’i religion and am not a Jew. This, however, does not make me any less inclined to take part in this journey. Having lived here for six years, my knowledge of the Holocaust has deepened each year, and the topic really causes me to feel great empathy and remorse. I think that it is of course important for Jews and people with pasts related to the Holocaust to travel to Poland for this journey, but I also think it is important that those with no direct connection recognize that we are all connected as members of humanity. When tragedies such as genocides occur, we should all feel the loss of our fellow human beings, and all take on the responsibility for the future’s betterment. To separate oneself from what happens to another people or culture will only weaken humanity further, and so in this case, it is important for each of us, regardless of background, to understand what happened in the Holocaust, to experience the places, connect with the suffering of those persecuted, and to understand how humanity failed. Although genocides have occurred since WWII, journeys like these will help us see that each of us really must try to heal our world.

My name is Ohad Kaminer, I am 17 years old, and I am joining this journey for a number of reasons. My parents are Israeli, yet I was born in California, lived in South Korea for five years, Boston for two, and in Israel for 9 (as of summer 2018). Only recently I've come to the realization that I belong here in Israel and nowhere else, and I feel like going on this journey will further solidify my belonging in this country.

Beyond that, 3 of my grandparents have been directly affected by the holocaust, and the fourth was a teacher that chaperoned Poland Journeys in her younger years. I grew up hearing stories about the great times before the war, and the terrible times throughout; I want to see for myself where my ancestors come from, how they lived, and the environment they grew up in.

Lastly, I sense a need to go to Poland as a free, proud, Zionist citizen of Israel and stand tall where my people were once shunned, to prove that all who have tried to eliminate us have not succeeded.

In previous years of my life, my identity has always been contemplated. Being the son of two Israeli parents yet being born in New York, moving from public American schools to public Israeli Schools and to a private International school, and speaking both English and Hebrew at home. This past year I was yet again relocated to the United States (Seattle) where I began to really understand the fundamental differences in culture, aesthetic, and people and I reached the conclusion that my true identity was not just an Israeli, but a fourth generation living in Israel. With this conclusion reached I became curious of my family's international roots in Poland, Germany, Venezuela, and Israel before independence. I attempted to find answers as to how my mother's side of the family arrived in Israel, in the Memorial center "Yad VeShem", but was unsuccessful in finding their records. I feel as though embarking on this journey will allow me to fully understand the intensity and brutality of this mass genocide and maybe even find answers as to how the survivors including my great grandparents were able to escape. Beyond this I feel as though this trip is a rite of passage for all Israelis because as a whole this is all of our histories and we must make efforts to become familiar with it, and never forget.

My name is Orian and I am 15 years old. I was born in Israel, and in 2013 my family went on a sabbatical to Palo Alto, California for two years. This marks a crucial transition in my life as I had become an individual that was more aware of his surroundings and willing to learn.

While I was in the U.S. I was extremely moved by the book and movie, The Wave, which is based on a true story that also took place in Palo Alto, CA, at Cubberly High School. The Wave led to the school’s closing and the distribution of it’s students to the other two schools, one of which my brother attended. I visited the location that the school used to reside in, and talked to people that lived through The Wave, but to my surprise there was nothing different. The school looked completely normal and the people were ordinary human beings, but yet a catastrophe happened here.

I was surprised by how ordinary people could be influenced so easily to do things they would otherwise consider outrageous, to the point where they would do anything to protect the ideas they were brainwashed to believe. I realized that people wanted to be told what to do, that people tended to follow leaders, and kept hoping that I myself don’t to fall prey to this phenomenon. Thinking back to my roots, my Holocaust surviving grandmother, I remembered my father telling me stories about my grandmother in the war, wondering why did the Nazis see her as less than human? Why was the human race created so vulnerable to destruction?

I'm coming on this journey because it's always been something I was taught in school and the only big history event that I could connect to through my religion. It always surprised me that people had the guts to kill so many people for the more unreasonable reason

I was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and consider it my only home. I haven't lived in any other city nevertheless country. My entire family is Israeli with all three of my siblings and both my parents having been born and raised here. Thus, Israel holds a very meaningful place in my heart. I am hoping the Poland Journey will bring me even closer to this beautiful nation and enrich in me a new sense of understanding and appreciation for all which our people have suffered. For me, Israeli and Jewish go hand-in-hand meaning when I think of myself as a Zionist that also includes a supporter of Israel. This country has been discriminated against with fierce hatred calling for its destruction before it was ever given a chance. Despite this, our nation has managed to flourish these past 70 years to a level its greatest advocate could merely dream about. I am very proud to call myself a Jew and hope this journey will enhance that love while creating new, long-lasting friendships.

I am currently 16 years old, and have lived in both the United States and Israel. As an Israeli citizen, and someone who’s relatives were greatly involved in the Second World War, I feel obligated to go on this journey. It has always been difficult for me to understand why something like this happened. It’s such a horrid disaster that it just doesn’t seem real. What humans would do such a thing? Are those ‘humans’ even human? I often think about the past and why things happened the way they did. With this journey I want to be fully engulfed by the truth, even if it would continue to haunt me. I cannot fathom the amount of people that suffered. Every single person had a family, like me. It’s painful to think about what every person had to go through, not knowing if they would still be alive the next day. Through this journey, I want to find out what I never knew, and to finally see what happened. To finally see that it wasn’t just a nightmare. As horrid as it may be, I want to see everything. I don’t want the truth to be hidden. This journey is something that I want to go through. No matter what I see or feel, it’s something that I need to do in my lifetime.