Antisemitism in Poland

Today we visited two organizations and learned the ways they worked to stop anti-semtism and other hate around Poland.

The first organization aimed to stop it at it's roots, to educate people about Poland's Jewish past. They were called "Dialogue Among Nations" and go schools to teach young people about the Jewish neighborhoods that existed in their town before the war. I think today was the first day I started to fathom how much of Poland's past was wiped out by the holocaust. Jews were such a huge part of Poland's history and Poland itself. And in such a short amount of time, they were gone. Today, we need programs like this to teach kids there even was a Jewish past. I loved the program; I think it's so helpful and has the potential to really change Poland's collective memory.

Next, we visited Heijt Stop: a program which tracked anti-semitic and other hate graffiti and either remove it, urge other's to remove it, or notify the police. They were extremely insightful to where these traces of anti-Semitism come from in Europe. They seem to be so deeply rooted. The reasons ranged from the idea that Jews killed Jesus to sports rivalries.

Today was the first day I thought Poland should tell it's history without such a victimized narrative. I think guilt could be productive. It's hard to hear about anti-semetism only days after visiting a concentration camp. We walked through where the concentration camp used to be the day before, it is so eerie. My naivety cannot let me fathom how it's possible to see what the holocaust was, what happened in these camps and be capable of anti-semitism.

Next, perhaps my favorite part of the day, we took place part in Warsaw's Memory March. Here we walked from where the 6,000 jews a day got deported to Treblinka to where they discovered the capsules hidden under ground where they found buried documents and personal accounts of the ghetto: made for the future, so we can learn from it. Here, members of the Jewish institute read the personal accounts out loud. It felt eerie to hear the words, to think of what they meant.

It felt amazing to be part of the memory of the nation, and it was empowering just being there.

Leaving Berlin, Dzien dobry Poland!

Today we left Berlin. I was not in the least bit excited to leave; Berlin was beautiful. It's culture seemed to be so accepting, artistic and beautiful. It was so different from Munich and Nuremberg. It of course, had a different way to handle the past and had a different past all together. I feel so lucky to be able to learn the same topic from the  so many different perspectives.

Of course, even though I am sad to leave Berlin, I am excited to be here in Poland! And not just because Veronica gives me a piece of candy every time I remember a word in Polish (Veronica if you're reading this: do jutra! I am also excited to learn about this topic from another perspective and learn all about Poland's culture!

The Cold War

Today we spent the day discussing the cold war. It seems to me, that Berlin is soaked in the past of the wall and of this war. Almost similarly to how Munich was still covered in WWII. I can't help but think about how this cold war things has almost made the holocaust less prevalent in the city itself. Munich was trying to leave it's fame for the perpetrators behind, but Berlin seems to be taking pride in the reunification after the cold war almost everywhere you look. WWII seems like an afterthought in almost a completely different way. We went to this small exhibit with artifacts of the time and it really allowed me to piece together the time before the wall came down for both East and West Berlin.

Perhaps my favorite part of the day was hearing Greta (our amazing tour guide) talk about her experience when the wall came down. She stood over a monument which documented the hours before and told us what was going on politically and what she was doing. When she heard the wall was coming down, she thought it must be some other wall in another city. It was cute to see it from a child's perspective; not knowing that these are unusual circumstances, thinking there must be so many walls in so many cities.

The World Cup!

Words cannot express how amazing it has been to be in Berlin for the world cup. I feel incredibly lucky to see this much pride and excitement around me. To be honest, I never enjoyed a sporting event so much. In Boston, we take so much pride in our sports but I have never taken a part of it. This felt so different to me, it's like if the Red Sox won the world serees X3, and they won it for the entire USA. We went to the street where there was a chain of bars and after, we left the bar and stood outside where everyone was pouring into the streets, cars were honking, people were screaming and there was so much excitement. Walking from the bar was probably my favorite part of the night. It was an incredible experience and I feel so lucky to have had it.

Welcome to Berlin!

We arrived in Berlin and went on a four hour bike tour of the city. We saw so much of Berlin, monuments, the wall, etc. The whole time I could not help but think about post war Germany, especially the war. All important structures either needed to repair bullet holes or rebuild all together. Berlin was left in ruins after suffering three wars in a decade. The city is in so many ways a new city, yet in so many ways not. So much was rebuilt based on what was built before, trying to echo the past much like in Germany. The city is in massive amounts of debt, leading to the city slogan "poor but sexy." Berlin seems to then be a quite interesting city. It has so much history but can you really rebuild history?

Nuremberg

I have so much to stay, I do not know where to start! We started our tour in court room 600 where the trials took place. The room was in a similar position it was for the trials; with some important changes we learned about. Then, we went up to the main exhibit. It was broken into two parts: the first room was where the first round of trials took place and a second, on the subsequent trials and beyond. The first room was packed with people, but, when you walked into the second there seems to be no interest. First reason, I think the architecture of the two exhibits does not invite you into the second room. It is easy to look over it and theres is shut glass door between the exhibits. This seems so strange because I found the second room 100X more interesting. It was the space for me to analyze what we can and should do with all this, what we have learned from it and what we should learn from it. Besides who is responsible for war crimes, that someone is responsible for war crimes. It does not seem write to ignore the room where you can learn of contemporary genocide and war crimes, because in essence this is what we do on a day to day. Ending the tour here was powerful because it made me question what we are learning from all of this.

The next day we went to the Nazi Rally grounds where we questioned what to do with all of the physical space. It was heavy undertaking; most of us do not know. It would seem wrong to destroy them because this does not seem practical and it would feel like we were trying to delete history. Letting all the buildings stand as is does not seem right because it covers to much of the city and it would be dangerous. You do not want to glorify any of the structures. Memorializing all of this space seems unfair to those of this generation; your city being weighted down the past and a generation you did not know. Still, building up from it does not seem right either, so much of it was made from pieces of prisoners in concentration camp and it seems strange to sit on the stadium built by prisoners while you are at a Metallica concert. Most of us left not knowing the right thing to do, it is not an easy undertaking.

Goodbye Munich!

Leaving Munich was a bit sad. I learned so much from the city and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I had certain expectations about Munich; I thought it would be a bit of a sad city brought down by it's history.  Instead it was a vibrant city, full of life and of course history. Munich made me wonder how other German cities such as Berlin will handle it's past.

And so we're off to other German cities! We got to Erlangen today, a small city outside of Nuremberg. I feel like I am in some sort of rom com but without the rom and the com. It's an adorable small city. A lot of it is along a main street where there are small shops, and little cars. We took a guided city tour where we saw the town, beer halls, cellars, the place where they host a beer festival (which by the way is older than octoberfest.)

Tomorrow, we learn more about the Nuremberg trials. I've done some googling and realized I did not know as much as I thought. I am still unsure of why the trails were held in Nuremberg, perhaps they had the space and resources for it and it was as simple as that. Hearing about the mass of horrific trials that took place there I wonder if it is something Nuremberg will try to ignore like in Munich or if the positive connotations of the trials and justice will cause the city to share most of it's history.