RKYHS seniors recently experienced a memorable and life-changing eight day trip to Poland that concluded with a brief visit to Israel. The seniors spent the trip learning about the horrors of the Holocaust and understanding life in Poland before the war.

After arriving in Warsaw, the group started their touring immediately with visits to the Warsaw cemetery and the Warsaw Ghetto. They were able to visit a classmate’s great great grandfather’s grave and recite tehillim over the grave.

As they walked through the once-vibrant Jewish communities in Poland, the seniors came away with a new understanding of the devastation of the Shoah. The journey included visits to concentration and extermination camps including Auschwitz Birkenau, Treblinka and Majdanek. After touring Majdanek, the showers, the barracks and even the crematorium, student Avery Benzaken commented, “I was clenching my Israeli flag, just grateful to know that the Jewish people, who were once victims of Nazis in the very place I was standing in, are safe and have a home.”

The students toured surviving area synagogues and batei midrash, which they filled once again with the sounds of Jewish songs, prayers and dancing, and brought Havdala into Krakow-Plasnow Concentration Camp (seen in “Schindler’s List”). Student Emily Gruber commented, “We were able to shed a light in a place that was so utterly dark, both literally and symbolically.”

While touring the countryside and rural villages, students obtained a greater knowledge of the environment for Polish non-Jews as well during the war.

After an emotionally taxing six days, the students were so excited when they finally arrived in Israel and davened at the Kotel. Now that they had felt the devastation in Poland, they could truly appreciate Israel, the Jewish homeland that ensures that the Holocaust will not repeat itself.

This meaningful and powerful trip truly strengthened their Jewish identities and connection to their history and roots, and was an experience they will never forget.