Members of the RKYHS senior class spent a week in Poland for a Holocaust Studies Seminar. After arriving in Warsaw, the group started their non-stop touring immediately, visiting Jewish cemeteries and the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. They had emotional visits to Majdanek concentration camp and the Belzac Death Camp. Students brought the sound of davening and singing to once again fill shuls and yeshivot that they visited. A meaningful Shabbat was spent in Krakow to unpack and decompress the previous days. The last days in Poland for the RKYHS seniors were incredibly moving and impactful as they visited Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau to bear witness to the harrowing experience of all who were there.

The group headed to Prague after Poland. There they took in the sites, visiting shuls, and Jewish sites, as well as an evening boat cruise. They made a special visit to the villa at the Warsaw Zoo, where 300 Jews were saved by the zookeeper and his wife (they watched the movie the Zookeeper’s Wife in advance). The students came away from the trip with a new understanding of the devastation of the Shoah, and it has reinforced the necessity to educate themselves so that they can educate others, as well as the importance of displaying their Jewish pride, especially as a way to combat hate.