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Making Sense
Of The Senseless

Students of the Holocaust return
from Poland with new persepectives.

JUDY GREENWALD I CONTRIBUTING WRITER

tudents from University of
Michigan-Dearborn, most of
whom aren't Jewish, recently
returned from Poland, where
they spent a month learning about the
Holocaust.
"As historians, are we scholars or
maintainers of memory?" asked one
student on the trip. "Are we supposed to
understand the Nazi machine or do our
best to honor both the dead and the living?
The memorials seem to serve the virtues
and worth of the victims more than the
faults and industrial capabilities of the
perpetrators."
Another student was impressed with the
Polin Museum. "It puts one in touch with
Polish-Jewish life. The museum was not
focused on death, but life. The Holocaust

exhibition was just a small hallway, while
areas of religion, culture and the future
of the Jews were the key points. Hearing
about so much pain and suffering the
Jews of Europe faced can be emotionally
exhausting. The museum was a nice
reminder that these people lived meaningful
lives prior to their destruction."
Learning about the Holocaust can have
a positive impact, said another of the
students. "When people say it's important
to learn about the Holocaust so it never
happens again, that's become an untrue
line. The existence and memory of the
Holocaust have not stopped genocides from
happening. Learning about it can still have
a positive impact, however, making people
more sensitive and compassionate — and
questioning of the world they live in." ❑

Several students
are among the many
visitors to the Polin
Museum, where
interactive displays
tell the story of the
Jews' arrival in medi-
eval Poland.

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The group is pictured in Old Town Warsaw, across from the Marie Curie

house on Freta Street.

The entire group in the Wieliczka Salt Mine

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, Brian Kudron and

on the second day of the month-long trip. The
photo was taken in the chapel of St. Kinga, the
most impressive chamber, located 101 meters
underground and made entirely out of salt.

Tayloranne Lenze are in the "central sauna,"
where prisoners at Birkenau were given show-

September 10 • 2015

ers. Visitors were required to walk on a glass
floor, installed to protect the original concrete
floors of the building.

Belzec historian Ewa Koper and three students
at a now-abandoned train depot, which in 1940,
housed Jewish prisoners. In 1942, it became a
repository for thousands of items stolen from
the Jewish population.