At Majdanek in Poland

Situation one: Sitting in “the temple” in the middle of Poland, we—all 120 of us—join voices and prayers to forge a spiritual bond. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a disagreement between our principal and an Orthodox Israeli teacher escalates to an argument. Luckily, because of two months of training, we are able to translate the Hebrew babble.

“What you are doing is worse than the Holocaust!” the teacher yells at us in Hebrew.

We attempt to block it out as if nothing happened. Was sitting with males and praying with guitar chords really comparable to the ethnic cleansing of 6 million Jews, not to mention 5 million other innocent people?

Situation two: We are sitting in a gift shop/museum/café in Poland listening to a guest speaker tell stories accompanied by a singer and pianist. There are pictures from the Holocaust posted all around the room depicting the aftermath of the area in which we are sitting.

“Israel is like a second Holocaust,” he says, responding to a question posed by a fellow student regarding Jewish life in Poland.

All 120 of us had been in Israel for more than two months already on NFTY’s Eisendrath International Exchange, and so far no one had died. No one was tortured or starved, tattooed or shaved. We had all of the belongings we came with and were open with our Judaism. We had seen places all over Israel and there was no sign of concentration camps or gas chambers.

He continued, saying, “Israel is taking away all the Jews from Europe.”

We were in shock. We were pretty sure that Hitler had taken most of the Jews from Europe and the rest had fled in fear of a second Holocaust, not to join one.

Situation three: We are sitting on the steps of the memorial at Majdanek, a death camp in Lublin, Poland. We are facing the street, with the houses ahead and the cars passing by. One car slows down a bit. We can see teenagers roll down their windows, poke their heads and arms out, flip us off and yell in what we can only assume is Polish.

Our teacher does not see, but sitting there, we are ready to pounce. What kind of immoral people could perform such a hateful act? Yes, seeing these places horrified us, but it was also a place of respect and most important, memory.

Each and every one of us, after all three events, came out of Poland shaken to our very core. I did not understand how people could be so rude and ignorant. I could not help but wonder what social influences still existed to lead them to hate Israel and Judaism as they do. What type of history are they learning? After three or more hours a day of Jewish history lessons and trips on EIE, I learned to respect Israel and the Jewish people with all of my heart for everything we have been through and everything we will create, for our history and our future, for our present and our presence.

After our journey to Poland, I kept those three situations in the back of my mind, but every time I saw any hate or beauty in Israel, those memories lunged forward and screamed to be put to good use. As we learned more and more about the recent history of the Jewish people, about the hate coming from the Middle East and the hardships the newly created State of Israel had to face and how far it has come now, I had to think about the hate that still exists worldwide. Yes, we as Jewish people have a home, but we are also rejected in many countries and must face anti-Semitism every day.

After looking at the history of the Jewish people, it seems on the surface to have a recurring pattern. They hated us, they were bigger, we somehow miraculously won, they still hated us. It appears to be a history of hate, when in actuality it’s a history of survival of the determined. We were and still are determined to have peace and be accepted by the world, but until that happens, we will fight.

I have learned through these three situations and the numerous other experiences I was honored to have in Israel and Poland that the Jewish people are a people of courage and honor, and no amount of hatred from any source at any age can shake us.

Katie Harry is a 17-year-old high school senior in Indianapolis. She is the editor-in-chief of her school paper and involved in the theater department.