Today, we start an experience that our team has been planning for over a year. With the help of our incredible guide, Julian Resnick, we put together what I hope will be a life changing journey. Most of our group of 24 travelers arrived in Berlin yesterday, beginning what promises to be a deeply meaningful tour through Berlin, Warsaw, and Krakow. We will visit concentration camps, sites of deep historical significance where world changing decisions were made, see places of rescue, resistance, and so much more.
Before leaving, one of our travelers, Susan Jackson, gave me a book titled Small Miracles of the Holocaust, written by two descendants of Holocaust Survivors. It tells stories of extraordinary coincidences, narrow escapes, reunions, and moments of hope and courage amid unimaginable darkness. I began reading it on the plane to Berlin, never imagining how quickly this would enter my thoughts upon arrival.
As we made our way through the German entry point, a large, stern official barked instructions, directing passengers into lines and toward scanning machines. It felt unnerving because his instructions were unclear, but we did what we thought was right. After clearing immigration, we were directed into a single-file line, where several guards stood, one holding a German Shepherd that sniffed every passenger. Every single one. There was no warning, nor was there an explanation. It simply happened.
I found this encounter to be very unsettling.
My mind immediately went to images of the Holocaust where Jews were ordered into lines, directed left or right, with guards and dogs enforcing obedience. Of course, our brief encounter in a modern airport cannot begin to compare with the terror, humiliation, and unimaginable suffering experienced by Jews during the Holocaust. But for one fleeting moment, I found myself thinking about what it must have felt like to be utterly powerless, not knowing what would happen next.
As I saw this unfolding, I made some assumptions about why a dog was there and justified to myself that this would not be a problem. But what if it was? Luckily, I breezed right through, but what if I didn’t? Or, what if someone in our group was pulled to the side?
What would I do?
Thankfully, I didn’t have to answer that question, nor did any of the people who flew in with us. It got me thinking that perhaps there is a bigger reason why we are here.
We are not here to simply visit historical sites. We are here to stand on the ground where a complex set of circumstances happened.
Our journey has barely begun, and already I find myself looking at the world a little differently.
I hope you will follow along and I’ll promise my best to write as often as I can.
