On the third day of our Poland experience we spent the morning bearing witness to the stories of atrocity, bravery, banality and survival in Auschwitz II/ Birkenau. We traced the paths of the victims of the gas chambers and of the camp prisoners whose dehumanized existence gives another meaning to the term extermination camp and the demolition of a man (paraphrased from Primo Levi's 'survival in Auschwitz').
We spent the afternoon learning about and exploring the vibrant Jewish life of Jewish Krakow. We visited many of the opulent, beautiful synagogues in Krakow's Jewish quarter. We prayed minha in the Isaac shul and learned about the contributions of the Rama and Tosafot Yomtov to Torah scholarship. We ended a long day visiting the Krakow ghetto, it's deportation square and the factory of Oskar Schindler. After dinner we had an opportunity to reflect on our experience and share thoughts, feelings and observations from our journey. It was another moving day.
