Poland trip underscores the horrors of the Holocaust
July 30, 2024
Having made the journey several times, Jocelyn McWhirter isn’t surprised by the reactions or emotions of the Albion College students who experience the life-changing trip to Poland, a highlight of the Holocaust Studies Service Learning Project.
McWhirter, a professor of religious studies, knows that reading about the horrors suffered by Jews or watching documentaries about the Holocaust is one thing–visiting the concentration camps where the torture was inflicted and the graves where victims’ relatives are buried is quite another.
“Auschwitz in particular stirs up varied emotions including grief, anger, revulsion, numbness, and wonder at the horrors inflicted on the million-plus Jews from all over Europe who suffered and perished there,” McWhirter said. “Cramped living conditions, long, twice-daily role calls, public executions, separation from families, a starvation diet, torture in camp prisons, the looming threat of gas chambers and crematoria, I could go on–it’s all too much to comprehend.”
This year’s trip was the first since 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The traveling group included 15 students and four faculty and staff. The trip is the second part of a full-credit course with two components. During the spring semester, the class met in seven, two-hour class sessions to learn the basics of Jewish life. The students read four books and wrote a paper in addition to their journals written in Poland. Assistant Professor of History Laura Brade taught the classroom portion of the course.
Their itinerary included visits to Wrocław, Poland (formerly Breslau, Germany), where the group worked in a Jewish cemetery largely neglected since the 1940s; and a tour of Kraków, including the ghetto where Jews were housed before deportation plus the former Schindler factory where a plaque donated by Albion College in the early 2000s is still mounted on the outside wall. The group also visited the now-demolished concentration camp Plaszów (featured in the movie “Schindler’s List”).
“Reflecting on the work that we’ve done, I can confidently say that our presence has been felt in the paths that we’ve opened and the people whose names we’ve uncovered,” said Abby Dombrowski ’25, a history major. “I’ve learned so much here, and I’m so grateful to have been a part of this team.”
McWhirter said one of the trip’s most memorable moments was when the group was joined in Poland by Frank Kelemen, the retired former director of Albion’s College Counseling Center. Both of his parents survived internment at Auschwitz as well as at other camps. At the Auschwitz sub-camp Birkenau, students lit candles and gathered around Kelemen as he prayed for his family members and victims.
“Frank recited Kaddish and a prayer along with some writings of his father [who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz II – Birkenau],” said Ella Bolster ’26, an anthropology major. “We all felt the energy around us as he spoke.”