Bearing Witness to Hope

It is hard to believe that the trip is already coming to an end. It has been a wonderful, terrible, and necessary experience. Along this difficult journey we have been privileged with two absolutely fantastic guides, and I would like to take this time to recognize and thank them. In addition to teaching us the important names, dates, and events surrounding the Holocaust, Michael and Sharon have taught us to wake up. Friends, wake up. It is a simple phrase we have heard often on our long and numerous bus rides. In addition to a kind and gentle wake up, it is an important reminder of why we are here. It is time to wake up, my friends. Wake up to the atrocities that occurred here, wake up to the injustices of our time, and most importantly, wake up to hope. So, my dear friends, it is time to wake up.

Thank you for all of you love and support, see you soon!!
Mary

Today is my birthday, my 21st year here, and yet here I stand at Majdanek, a concentration camp where over 79000 people lost their lives. When I was first told about this amazing trip opportunity, I initially responded by thinking that the trip would coincide with my birthday and I didn't want to be here (Poland) for that day. However, I quickly realized the trip meant more than just my own birthday. I am so happy I came, but I started to question everything again when due to scheduling conflicts we were informed they we'd be going to Majdanek on Monday and not Sunday. So I was sad once again. Until I realized that here I was celebrating life in a place where so many perished including most likely my own cousins.

I wrote a short piece that I'd like to share with you now.

Happy Birthday! These are the words I utter on the ground of Majdanek, truly one of the saddest places one can find themselves. But we take birthdays for granted, a day once a year to celebrate life. But for those in the Holocaust everyday was about being alive. There was little grasp of the date, no calendars to mark the special day. No songs or presents. So birthdays just faded. You were a number, and that number was not your birthday. So today I wish not to celebrate my own day of birth but the birthdays of all of those in the camps or ghettos or in hiding who never got another birthday. There birthdays may have bee forgotten but today I wish to honor that and share the day.

I went last night onto the Yad Vashem website where there are archives of information about the victims of the Holocaust. After some research I was able to find some names of victims who perished with the birthday of May 31. I 'd like to read a few and how old they would have been:

Alexander Hornemann, 9

Mario Sonnino, 2

Gabriele Silten, 12

And a few who died here at Majdanek:

David Goldschmitt

Alice Gottlieb

Sara Davidovitz, 13

Happy Birthday!

Dana Silverberg

Connecticut College '11