{"id":72561,"date":"2023-04-13T09:03:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=72561"},"modified":"2023-04-13T09:03:17","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:03:17","slug":"fhsu-history-students-share-details-from-trip-to-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=72561","title":{"rendered":"FHSU history students share details from trip to Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo caption – Grace McCord (standing) of the American Democracy Project introduces speakers Joanna Lockwood, Ashlynn Kelly, Nathan Hoy and Erin Adams (L-R).\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY RAEGAN NEUFELD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of Fort Hays students spent their spring break on a class trip to Poland, seeing the effects of the Holocaust in person after learning about them in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, a panel of four students shared pictures and stories from their trip at the American Democracy Project\u2019s latest Times Talk<\/a>, titled \u201cEncountering the Holocaust in Poland.\u201d The event was part of the second annual Hays Holocaust Remembrance and Education Month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amber Nickell, an organizer of the Remembrance Month and a history professor at FHSU, was also a part of the panel and talked about her experiences on the trip, and helped guide the conversation with questions for the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel of students consisted of Erin Adams, Nathan Hoy, Ashlynn Kelly and Joanna Lockwood. They are all in a history class called Jewish Life Before, During and After the Holocaust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing with a group of history majors to see places that we learn about in person was really why I wanted to go,\u201d Kelly said at the beginning of the presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group traveled to the cities of Krakow, Warsaw and Oswiecim, and the memorial and museum located at the former Auschwitz concentration camp. Nickell commented on the impact of one of the exhibits at Auschwitz, which shows a video of Jewish life before the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to just reduce Jewish people to numbers and to forget that they were living, breathing human beings,\u201d she said. \u201cIn that moment where you\u2019re surrounded on all sides by this video, it reminds you. I know for a lot of students that was a really important moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One effect of the Holocaust the students mentioned is how the genocide of the Jews in Poland is still evident today, even in places like cemeteries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(The gravestones) are completely stacked on top of each other, covered in moss and leaves and things like that,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThey\u2019re very different from the cemeteries I\u2019ve seen here in the U.S. They\u2019re not well preserved. Even though it\u2019s beautiful to see them looking like this, it\u2019s also sad and eerie to see that the Jewish community was completely taken away; they didn\u2019t have anybody to take care of these spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lockwood spoke about being able to see both the physical absences and traces of history in the three cities. She specifically mentioned examples of architecture, including mezuzahs in door frames. A mezuzah is a piece of parchment fixed to the door frames of Jewish homes with scripture written on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a part of their culture and religion that really blesses the home, and they touch it as they exit each day,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lockwood shared a picture that showed a door frame that once held a mezuzah. The spot where the mezuzah once was could clearly be seen in the picture, but it had been ripped out during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An interesting part of the trip discussed on Wednesday was when students saw supposed artifacts of both the Jewish people and Nazi oppression marketed as antiques and sold as souvenirs. It was suspected that some items were real and some were fake, and the sight left the group feeling uneasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is very commercialized,\u201d Hoy said. \u201cIf you go to an antique store, it\u2019s the same as, \u2018Oh I went to Poland, here\u2019s some World War II memorabilia I got as a souvenir antique to bring home,\u2019 and it\u2019s very sad to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the group did encounter more encouraging sights while in the cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the more positively impactful things from going over to Poland was seeing the contemporary Jewish communities and how they are surviving after the Holocaust,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThey\u2019re small communities, but the (Jewish Community Center) provides a safe area for those looking to explore and rediscover their heritage as they\u2019ve lost it after the Holocaust.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of other events happening later this month for the Hays Holocaust Remembrance and Education. A preview and full list can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo caption – Grace McCord (standing) of the American Democracy Project introduces speakers Joanna Lockwood, Ashlynn Kelly, Nathan Hoy and Erin Adams (L-R).\u00a0 BY RAEGAN… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":72562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,3398,11],"tags":[14527,15202,14603,15184,14226],"class_list":["post-72561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-amber-nickell","tag-fhsu-history","tag-holocaust-remembrance","tag-holocaust-remembrance-month","tag-raegan-neufeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Times-Talk-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C2254&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72563,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72561\/revisions\/72563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}