Poland

It's early in the morning and Nir is on the way to Ben Gurion airport to fly out to Poland.

We woke up this morning at 1am. Luckily, Ari our Shnat Mad has great taste in snacks so we had plenty of coffee and cake to get us through the early start. We headed to the Kotel for a quick goodbye to Israel and started on our way.

The past two days we've been at Yad Vashem on our pre-Poland seminar run by the education staff there. We heard from a survivor and went around se of the fascinating sculptures and exhibitions around the campus of Yad Vashem. After we finished for the day, a lot of us stayed to research our family history at the research centre or buy some Holocaust books at the bookstore there. Every book in the bookshop has a fascinating story- one called 'The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz' was a true story about a British POW who heard about the atrocities occurring inside the death camp, and coordinated with a Jewish prisoner there to trade places for a few days. After he came out, he couldn't speak about what he saw for years and would constantly have nightmares. This book was written by him when he I ally built up the courage to tell what he saw.

A lot of us also bought Primo Levi's 'If This Is A Man' which is one of the most highly recommended accounts of the Holocaust out there. Primo Levi was an Italian Jew who went through the camps and survived. He wrote many books throughout his life but this is arguably his most famous.

We got a rundown of our schedule on one of the days by Mark Lazar, one of the people accompanying us on our trip. He's an incredible informal educator who ran a lot at Machon and has led trips through Poland about 30 times.

We spend a week in Poland, going through the major cities- Warsaw, Lublin and Krakow. We don't only look at the Holocaust, but also Jewish life before the war and the role of the youth movements.

So that's a brief overview, you'll definitely hear more about it from everyone.

We as Nir are on the edge of a historic moment, as we are the first year group to have Poland as an official part of our Shnat program. It's a lot to have on our shoulders but are ready for the experience and a seriously eye-opening trip.

Good luck to Ofek (year 12) for their final week of school and hope Trials for the Sydney crew went well. Only a few weeks to go, we know you'll do great and we're all excited to hear about your triumphant finishes.

Much love from the Holy Land (only here for another few hours),
Nir