Facing History & Ourselves in Europe 2008

Today we were in Lublin, which is a town in Poland about ten miles from the Ukrainian border. Lublin was once a center for Jewish life in Eastern Europe. These people once flourished in this town until the Nazis invaded. After that, the Nazis put them in ghettos and later sent them to the castle to await departure to concentration camps throughout Europe. After the war, the city was left almost completely barren of Jews. Based on this information, we decided to do a scavenger hunt to find evidence of this rich culture. After we met in the center of the town, we split into our teams. Each blogging group joined another blogging group to create four teams. We were given the instructions, which were to find any evidence of Jewish life in the city center such as symbols, buildings, and memorials. Our proof was a digital photo which would be judged after the scavenger hunt was completed. After 45 minutes of scavenging, we returned to the center with little evidence. This proved that the Nazis were successful in ridding this town and many others of Jews and their culture. The winning team found things that suggest that Jews once lived there but no longer inhabit the town. This proved to us how effective the Nazis were at killing the Jews. In the locations which were occupied by the Nazis, nine million Jews resided. By the end of the Holocaust, six million of them perished. They were nearly successful in killing all of the Jews in these areas despite fighting a two front war. In the end, although the Nazis were unsuccessful in exterminating all of the Jews in Europe and winning the war, they were successful in eliminating most Jewish life throughout Europe.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS