Thought for the Day: Determination gives you the resolve to keep going in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you.

After classes today the volunteers made a trip to Majdanek, the Nazi Concentration Camp in Lublin.

The volunteers (without nine year old Isaac who stayed behind but with the teacher Kinga) ate their lunch sandwiches in the van. We saw a thirty minute orientation movie about the rise of the Nazis and this Concentration Camp. A private guide, who had been engaged by one of the volunteers, brought us around the camp, explaining in English how the camp worked and how the various buildings functioned. He explained that when the Soviets liberated Majdanek, the Nazis had no time to destroy the buildings and accordingly this was what was unique to Majdanek. It is the only Concentration Camp that is still fully functional and so it is the only camp throughout Europe that has the original gas chambers still intact. Unfortunately, the kitchen had burned down about three weeks and ago and the fire is under investigation. Our guide explained how the Jewish people were treated harsher than other prisoners and that some 60,000 had been gassed after which their bodies were burnt in either funeral pyres or ovens. At the same time we were there, a group of about 50 Israeli high school students were also touring the concentration camp. It was uplifting to see them proudly carrying their large Israeli flags, thereby underscoring the stark reality that the ashes of those Jewish people who died during the holocaust were the seeds to the birth of the State of Israel in 1948.
On the way home, we passed through Lublin and could see the old town, the Catholic University and the castle from the van. We arrived at the Reymontowka camp at 7:15 p.m. for dinner.

The last activity was the students performing the Wedding Ceremony. The wedding ceremony received a five star review from the volunteers. Among the dozen weddings, two volunteers, Eli and Mira, were married to Filip and Kamila.