Elan ‘27:
The main value that I will take away from this trip is the opportunity to be able to see everything that I had learned about in class firsthand. Learning about the Holocaust, I had always heard about monuments and places such as Auschwitz, Terezín, and the Berlin Wall. When reading and learning about these places, the enrichment and understanding is not as strong as being able to be there in person.
This trip broadened my understanding of the Holocaust because I can now understand the layers and parts to it that I wouldn’t have been able to know originally. Before going on the trip, I felt as though the Holocaust was a terrible event where many people were killed. This is true, however now I know that before they went to Auschwitz people brought a suitcase with them with items inside for their “new life.” At the museum today, I was able to see those items that were in the suitcase– something that I wouldn’t have been able to witness if I hadn’t gone on this trip.
Moments like these deepened my understanding of the Holocaust in ways that wouldn’t have been possible in a classroom. This trip gave me the opportunity to deepen my understanding in a more enriching way.
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Josh ‘27:
What made this trip really meaningful to me was being able to connect emotionally to this event. Visiting places like Terezín and Auschwitz, seeing the buildings that caused the horror and destruction, allowed me to reflect on a non-intellectual level. Places like the Nuremberg tunnels, the Plaszów fields, and the broken gas chambers led to a more visceral reaction than I have ever experienced. In terms of pure learning, I got a more birds-eye overview than I would get from a textbook. The Topography of Terror [Museum] was a great place of learning, where I not only understood the dates a lot better, but also led me to the idea of the “surveillance state,” which I now realize defines a lot of the Nazi Regime. Finally, as I have stated in my blog post already, the nuance of the Wannsee Conference was the first part of this trip where everything really ‘clicked’. I feel like I understand the Holocaust more holistically now, instead of just understanding the textbook, which really boiled down to “Nazi’s are bad, the Jews were the victims.”
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Anthony ‘27:
Throughout our journey, the sun remained consistently present at-large. I’ve always associated sunkissed scenes as blissful yet light spurred on sights of historic mass genocide. At the Jewish ghetto at Terezin, the city center where thousands of children were sent–and deprived–, was magical according to my previous methodology. Grass illuminated at the site where about eighty-five years ago eight-hundred children were piled into a hole for an inhumane burial. The sun lit up Auschwitz during our final day but the sunset sparked once we left. The concept of light is still ambiguous to me. Should it have been raining our whole trip? Sunkissed mornings where my coat hung on my arm instilled hope while I trekked various cities with differentiated paths yet similar consequences of World War II. The sole day of rain and cold at the concentration camp Plaszow outside of Krakow was also perfect. I cried with the wind’s spurring droplets yet smiled in remembrance of the disparities at radiant Auschwitz. I embrace nature’s duality in enveloping one into emotion through stormy clouds or clear skies. The sun’s kiss is paradoxical; I was reminded of hope with its absence and radiance.
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Keoni ‘26:
The Germany, Czech Republic and Poland trip has made me realize just how much it is important to remember. To remember the survivors, the ones that were murdered and the ones that got away. Over the course of thirteen days,, I was able to see the places the families left behind in all their glory and soak in the rich history that is still currently available. I found it profoundly impactful how much the countries affected by Nazi Germany have put millions of dollars into memorials and monuments to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. From Boston to Nuremberg, from Berlin to Prague, and from Dresden ending in Krakow, each city is prominent in understanding the lives of Jews, Romani, Poles, and other minority groups affected, and understand their stories in full. Eating “chimney cake” and listening to Jewish music helped me immerse myself in appreciating what these places have to offer on top of what historical insights they provide. Before this trip, all I knew about was Anne Frank- one story. I only had prior knowledge about one side of the story without the full context of the events leading up to the tragedy. Now, I mourn the memory of the victims and scorn the ones who decided to dismiss the truth rather than confront it. Each suitcase left behind doesn’t have a story nor every number a face to be remembered by. However, the trip also gives me hope for the future in how humans decide to share and remember the past. It made me think about the parallels of the present day and the little acts of kindness I could do for someone in need. I’m learning not to be a bystander and to speak up on things that I know aren’t right. I’m grateful to experience these events, museums, workshops, and fun adventures with Mr Leister, Dr Friends, and my group along the way.
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Janis ‘26:
This trip has added so much value to my life because it has served as a reminder that history cannot be erased or forgotten. History is everlasting and it is constantly changing all around us. Before this trip, I used to think that the Holocaust, and World War 2 in general, was an event that happened ages ago and was probably something that could probably never happen again. But after going on this trip and visiting several memorials, museums, and monuments, I realized that these events are more recent than we think. There are several survivors still alive today and have to live with that trauma for the rest of their lives. The families of those survivors have trauma that will be passed on for generations. It was so surreal to walk through the same camps that hundreds of thousands of people from various ethnic groups had to trudge through as they endured the most terrible and inhumane conditions of their lives. My stomach drops every time I think about the children who never got to be children. The children who had to watch their families be ripped away from them; never to be seen again. I can never imagine the pain of being forced to leave your home with only a few belongings, packed onto a train with hundreds of others, without knowing that you would be sent to your death if you were not strong enough or desirable enough. What is even more disheartening were the efforts made to cover the atrocities up. The Nazis blew up buildings and burned documents all in an attempt to erase their crimes and keep their harmful propaganda alive. But what the Nazis failed to consider is that you cannot erase people’s memories. It is because of the memories of those strong survivors that we get to learn about their stories and hear the stories of others who didn’t get a chance to tell them. Germany, Czechia and Poland are the most beautiful countries I have ever visited yet they harbor a painful history. And it is important to remember this pain because it provides a glimmer of hope for the future. A hope that we can learn from our mistakes and prevent history from repeating itself. Sadly, every day it seems like history is repeating itself. Many parallels from the Nazi regime can be seen in the actions of several governments in the world today. However, from this trip I have not only become a better historian, but I think I have become a better person. I have learned that it is important to reckon with the past so that the future can be and will be brighter.
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Rory ‘26:
This trip has vastly changed how I understand the Holocaust and myself. There is only so much that you can learn on the complex subject through films and books. Traveling to the actual sites where the tragedy occurred, hearing testimonies from survivors, and learning how these countries continue to teach and explain the Holocaust through the school systems, museums, and memorials has completely altered how I think about this period in history. For me it was extremely powerful to begin in Germany where the Nazis crafted their sadistic solution to the Jewish questions and then travel across Europe—as so many Jews did during World War II—to Poland and spend our final day in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Through this trip in each of the cities we visited, we met so many different local guides each with their own understanding and way of teaching the Holocaust. Through the numerous memorials, camps, and museums that we visited, I learned that there really is no one way to represent the Holocaust. Each site shared its own interpretation and made impacts of varying magnitude on the people on our trip. While the Holocaust occurred decades ago, throughout the trip I made an alarming number of parallels to events happening in our contemporary society, showcasing that a trip like this one is incredibly important so that we prevent a tragedy of this scale from ever happening again.
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Jose ‘29:
Now the end of the trip is here, and I think back to the very start, not knowing what to expect from a Deerfield CSGC trip, especially an educational one about World War 2. I learned a lot from this trip that I wouldn’t have learned from a documentary or a book. I came to Central Europe thinking this would be another run through or refresher of everything I learned about World War 2 and Jewish history. Now I end the trip saying I went through a rollercoaster of emotions, experienced things I would never have had, and discovered new cultures and histories. I like to think that this trip is one of the most formative experiences I’ve had in life yet. I knew of the horror and atrocities committed by the Nazi state, but getting to see the true scale of their actions hit me differently than academic material would have. From being inside bunkers made to hide art to being able to visit Auschwitz, this trip was truly an unforgettable one. I don’t think I’d ever prefer another CSGC trip over this one.
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Brandon ‘26:
These past 11 days, I’ve learned more about the Holocaust and WW2 than in the past 17 years of my life. As of writing this blog post, this trip really prepares you mentally for the climax: the Auschwitz camps. From traversing the art bunker in Nuremburg, to processing the horrors of Terezin, and even enjoying Brendan’s tour in Berlin about German expression before the Nazis suppressed homosexuals. But the message Helena gave us after the memorial tour in Poland prepared me not only for Auschwitz, but also for how I carry myself in life. She ended a very somber tour of the Plaszow Memorial by giving us a message of hope. She wanted us to know that although Nazis intended Jews and other prisoners to feel the most despair until their death, there was still hope and optimism for a better future in every camp. She also wanted us to know that it’s our duty to carry that hope and kindness for one another into our generation and the future. This central idea has allowed me to grapple with the topics of the Holocaust and WW2 more easily, as now I think about the bright side rather than only the gloom and sorrow. And I aimed to uplift my group mates during the tour since we bear and carry the flames of those before us; those who survived, as the human spirit and hope is an unbreakable force against the deepest shadows.
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Gabby ‘29:
Throughout thirteen days, we have traveled through Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland in order to: Understand the Holocaust, Past and Present. The journey the twelve of us have been on has been so much more than just seeing the artifacts of the Holocaust. It has also been appreciating and experiencing the culture of different countries that were impacted by the Holocaust and seeing the “before and after” of countries pre/post World War II. This trip has been profoundly valuable to me and my own understanding of history, and how history has a tendency to repeat itself. As pointed out by Keoni, there are many parallels between modern-day USA and 1930-1940s Europe, and being in spaces that have experienced the horrors of war serves as evidence of what people should look out for in everyday life. By physically seeing where the Holocaust took place and how countries have been affected by the facets of war, I have learned to be curious when I approach memorials and monuments, and specifically the choices countries and humans make when memorializing tragedies. I would recommend this trip to any student particularly interested in not just history, but the current state of the world, history’s parallels and memorials/museums.
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Sarah ‘26:
On the first day of our trip, we visited a memorial in Boston, and Mr. Leistler taught us a German word that he said distilled the entire trip. The word was “vergangenheitsbewältigung,” which means struggling to make sense of history. I took one of Mr. Leistler’s classes this year, which is called Politics and Science of Memory, and I have gotten familiar with trying to figure out how politics intertwines with memory and how the government chooses to remember things, and how that influences the public’s memory. So, going into this trip, I started to think about this. Before this trip, I honestly did not know that much about the Holocaust, but I was incredibly interested in understanding what happened, which is the reason I joined this trip. It was incredibly insightful and allowed me to distill all the information I learned and make sense of how the government and the people of all the different places we visited struggle with what happened during the holocaust. The first place we visited was Nuremberg, where we learned about how Nuremberg was a place of visit and cheer for Nazi soldiers on these grounds, which is where they would have the largest gatherings of Nazis, which is incredibly disturbing. They would gather on the Nazi Party Grounds, which were located there.
When we went to Berlin, we learned about the Berlin Wall and tried to understand how life was after World War 2 for those who lived in East Berlin vs those who lived in West Berlin. The Berlin Wall is an important reminder of the past. When we went to Dresden, we walked around and noticed the destruction of the buildings. In Dresden, so many of the historical buildings were restored that they kept some of the old bricks and added bricks that could not have been saved. This was incredibly different from Berlin because of the Soviet Rule in East Berlin; the buildings were in Soviet design, strictly blocked buildings. These buildings contrasted with the ones in Dresden that were decorated with ornates and had elegant colors. In Dresden, we were able to learn how the Czechs dealt with the War. Next, we visited Krakow, Poland. Here, the architecture was pretty similar to that of Dresden. In Krakow, we learned about the Polish involvement in the war and how the Jewish population used to be 70000 but now has fallen to only 200 people. All these places combined many perspectives from many different places to show us how impactful the War was all over the world. Nuremberg was a great way to start the trip because it gave us context on what Nazi soldiers were planning on doing and highlighted how many of their horrible decisions were preplanned. They purposely decided to take the lives of so many Jews and those who rose against them. In Nuremberg, the Nuremberg Trials occurred, which is when the plan of conviction was decided for many Nazis. What is interesting is how many of them were let out because of their good behavior. This was interesting to think about because it makes me wonder whether how you act after committing atrocities to that extreme determines whether you are a good person. I believe that being a Nazi during World War 2 is irredeemable if you knew what it meant and what was going on regarding the atrocities that they committed, then it is unforgivable, so therefore I think that being let out because of good behavior is not right.
Throughout this trip, I have learned all the different ways that people remember this tragedy. Every person had a different view because of the way they were taught in school, the stories, the views of their parents, and the experiences they lived through. Our tour guides throughout the trip each grew up differently, so they had different ideas on how the Holocaust should be remembered and how they remember Germany. Those who had grandparents who were Nazi members acknowledge the pain and destruction their grandparents caused, and their work to commemorate the lost lives of Jewish people helps them to navigate those experiences. This was my favorite part of the trip because it showed me how different everyone experiences and is affected by what happened based on their lived experiences. I am incredibly grateful for what this trip taught me.
