Where to begin? Today, took a bit more of a serious turn on our trip to Poland. It began to hit home why we are really here.

We started the day in the heart of the Jewish quarter with a visit to the oldest synagogue in Poland. This once beautiful building created to worship Yahweh, was now transformed into a Jewish museum. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that through all the glam, that some how humanity had lost its way, and that even though the synagogue had survived the Nazi's and WW2 it could not survive the changing of the times. It was heart breaking to see how Polish Jews had been forcefully evicted from there homes, leaving all that they had, their community, their homes and places of worship. What really hit home for me was the remaining spaces left where mezuzas, had been taken from doorposts, many never to be replaced in new places of residences for Jewish families.

For me the most poignant session of the day was meeting a holocaust survivor. A crisp dressed Jewish gentleman named Josef, an 85 year old man with a soft voice recounted the horror of his experience In a concentration camp. At 17 he was placed as a political prisoner to serve hard labour until death.

What really challenged me was that this man did not feel anger towards his captors, he did not resent them ...despite the atrocities they inflicted upon him, the beatings, the torture, and wasted years of his life. He told us that after he was liberated he met with fellow survivors and agreed to tell future generations what had happened. What the Jewish nation had suffered. What he had suffered. He told the pupils, that they were the future leaders of their communities and countries, that they had to make sure to love one another, to stop hating and have fun. (As he had a wicked sense of humour)

When asked how he survived the camp... He answer three things:

1) his love for God, this blew me away, he did not mention Judaism. On a base level, he loved the God of the Torah. A strength. The god of Christianity, the god of Islam.

2) the support of fellow captives

3) the want to live.

A pupil described hearing Josef today as a life changing moment. I have fear at the potential life changing moment Auschwitz may bring in the morning...