ARRIVAL in Germany

We made it!! We are here at our hotel in Germany-- the flights were great-- the team is so clearly bonding and doing phenomenally well together... We have shared so many laughs in the past 48 hours and now in an hour the seriousness will begin as we have a Shabbat service and opening ceremony....

Tonight I plan to post pictures... The connection is too slow right now and I must go get on our bus to the restaurant!!

We met Maude (our wonderful Holocaust Survivor who is traveling with us) and Chaim (our Israeli guide) and Agnes (our Polish guide).... So much to write... until tonight....

Blogging at the Airport

So here I sit on the floor of the Toronto airport and I look around at this amazing team and am in complete disbelief that it has only been 24 hours that we have been together on this journey. I literally feel like we have all known each other for months and have been traveling for nearly as long. We are already tired, but wow, are we energized.

This morning we awoke early and began our day with an all group orientation—the 70 Canadian students and 40 American Students were all together for the first time. Four hours after the start of orientation, I had numerous students come up to me literally blown away by the powerfulness of the morning sessions.

We were mixed up into random groups and did group exercises that included a welcome and introduction of the staff and then the students, ice breakers, a classification exercise where we all had to decide how to classify ourselves around a large room into one of the following groups: Nationality, Ethnicity, Religious Affiliation, or Gender. We then had to discuss why it was difficult to choose only one category and discussion about whether choosing one category excludes the other categories, and about whether or not others would classify us the way in which we classify ourselves. In relation to the Holocaust we addressed how the Nazi’s placed a classification upon people and based on their categorization or grouping, the victims were persecuted.

Next, there was a phenomenal activity in which we were given a ‘dilemma’ in a group, and we had to position ourselves in a line (continuum)—and then discuss with someone whose view point was opposite of our own. So for example, one dilemma was “Is it ethical for modern day medicine to make use of the significant amount of medical research obtained as a result of experiments conducted on prisoners throughout the Holocaust”, another was “Was it okay to use capitol punishment for Nazi perpetrators?”

We listened to Michael Soberman speak on Canada’s response to the Holocaust, which provided the Americans with a great parallel to the discussion we had with Michael Dobkowski last night. Michael Soberman left us all with a story that spoke of a king asking a riddle of sorts to a ‘servant’—And the riddle was “What makes a happy man sad and a sad man, happy?” The response is “This too will pass”—and so he told us to be comforted this during our hard times on our journey and to relish in the good times—It was a beautiful send off…

Okay, hopefully I will be able to upload pictures soon—But, right now, I am going to go get ready to board our plane for Paris…..

Toronto Arrival

We are here in Toronto after a remarkable day with our team....
Susan and Daan led us in a beautiful send off outside of Golisano and the team departed on the bus (yes it did show up!!)... Thank you so much to all of you who came to send us off...On the bus, we all could use some down time after an emotionally full morning, so our programming really began when we arrived at the hotel...
We had dinner which was supposed to feed 50 and instead looked like it might feed 10.... so, we had the caterers make us some more--
After finishing dinner we began some serious community and team building and then Michael Dobkowski lead us in a tremendously powerful conversation about America and its role during the Holocaust.
I have lots more to write but it is late and Lynne and I must go prepare for tomorrow... I probably won't blog again until we get to Germany-- so it will likely be a few days... Until then.... Jennie

Pre- Departure

I begin this blog with a very full heart. Full of emotion that I only hope words will be powerful enough to convey.

After many months of preparation, our Nazareth College and Hobart William Smith Colleges departure is a little over 24 hours away. Tomorrow, we will leave from Nazareth College and get onto a bus (which we can only HOPE shows up) at 2pm. We will drive to Toronto with our team of phenomenal students as we embark on a trip of a lifetime.

It is my goal to blog throughout our trip to share with you some photographs, some thoughts, and I am sure, a lot of emotion.

Prior to leaving, however, I want to thank Nazareth College for your incredible support of this journey. We, the Nazareth College MRH 2008 team, commit to sharing with you upon our return. We hope to take what we have learned, heard, and witnessed and provide you with our interpretation of this part of history which is also, in some respects, still our present. We commit to trying to make a difference in our world which still struggles (and hopefully always will) with the atrocities of the past and which will, hopefully soon, stop standing by while other genocides continue.

So many of you who I know are reading this have been a remarkable support to me over the past months in which I have been preparing for this journey. To you I say 'thank you'--to my unbelievable supportive colleagues, to my friends and to my family-- Your understanding, your support, your enthusiasm, and your belief in me have helped me get to this point and will help me as we travel through the annals of history.

Click on the cartoon on the right to see it larger....