So in English we are taking TAKS Benchmark all week which consists of reading passages with multiple choice questions, revising and editing, short answer questions and an essay. It isn't that bad, it is just long. Today I was reading one of the passages and it was about a family who has a happy life until Hitler rose to power and changed everything in Germany. As I continued to read the passage and picture what the author was saying, I could remember the exact details of the day we spent at the concentration camp, Auschwitz, in Poland. That day was another cold, rainy day in Poland but for the NFTY in Israel trip it was our chance to see what our ancestors went through during World War II. The entire day we were all gloomy, quiet, and to say that we were emotionally drained was an understatement. The passage just reminded me of everything I saw; the cable cars, barbed wire fences, gas chambers, wooden beds with finger nail marks, the memorial stones of the millions of people killed, and the color. Whenever I think of a concentration camp, I think black and white. It's not black and white, there is green grass, colored flowers, and a blue sky. It's not the typical image of a death camp where over six million Jewish people were killed. As our group was touring the camp, we saw another group there. But instead of being silent like we were, and staring at this site that really can't be described, they were jumping all over the cable car, screaming and doing the "Hail Hitler" sign. The anger that immediately overwhelmed us was huge and also the sadness. To us everyone has the same opinion of the Holocaust, but there are people in the world who don't have the same views as us, and unfortunately we had to view that in the most emotional place that I have ever been too. It was an experience that I won't ever forget and I am glad I had the opportunity to go. My generation is most likely the last generation that will get to hear about the traumatic experience from Holocaust survivors so it was important to go and to be able to retell the story to younger generations and prove that this was a true event in our world's history. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the song Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry, this song was the "song of the summer," we would blast and sing to it, and it is the song that reminds me of the summer I had. I just felt the need to write about how something like a TAKS passage can bring back the feelings of the summer. There hasn't been a day since I've been home that I haven't thought about that trip and it will be something I cherish forever. Even though Poland and Prague weren't the highlights of the trip, it was meaningful, emotional, spiritual and most importantly a needed experience. We now hold the history of the past and it is our job and responsibility to tell our children what happened during World War II.
Every single World War II veteran, every life that was taken because of the Holocaust, rest in peace.
"Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn comes tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be gone save tonight."
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