Jul 15, 2018 - Wroclaw

Caught the tram into Wroclaw from our backyard camp (was well set up for about 40 motorhomes). City has a couple of islands and lots of bridges. One covered in padlocks. Had a short wander and then into the square – very busy, with lots of families. Several bubble making enterprises for the kids and lots of little gnomes hidden around the place. They are very cute.

Apr 14, 2018 - Joyous Celebration in the Last Surviving Prewar Synagogue in Warsaw

"The Nożyk Synagogue (Polish: Synagoga Nożyków) is the only surviving prewar Jewish house of prayer in Warsaw, Poland. It was built in 1898-1902 and was restored after World War II. It is still operational and currently houses the Warsaw Jewish Commune, as well as other Jewish organizations." That's the entry in Wikipedia for the place where we celebrated the end of Shabbat. I find myself without words to describe what it felt like to witness 300 young people (we were joined by another March of the Living group) singing, dancing and...

Apr 13, 2018 - Murder of the Children of Tarnow

Before I can tell you about today, I have to tell you about yesterday. Yesterday was the day of the March of the Living. The event that this entire trip is named for. The big day. I spent the day in bed. About 30 of our group (over 10% of us) came down with either food poisoning or norovirus. We all spent the Big Day moving between bed and bathroom. Our medical team was amazing. I don't think they slept for two days. They propped our hotel room doors open with towels so they could constantly check on us without having to get us out of bed....

Apr 11, 2018 - Auschwitz and Birkenau

Last night, on the 5 hour ride from Lodz to Krakow, the schedule called for a "reflections" period about 2-3 hours into the ride. The 39 teens on the bus were to be asked if they wanted to share any reflections or feelings about what they had experienced that day. The ride started out very quietly. The kids were definitely reflecting. However . . . slowly . . . teen life began to emerge again from the back of the bus. Chatter, laughter and eventually music played loudly from someone's IPod. Suddenly, they all burst into song and the party...

Apr 10, 2018 - Radagast and Chelmno

I had a good sleep last night. Feel like a new person. Our first stop today was Radagast. This was the deportation center for the Jews of Lodz and nearby communities. On March 1, 1944 the Jews of Lodz were enclosed in a 1.4 square mile ghetto with no running water and no sewage disposal. One fourth of them died of starvation and disease. The destruction of these people began when the Nazis ordered the ghetto's Judenrat (a Jewish prisoner in the ghetto who was made responsible to see to it that the Nazis commands were carried out) to turn...

Apr 9, 2018 - Even the Veterans Said Today was Brutal!

If not for the fact that there are four other Holocaust Survivors with our group, all of whom have been on the March of the Living numerous times, I would have ended the day believing that I had made a huge mistake thinking I could do this. Fortunately for me, all agreed that the pace of our first day was brutal. Everyone was operating on no sleep for at least 50 hours. We had all dressed in warm clothes because the weather forecast called for temperatures no higher than the mid 50's. Before the flights from Los Angeles to Poland were over...

Oct 21, 2017 - Swinoujscie, Poland

Given we were almost on the Polish/German border we figured “what the heck” and decided to nip into Poland for no better reason than to say we had done so! After knowing a bit of the history and knowing that getting in and out of Poland was not easy in the past, it amazed us that we were driving along and suddenly saw the EU sign on the side of the road indicating we were now out of Germany and into Poland. It was immediately obvious that we were no longer in Germany: roads were poor, many of the shops along the main roads were small and...

Oct 5, 2017 - Warsaw

One day in Warsaw and it’s raining! Started the day visiting the Warsaw Rising Museum. The content of the museum was really good, covering Poland’s involvement in WWII, but the layout was quite confusing. After lunch we went on a quick orientation walk around the Old Town, which was surprisingly small. Warsaw was totally decimated in the war, and the Old Town had been reconstructed exactly has it had been prior to the war. Free time for the rest of the day, so we climbed a tower for the view, walked around the Old Town, drank hot chocolate...

Oct 4, 2017 - Along The Baltic Coast

Day 24 - Wednesday 4th October - Mielno (Koszalin), Poland Up early & on the road North out of Gdansk by 7.30am. Just planning to head around the coast back towards Germany. Stopped for coffee by the Northernmost lighthouse in Poland before turning West. Rained on & off during the day. No dramas but did see a couple of deer crossing the road ahead of us once, otherwise an uneventful day. Stopped late afternoon at a car park by the sea & settled in for the night. Actually joined there by one other motorhome. Mileage Today - 173 Mileage To...

Oct 3, 2017 - Stutthof Concentration Camp & Gdansk

Day 23 - Tuesday 3rd October - Gdansk, Poland It rained a lot during the night, the first rain we've had since leaving Vilnius on 21st September. We were up early & headed back the six miles to the Concentration Camp to get there when they opened at 8am. Another 7 zlotys for the car park but this at least gave us three hours of parking. As it was we didn't use the three hours. We spent just over two hours wandering around what is left of the old camp. It is all very well set up & organised for people to see some of the horrors of what took...

Oct 2, 2017 - Heading To Gdansk

Day 22 - Monday 2nd October - Stegna, Poland Moving on we headed up towards Gdansk on the North coast of Poland. Poland seems to have it's fair share of lakes & we passed quite a few. We also noticed a lot of stork nests on top of telephone & electricity poles along the roads, seems like they are left there all the time as I don't think it is the time of the year for any storks to appear. We did have a bit of fun in the middle of Olsztyn, a rather large city, when we ran into roadworks & a diversion which threw our SatNav into confusion....

Oct 1, 2017 - Back Into Poland

Day 21 - Sunday 1st October - Gizycko, Poland Moved on early again following the border with the Russian territory to the West. Our SatNav, Ethel, did try to take us along the main road into the Russian territory but after going right up to the border crossing point we chickened out & turned South. We got stopped along the way twice today. The first time by a police patrol in one of the towns we passed through. The handsome (Viv's opinion) young policeman pulled us over & asked, in excellent English, for our documents. Then he proceeded to...