The Arrival: March 11th

We flew overnight and I slept the whole way, which I usually never sleep on planes but I did this time.

Now that I'm here in Poland....it just seems so weird. It does not seem like I'm in real life. I've waited so many years to come to this country. It is a little bit like I imagined it to be. Everything looks and just feels so depressing and so grey. Where is the color?

The first thing we did when we arrived to Poland was of course get on our black V.I.P. bus and drive for about 30 minutes or so. We went to the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, which is the biggest Jewish cemetery in Poland...it was soo cold and snowy. It was so hard for me to deal with the cold because I'm always cold and I also absolutely hate the cold. We stood outside for a few hours so by the time we were done, my toes were completely frozen. I could not even feel them even though. The cemetery seemed more depressing than it was only because of the snow and grey skies. There were also two mass graves there that contained over 80,000 bodies in it. I just can't even imagine that. If a person just walked into that cemetery without any guide or doing research before, they would not even know that mass grave was there. There was not really any sign for it or anything. The snow might have been covering the memorial for it, but other than that it just looked like a big empty snow lot.

The empty space is the mass grave

Such a beautiful cemetery

The place where the Jews would hide for a few days. The Nazi Soldiers never caught them because they covered  the hold with tombstones so no one would find them. It was so hidden that it was not even discovered until a few years ago. This is also where I fell. haha

After visiting the Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw, we got back on the bus and drove for about two hours. I took the best nap in the world...I was just so exhausted. We drove to a town called Kazimierz Dolny.  It was such a small and cute town. It is the art center in Poland. Many painters come to this town to paint and sell their artwork. This town was partly destroyed in WWII. While we were there, we visited a synagogue which was interesting. It also snowed a lot and it was very cold. 

The wall of tombstones

After this, we went to our hotel and checked in. It was a small and cute hotel that was basically in the middle of nowhere. We settled in and then ate dinner. After eating dinner, we walked to another cemetery that was maybe 5 or 10 minutes away. It was kinda creepy since it was at night. When we got there, we walked up a hill and pretty much everyone fell because it was so steep and slippery because of the snow. The graves and tombstones were together and there was a wall of tombstones next to it. The tombstones on the wall were from people who died in the Holocaust. Behind the wall, the tombstones were scattered all over the hill and in the woods. It was very snowy and cold too. This was not really a legit cemetery, but it was very interesting.

Behind the wall

In front of the wall