Reunited

There are days in our lives that we seem to never forget.  On the morning of my eighteenth birthday last March, I witnessed something that changed the way I looked at the world forever.  Majdanek was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life.  That day I had never felt so hopeless, all I wanted to do was go back in time and save those innocent people, but the reality was that I couldn't.

Here I was yet again on that Mercedes Benz bus reflecting in my journal.  When the bus drove away from Majdanek so much guilt fell upon me.  Here I was turning eighteen.  I had so much to live for, yet half of those people didn't even make it past eighteen.  It was a hard concept to fully comprehend.

We started our day at a concentration camp and now we were on our way to finally stay with our Polish students.  Can you even imagine that transition?  One minute ash is blowing in your eyes from the victims at the memorial and the next you are with your student and their family.  The jet lag was long gone at this point.  I think everyone including myself was emotionally drained, but we had to stay awake because in less than five hours we would be living in the most beautiful city in Poland.

The Polish countryside was absolutely flawless.  The fields were so green and lush.  A few of my classmates were practicing their Polish throughout our five-hour journey.  After all, we would be staying with a Polish family for a full week.  We were on this trip to learn about the Holocaust and explore European culture and we were doing just that.  The conflict was that none of us knew how to speak Polish.  We only spoke a few words here and there.  The students we were staying with spoke stellar English, their parents, did not.

In the spring of my junior year, Kasia came to my home in New Jersey.  Now it was the following spring and we were about an hour away from her city, Krakow, Poland.  I wasn't going to lie, I was a little nervous.  What if her parents didn't like me?  What if I have to eat duck for a straight week? Will I be able to eat perogies?  If they ask about the concentration camps, what do I even say?  Will they have an actual shower or will I be bathing in a lovely bathtub again?  What if her parents don't understand a word I say, will it be awkward?  I wonder what the Polish teachers will think of us?  I was so overwhelmed that I ended up falling sleep. What better way to deal with stress, than sleeping? I must have slept for about an hour because when I opened my eyes, there we were in front of  VLiceum Ogolnksztalcape , the top Polish high school in Krakow.  This just happened to be the school that our students attended.

Everyone pushed their way off the bus and into a crowd of Polish students and parents.  I looked like a lost puppy at that moment.  I couldn't seem to find Kasia.  Then I heard someone in a Polish accent scream, "Shan".  I had never hugged someone so tight in my life.  After a week of exploring Europe, it was so nice to see a familiar face.  Once again I was crying, but this time it was tears of happiness. Not many people get to say that they turned eighteen in Europe with their European best friend, but I did.