History of the Holocaust - Vanier students visit Eastern Europe

Not all Spring Breaks are for sleeping or partying. For eleven students and one teacher from Vanier College, it was a chance to visit Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, and Prague when they travelled to Europe in mid-March to discover the History of the Holocaust. This was the first time any of the group visited Eastern Europe, and in addition to learning about the history of the Holocaust in the towns they visited, they also experienced the language, sampled the food, and explored the local culture.

Every day started with early morning wake up calls followed by a guided tour of a city until early afternoon. After the tour, it was time to seek out a restaurant and discover local food – preferably away from the tourist spots.

The Vanier group also toured museums and memorials at every location visited: the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Auschwitz (I) and Birkenau (Auschwitz II), St. Vitus Cathedral, Golden Lane, the Jewish Museum in Prague (including the Jewish cemetery in Prague), the Spanish Synagogue, and the Old-New Synagogue.

“It was appropriately miserable the day we visited Auschwitz – a driving rain, bitter cold and high winds,” indicates Mike Besner, the Vanier Mathematics teacher who accompanied the group, “and the visit to the concentration camps had a profound effect on the students.”

“We left Montreal as twelve individual people who knew each other peripherally at best,” he says, “but we came home as a cohesive group of twelve. One of my most lasting memories will be how, as the trip progressed, we became an increasingly closer knit group – making sure that whatever we did was as a group. We laughed until we cried. We supported each other in times of need. In short it was an incredible experience for everyone.”