This morning we went to the concentration/extermination camp of Majdanek. As we were driving into the city, I noticed how urban it was. With the blink of the eye, I was shocked. I saw a building and then a huge concentration camp. At Majdanek, we learned that 300,000 people passed through and 78,000 died but I was hit the most the minute I entered the first barrack. The barrack was filled will thousands and thousands of shoes. Shoes of prisoners of all sizes. I recognized a familiar smell. It was a mixture of Plum Street Temple, and my summer camp; two places that I have happy memories. I don’t know if they both smelled the same because they are old but it was an extremely familiar smell. A smell that I feel comfortable with. Yet, here I was, in Poland, at a concentration camp where thousands died and it smelled like home. I was confused. I was taken aback. I walked around and saw a single shoe out of the 40,000. It was the size of my hand. Maybe even a little smaller. Instantly, the next image that crossed my mind was of the two little kids I babysit and their adorable smiles. But then I realized that their feet would fit into those shoes and maybe with some room to grow. I was angry and upset. Why were families torn apart, why were people tortured for doing nothing wrong, and why didn’t anybody do anything to stop them? We spent a lot of quiet time in there and when we moved on to the next barrack, I noticed an uncanny similarity between how it looked, and how a cabin at my summer camp looks. The same exact ceiling and smell. The only difference was that the bunkbed had three levels instead of two. I stood and looked and thought to myself, ‘why can a place that makes me so happy and proud of who I am, and where I have spent 8 summers also resemble a place of terror, hate, and awfulness?
-Sara Margolis
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