EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten students who live in Newport Beach departed last week for a tour of Poland and Israel with Tarbut V'Torah Community Day School. Several of them promised to e-mail accounts of their trip to the Daily Pilot. Here are the first dispatches to come in.
Erica Shapiro, June 5
Today we arrived in Poland after a very long and exhausting flight. When we arrived the first thing we did was go to a Jewish cemetery. Located across from a site where I could hear construction noises, and see cars go by, the cemetery was a different world. A chilly wind met my face as I entered through the large black doors to the cemetery, and a gloomy site of uncountable graves met my eyes. There were numerous tombstones, cluttered together, barely any space between. The cemetery was a depressing sight to see, and it was hard to look at so many tombstones for people of all different ages. One memorial was to 1.5 million children who had died during the Holocaust. It was difficult to think about that many dying so early in their lives. I thought to myself, "What if those were my sisters?" and thought about all the young people I knew, my friends, cousins, sisters, and I could not imagine the pain that people of the people who were close to them went through. Visiting the cemetery affirmed the importance of life — a day, an hour, a minute and a loved one.
