✍🏾 Witness: Tracing Memory Across Europe

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A Holocaust Study Abroad Journey — Blog Series Intro

There are some things you can only learn by going.
Not by reading. Not by watching. Not even by listening.
You have to stand where it happened. Breathe the air. Hear the silence.

This past spring, I traveled across Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic as part of a Holocaust-focused study abroad program. What I experienced was more than history — it was human. It was haunting. It was healing. And it changed me.

This blog series is my attempt to process all of it.
The sorrow. The beauty. The rage. The resilience.
It’s part travel journal, part reflection, part truth-telling from the perspective of a Black American woman trying to make sense of a world that still hasn’t learned.

You’ll see moments that broke me. Quotes that stuck with me. Stories that should never be forgotten. And how visiting Holocaust sites forced me to think not just about then, but now — about racism, memory, identity, and silence.

This isn’t just about the past.
It’s about how history echoes — in language, in law, in culture, in the way people look at you on the street.

Over the next few posts, I’ll walk you through:
      •     🇩🇪 Berlin, Germany: From Checkpoint Charlie to Sachsenhausen to MLK’s unexpected visit to East Berlin.
      •     🇵🇱 Poland: The ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. Auschwitz-Birkenau. Resistance and remembrance.
      •     🇨🇿 Prague, Czech Republic: A city of fairy tales and forgotten truths.

This isn’t about being polished — it’s about being honest.
So welcome to my messy, thoughtful, heavy-hearted journey.

And if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this series, it’s this:

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana

Let’s remember together. 🕯️

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