While much of the SMU community spends the holidays with friends and family, 10 faculty and staff members will visit six Polish death camps in which more than 3.5 million Jews and Russians were killed during World War II.
Rick Halperin, human rights professor, began touring death camps in Europe six years ago. He made videos of the camp sites to show his classes.
Much of the trip was organized “through word of mouth and people knowing that I have spent a great deal of time studying the Holocaust,” Halperin said.
The group will travel to Poland Dec. 21-29 for what Halperin says will be an unforgettable Christmas. Group members include Chaplain Will Finnin and Gail Ward, director of the Women’s Symposium.
“This trip was designed to allow people to have a different kind of Christmas holiday,” Halperin said. “It will be a somber and harsh reminder of how people were and are still treated.”
The six camp sites were chosen for their accessibility. Three of the six death camp sites, Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec, were destroyed by the Nazis after the killing was finished. Today, these three sites are memorials to the dead who lived in the forests of Poland. The other three camp sites, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenaw, have been maintained as facilities. Those who visit these sites are able to walk through the gas chambers and barracks and see the way in which prisoners lived.
“No matter how much you read or think that you know about this subject,” Halperin said, “you can not be prepared for the stark horror that you will see.”
Even after years of visiting these death camps, Halperin admits that he is hesitant to voice what part of the trip he thinks will have the greatest impact on the group.
Although Halperin gave the group books to read to gain a historical context for the trip, he is adamant that little can prepare one mentally or physically for what he will experience.
This trip is “taken in the dead of winter in Poland, and it will be a brand new visual and sensory experience for everyone,” Halperin said.
On Christmas day, the group will visit Majdanek in rural southeast Poland, the death camp that has most affected Halperin. Because it was not destroyed following the war, the group will see the personal effects of the prisoners who died there.
“You can walk through the gas chambers, you can see people’s luggage, their glasses and their hair,” Halperin said.
Most difficult to comprehend is a giant boulder of compressed ashes of the remains of people murdered at the camp.
The trip will not just be filled with horrors of World War II; the group will also visit the older cities of Krakow and Warsaw, and they will go to Mass on Christmas Eve.
Members of the group have been asked to keep a daily journal to remember the experience and work through some of the difficult emotions they will experience.
Halperin says Finnin has discussed turning people’s testimonials into a book. He hopes if the trip goes well, undergraduate students will be able to travel to Poland in the future.
“I know this in not a traditional way to spend the holiday, but these are the things that get to the heart of the holiday spirit, and will bring us closer to understanding the mind of man, the dignity of man and the true meaning of peace,” Halperin said.
