Finding Hope in the Horror of the Holocaust: A Student Photo Essay
During my winter break this year, instead of heading to the beach or planning a road trip, I made a change and pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I joined 100 other college students on a Jewish heritage trip to Poland run by MEOR, a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring, educating and empowering Jewish students at top universities across the country.
As I prepared for the trip, I could only imagine what I was about to face and how much I would learn. With all of the recent hatred that’s been highlighted in the media these days, I was more than ready to gain some knowledge on the subject of hatred within humanity and to document a dark history of such hatred.
But I was also hoping to return from the trip with a sense of pride and love for humanity greater than I have ever felt before. And with that, I was determined to journey through history, seeing unbelievable things with my own eyes and through the lens of my camera, to prove that we, as people, still have it in us to steer away from such darkness.
What follows are my findings in words and pictures.
Within that awful place, surrounded by walls covered in scratches from those who clawed and begged for life, we cried for the millions of lives lost in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Upon leaving that building and wiping away my tears, I can honestly say that I have never been so grateful to see the light of day.
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Over the course of our trip, I learned so much about what happened in Poland not so long ago. And yet, after being here, after walking in the footsteps of those who faced such awful tragedy, after seeing unthinkable things and hearing stories directly from a survivor of these death camps, there is absolutely no way that I can understand why all of this had to happen.
Robbed of their possessions, stripped of their clothes and their dignity, humiliated before being brutally and mercilessly murdered, often times reduced to ashes or thrown in mass graves – Jews had to endure such horror because of certain beliefs, a certain faith and love for kindness and goodness in humanity. There is no understanding why this happened to so many innocent people.
However, what I do understand now more than ever is that through finding ‘hope in the horror, faith in the furnace, and life in the ludicrousness of the situation,’ the Jewish people have prevailed. We live to tell the tale.
And by not allowing the darkness to break their spirits or dilute their faith, our Jewish ancestors will forever instill me with a sense of pride and love for humanity.
Jeremy Berkowitz was born and raised in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. He is currently a Junior at Rutgers University, majoring in Journalism & Media Studies and minoring in Digital Communication, Information and Media (DCIM). An aspiring photojournalist, Jeremy attended – and documented – MEOR’s Jewish heritage trip to Poland this winter.