Auschwitz

So I have fallen a bit behind on the blogs, and there is a lot to fill you in on.  So instead of writing one really long blog that no one reads all the way through I am going to post multiple updates this week.
So update #1: Auschwitz.

Over Memorial day weekend we went on a trip to Poland to see the concentration camp Auschwitz. It was a gerat weekend.  There were times it was a lot of fun, there were other times it was very sobering and educational.  The fun times were hanging out w/ the stuednts and families who came along.  It was a lot of quality time w/ some great people.  Each night we would do discussion time and debriefing from the day. After that we would hang out and play games.

Auschwitz is an enormous camp, w/ two main sections. There are a lot of parts to it, but the best known are Auschwitz 1 and Birkenau.  We went to Auschwitz 1 one day and had a guided tour, and then to Birkenau the next day and went on our own.  A lot of people will do both in the same day and do a three hour tour total. I would not recommend that. It took us three hours to see Auschwitz 1. It is also a lot to digest and is very overwhelming, so splitting it up worked really well.  At Auschwitz 1 we talked a lot about Father Maximilian Kolbe, who is known as the saint of Auschwitz.  He was a priest put into the camp for speaking out against the Nazis. One day a prisoner was to be executed and he stepped forward to ask if he could take the mans place.  The SS agreed and put him in a room to starve him to death w/ other prisoners. Throughout the next two weeks Father Kolbe led prayer and singing while slowly starving to death. After two weeks he was still alive, and needing the room to punish other prisoners, they gave him a lethal injection. To be at a place, see where he stood, where he was punished and died for such a selfless act, to learn about something so amazing in such a horrendous place was awe inspiring.  In the midst of one of the most evil events in the history of the world God used someone to inspire and give hope.  

It was an experience I will not ever forget. It was also great to be able to share it with students, to be able to discuss it with them and see how they reacted to things we were learning. 

Ok, enough for now. In the next few days I will post about end of the school year, leading a pep assembly at the middle school, and what is coming up in the near future.