flight and day one

At JFK around 1 pm eastern time on the third of April , we meet in our bus groups (that for me included 2 staff members and a holocaust survivior) for a "orientation" . As well we got our "bus" hats ,windbreakers, and a March of the living backpack

the plane ride from New York to poland was approximately 7 and a half hours and was full of kids sleeping and gossiping while all of the adults and some of the staff were upstairs in first class enjoying luxury while we were all in coach

My friend asked me to ask the flight attended what El Al meant in Hebrew and the flight attendant told me and my friend that el al means up to , up yours . Which relates to the fact that it is

After a long flight and a 3 hour drive from the airport to Trablinka - a death camp that killed jews from over 17,000 different villages including warsaw,For me I was not surprised to see there was no remains left but, only memorials that commemorated the uprisings of Triblinkans and all those who perished.It was also hard to see everything since there was 2 feet of snow.

There were groups of israeli soldiers and the israeli police forces that were doing there own tours at the same time.But showed very little respect to us knowing that we were american jewish teens learning about the holocaust. As all of the groups had to share a narrow walkway, we were being asked questions by them as well as being talked about in a negative connotation,which kinda goes back to the stereotypes that americans are not jewish enough,rude and extremely loud. Though they did participate in singing and some prayers when we had mini opening ceremony I was shocked by there behavior.

Later,during the night my bus group had a debriefing on what we saw during the day and how to understand what we has seen trablinka and how that something that what some call "beautiful" had a devastating past.