Submitted by Samantha Jennings the 2024 Spring program in Copenhagen, Denmark…
Week 13 of the DIS Copenhagen program is marked by the second long study tour–a week long field study with your core course. I am enrolled in the Holocaust and genocide history core course, so my week long tour was spent in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland. Poland was devastated by the effects of the Second World War and this is especially true of Warsaw, which was mostly destroyed and rebuilt in the era of communism following the end of the war. Krakow, on the other hand, remained relatively unscathed by the terrors of the war and still remains today the largest medieval town in Europe. While in Poland, I had the opportunity to visit the Chelmno nad Nerem extermination camp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. Although it was an intense emotional experience, the opportunity to visit these sites was truly unexplainable and unforgettable. Now that I have experienced these places with my own eyes, I am better prepared to speak about them and discuss them with my future students. When we were not engaged in academic visits such as these, my classmates and I were able to experience Polish culture firsthand. We sampled a selection of Eastern European wines, ate traditional Jewish food in the former Jewish ghetto, and learned more about archaeology and the medieval history of Krakow. I will forever be grateful to DIS and UD for allowing me the opportunity to study and explore more than I ever could have imagined around the world. (Submitted on April 19,2024)