I haven’t posted more Auschwitz stories lately, so with news being slow, today is a great day to print more. These young scholars experienced what most of us never will. History through their eyes is worth hearing. I hope you read and share their stories.
Find out more about the McLean County Diversity Project here: http://mcleancountydiversity.org/
Meanwhile, I’m working on many things I’m not ready to talk about yet. Stay tuned.
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Over the summer I got a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel to Auschwitz with a Holocaust and Auschwitz survivor, Eva Kor.
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She led us through the stories of her life and gave us the chance to see through the eyes of someone who actually experienced life in Auschwitz, rather than just reading it in textbooks.
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I remember when we went to Auschwitz and we walked through the buildings as Eva told us stories of how she was experimented on as a twin during the Holocaust. She told us about how the experimenters would inject her with different substances. She doesn’t know what the substances were to this day.
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It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there were people in this world who were willing to treat others as if they weren’t living, human beings.
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It was hard for me to understand how people could do such horrible things, yet Eva found a way to let go of all of the pain that was brought to her and her family.
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Eva Kor forgave.
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She told us that she could never be able to fully live her life freely until she let go of the pain from the past, and her method of doing that was forgiving.
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She wasn’t telling us that what happened to her was okay. She did this so that she wouldn’t have to carry that anger with her for the rest of her life.
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Instead of using her stories to keep reminding people of everything terrible that happened, she uses stories to inform people of the events that took place.
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I think that what Eva taught us is an important lesson and I will carry it with me for the rest of my life.
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She taught me to not hold on to the bad things in life that will impact my life in negative ways. I don’t want to spend time and energy being angry or being sad, when we have so many better things to look forward to.
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My experiences in Auschwitz enabled me to look at life in a whole new way – especially to not take things that I have for granted.
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This trip has not only inspired me because of how strong Eva is to have survived Auschwitz at such a young age but also because it taught me to not let a day go by without living to the fullest and appreciating every moment that I have.
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– Olivia, Veteran Scholar
McLean County Diversity Project
I would encourage readers to explore the modern day lives of the people of Palestine.
There lives would improve if kids weren’t taught to kill Jews
Again, I would encourage readers to explore the truth of the modern day lives of the people of Palestine of which you too could benefit Diane. As much as I love what you do with your site concerning local politics, your comment leaves much to be questioned as per the reality.
Palestinians are immaterial to this story. I saw the tunnels they built to blow up Israel. I saw the daily bombings stopped in Israel when they built a wall. I saw the Palestinians refuse to settle when they got everything Arafat wanted. I saw the terrorists hide themselves in the general population to attack Israel so they could hide behind kids. Give me a break. Their problems were brought on by their leadership – the ones they voted for.
I remember when jews were called Palestinians. Arafat, the Egyptian born terrorist, hijacked that word, and used it for the nomadic arabs of the area and Jordanians thrown out of Jordan by the King. He unified them under his PLO, which later morphed into the PLA. Thee times these people have turned down substanstial offers of land. They don’t want a two state region. Instead, they want every jew dead. They bring all their :suffering: upon themselves”.
Venture to take a look at the map of Palestine from the mid-1940’s. Learn the history of Palestinian land and how Israel took it over and continues to do so. Explore. Learn. I’ll leave it there with no more comment.