Nineteen students from OUWB, along with school officials leading the Study Trip to Auschwitz, pause for a picture on June 14, 2022, at the gates of the entrance to the Oskar Schindler Factory in Krakow, Poland.

For the students on the OUWB Study Trip to Auschwitz, there was just about enough time to drop luggage at the hotel in Krakow, Poland, before setting out for the first tours of the week. 

The day largely was about helping students understand the rich heritage of Jewish people in Poland, and in Krakow specifically. 

"It's nice to start with a tour of Krakow that's especially focused on what pre-war Jewish life was like," said Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and co-director of OUWB's Holocaust and Medicine program. 

"It sets the context for just how much was wiped out and how much devastation the Holocaust represents," he said. 

In short, the students' first day in Poland set the stage for the brunt of the week, which will center on time spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Among other things, students will tour the grounds and critically reflect on the camp's implications for one’s own personal and professional development within the medical profession.

Local tour guide, Aleksandra Kowalczyk, led students through Krakow's Jewish Quarter, helping them understand the rich cultural heritage as they explored historic sites. (See map below for more detail on sites visited.)

One of the first stops was Remuh Synagogue (Synagoga Remuh). A small Renaissance synagogue (circa 1557), it is named after the famous writer and philosopher Moses Isserles (aka Rabbi Remu'h) and still holds regular services for the small Jewish community in the city.

Students also visited the adjacent Remah Cemetery, sometimes called The Old Jewish Cemetery of Krakow. Established in the years 1535–1551, and one of the oldest existing Jewish cemeteries in Poland.

The last stop of the day was a tour at the Oskar Schindler Factory, which houses a permanent exhibition entitled "Kraków under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945." It showcases both individual and collective dimensions of the monstrosities World War II brought upon Polish citizens who were fed Nazi propaganda, the Jews who were forced to live in a ghetto, and the victims of the war terror. 

Duane Mezwa, M.D., Stephan Sharf Dean, OUWB, called the day "perfect."

"Everyone is getting the background of what happened here leading up to the Holocaust," he said. "Instead of going straight to Auschwitz and diving right in, this is really a great start."

Lidia Maksymowicz, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, shows OUWB medical students the tattoo she received as a 3-year-old prisoner at Auschwitz.

On Wednesday, an 82-year-old Polish woman helped 19 OUWB students further understand the harsh realities of the Holocaust — and that the future physicians can play a big role in making sure it never happens again.

Lidia Maksymowicz shared her harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust as part of the students’ visit to Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow.

The museum visit and appearance by Maksymowicz kicked off the second day of the trip dedicated to preparing students for the rest of the week, which will be spent touring and studying Auschwitz as part of OUWB’s Holocaust and medicine program.

Students also visited several other sites significant to Polish heritage — the Eagle Pharmacy, Ghetto Heroes Square, the main square of the Old Town of Krakow, Jagiellonian University Museum Collegium Maius, and Wawel Cathedral.

“Everything’s been a ramp up to the study that will be done at Auschwitz,” said Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and co-director of OUWB's Holocaust and Medicine program.

Specifically, he said “a little bit about Jewish history in Poland, and Polish history.”

“The first two days have set the stage for the central experience (of the study trip to Auschwitz),” he said.

Hedy Wald, Ph.D., clinical professor of Family Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and co-director of OUWB’s Holocaust and Medicine program, echoed Wasserman’s thoughts.

“Students have mentioned that they are grateful for this time in Krakow because it’s preparing them emotionally (for Auschwitz) …I’m struck by that,” she said.

For many, the most emotional part of the day was hearing Maksymowicz recount her story of being taken to Auschwitz as a 3-year-old.

Through an interpreter, Maksymowicz explained in great detail what it she remembered: being snuck food by her mother; bunks crawling with insects; dirty blankets; overcrowding; and death all around her.

She recalled just the day before, June 14, when she attended an event at Auschwitz to remember the anniversary of the first transport of Poles to Auschwitz.

“I spoke to other prisoners who survived and…it’s like you never the camp and the camp is still inside of us,” she said.

Maksymowicz told the future physicians that she shares her story with younger people like them whenever possible.

“It’s my mission to tell my story…about Auschwitz and about World War II,” she said, noting the responsibilities of today’s younger generation to not let history repeat.

“The world is in your hands,” she said.

Later in the evening, after a traditional Polish meal that saw costumed Polish dancers, singers, and musicians entertain everyone, those on the OUWB Study Trip to Auschwitz boarded a bus and made a 90-minute trek to the Center for Dialogue and Prayer.

The center is a 10-minute walk from Auschwitz.

That’s where the third day of the study trip will begin.

Several OUWB medical students and Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, pass through the main gate of Auschwitz 1 on June 16, 2022.

Visiting the former concentration camp known as Auschwitz 1 clearly had a big impact on the contingency from OUWB in Poland this week as part of the school’s Holocaust and medicine program.

The group spent several hours at the former concentration camp known as Auschwitz 1. Among other things, the tour provided a new view of the atrocities that happened along with insight into the resiliency of those who survived.

Also on the third day of OUWB’s Study Trip to Auschwitz, participants heard a lecture entitled “Medicine in Auschwitz” that was presented by Teresa Wontor-Cinchy, Ph.D., from the Auschwitz Department Research Center.

The day wrapped for the group with a reflective writing session that opened the door for students and administrators to openly discuss how the visit to Auschwitz 1 earlier in the day impacted them.

Hedy Wald, Ph.D., led the session that essentially centered on two topics: what students took away from the visit to Auschwitz 1; and how they think “healers become killers.”

“What struck me the most…was the area with the pictures of faces (of prisoners), and not just children but the adults as well…and seeing the fear in their eyes,” said one student (identities aren’t being disclosed for this update because comments were made in a private session.)

Another student said she was impacted by a film-based exhibition that showed Jewish children and their families happily playing before World War II.

“It made me think more deeply about how much they tried to dehumanize them…shaving everyone’s hair and putting them in the prison uniforms,” she said. “It just…retrospectively hit me when I saw the humanity that was taken from them.”

Another student said the visit prompted him to realized “just how morally flawed you have to be to know exactly how bad your doing (to other people), but you’re still going to do it anyway.”

Seeing part of an exhibit that had hundreds of shoes from children who were taken to Auschwitz displayed “a different level of evil,” said another student.

As part of a reflective writing exercise, students and other OUWB officials were asked to briefly write about “how healers become killers.”

One student pointed to a lack of empathy in people who make such choices.

“You have to have empathy to be able to relate to someone…if you don’t identify with someone who is dissimilar to you, you can’t empathize with them,” he said.

The group also discussed several other angles of the question, including the aspect of choice and moral courage and grounding, as well as the differences between those who helped people who were suffering and those who caused it.

One student also brought up the importance of “learning how to love and accept that people are different because the natural human tendencies is to care for and be more empathetic towards people who are like themselves…it’s a survival instinct.”

She added that “compassion is completely teachable…on every level.”

Teresa Wontor-Cinchy, Ph.D., from the Auschwitz Department Research Center, led a tour of Auschwitz I, Block 10 -- a cellblock that is normally closed to the public.

Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine students studying the Holocaust and medicine continued their in-depth work in Poland on Friday.

The 19 students spent about five hours exploring the massive Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp — a day after spending about the same amount of time at the camp known as Auschwitz I.

From the Death Gate rail entrance to the ruins of crematoriums and more, students took an in-depth look at the largest of the more than 40 camps and sub-camps that made up the Auschwitz complex.

It opened as a branch of Auschwitz in March 1942. About 1.5 million people were killed at the camp. More than nine in 10 were Jews.

Throughout the week, including at Auschwitz-Birkenau, students read testimonials at selected tour stops. Testimonials ranged from Jewish ghetto physicians involved in the Jewish medical resistance and victims of Nazi medical experiments to Nazi physicians. 

Hedy Wald, Ph.D.,clinical professor of Family Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and co-director of OUWB’s Holocaust and Medicine program, said the testimonials are a key component of teaching about the Holocaust. She said they serve as a kind of springboard for grappling with core questions of being/becoming a physician and being a human being.

At one of the tour stops at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Wald shared the story of how her father survived the camp -- and was housed at the same exact spot of the reading. Several students were in tears.

"I was struck by how many students thanked me for sharing the story of my father's suffering in Auschwitz-Birkenau and the murder of his entire family in Auschwitz and Treblinka," she said. "It is a story that includes selections at the unloading ramp, done mostly by SS physicians, for forced hard labor, experimentation, or immediate death in the gas chamber. And it is a remarkable story of survival and resilience. I told them he would be so proud of all of them."

It was the kind of experience that had students like Quinn Simpson thinking deeply about their visits to the camps.

“I’m blown away that people were able to do something like this on this level,” he said. “(Auschwitz-Birkenau) was just massive…the same thing as Auschwitz I just on an astronomically larger scale.”

Concurrently, Simpson said he felt “encouraged” by the stories of doctors and nurses who risked their own lives to help others.

“It was really encouraging…even if there was a solid chance of death, they were still able to rise above that,” he said. “Even in arguably humanity’s darkest hour, people were still able to stand up to such an industrialized organization of hate and still show their morals and ethics.”

Later on Friday, the students returned to Auschwitz I to visit Block 10.

Normally closed to the public, the students were given special access to the cellblock where mostly women were used as experimental subjects for German doctors. Experiments ranged from testing bodily reactions to various substances to sterilization.

Teresa Wontor-Cinchy, Ph.D., from the Auschwitz Department Research Center, led the tour. She said it’s important for people — especially future physicians — to learn from the past, especially as we see an increase in the number of factors similar to what led up to the Holocaust.

“The issues are still contemporary, they are still important,” she said. “We still have so much crime, we still have war, and we still have people in need.”

(From left) Joanna Wasvary, Skylar Sundquist, and Kristin Sarsfield look at part of the exhibit in the Aushwitz I pavilion dedicated to France.

Saturday represented a pivot for the OUWB medical students studying the Holocaust and medicine in Poland this week.

Specifically, a pivot toward reflection on what students have seen while visiting Krakow, Auschwitz I, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, what it means to them, and eventually, how they can deliver the messages to others who might learn similarly.

The day started with a lecture from Pietr Setkiewicz, Ph.D., director of the Centre for Research at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, on the topic of the euthanasia campaign for patients of the Auschwitz hospital and the role of Auschwitz doctors. It was held at the Auschwitz Education Center, which is located on the other side of the Auschwitz I wall.

The next event for students was discussion of contemporary relevance with regard to what they have been seeing and learning this week.

The day concluded with the second reflection writing session of the week. Students were asked to reflect on the stories of resistance and resilience that they’ve heard throughout the week and describe how it resonated and/or inspired them.

Doing these types of activities in the later part of the trip is by design, said Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and co-director of OUWB's Holocaust and Medicine program.

“The reflection stuff is back-loaded and the experiential stuff is front-loaded and that’s on purpose,” said Wasserman. “We want students to have the prep work, the immersive experience of being in the camps, and then the heavy reflection.”

Wasserman said that the students are doing “really good…they have had some really nice observations.”

“More importantly, I think that they’re struggling with the right questions and they seem to really be thinking about this,” he said. “Students have been coming up to me while we’re walking and been saying, ‘You know I’ve been thinking about this…I’ve been thinking about that…or this really struck me.'”

David Grey, M.D., a Beaumont ophthalmologist and assistant professor, Department of Ophthalmology, OUWB, is a donor for the trip and also taking part. He said hearing what students are thinking about shows him that the trip is worth the time and money being put into it.

“The thoughts that are coming out, the things that they’re saying, and the ideas that they’re wrestling with…I’m so impressed,” he said. “We’re happy to have a small part of this.”

Also on Saturday, and for the last time during the trip, the OUWB contingency visited part of Auschwitz I. They were able to explore cellblocks that have been converted into special exhibits honoring those from countries particularly impacted by the Nazi genocide: Israel, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and others.

On June 19, 2022, students toured Oswiecim, the town located near the Auschwitz concentration camps.

“We’re all going to be better doctors because of having had this experience.”

So said one of the 19 students from OUWB who have been in Poland this week as part of the school’s Holocaust and Medicine program.

The statement came during the week’s final reflective writing session, during which students were essentially asked to reflect on and discuss “echoes of the Holocaust” in contemporary medical practice.

Students generally commented on the need to be aware of differences, the importance of patience, respecting the power that physicians possess, treating others with respect, and more.

As the session came to a close and everyone was looking ahead to what comes next, advice was given by Hedy Wald, Ph.D., clinical professor of Family Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and co-director of OUWB’s Holocaust and Medicine program,

“I’ve said this to many of you on this trip…stay open to transformative opportunities in your career…in your life,” she said. “You just will never believe the things that will happen. Don’t walk through the door…run through the door.”

Wald thanked supporters like Oakland University President Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D.,; David Grey, M.D., a Beaumont ophthalmologist and assistant professor, Department of Ophthalmology, OUWB, who took part in the trip; and the many other donors who made it possible.

Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and co-director of OUWB's Holocaust and Medicine program, thanked Duane Mezwa, M.D., Stephan Sharf Dean, OUWB.

“This doesn’t happen without Dean Mezwa’s leadership,” he said.

Mezwa gave credit to the students for their commitment to the program.

“You are the right people to be in our school. You are the right people to be OUWB grads,” he said. “I’m extremely proud of you. Whether you know it or not, I learned a lot and it’s going to help me be a better leader.”

The reflective writing session wasn’t the day’s only activity.

In the afternoon, students toured Oswiecim, the town located near the Auschwitz concentration camps. Through a tour provided by the Auschwitz Jewish Center, they learned about the history of Jewish people in the community and the impact of the Holocaust.

The day began with a workshop for the students to discuss the various projects that will come from OUWB’s Study Trip to Auschwitz. Krzysztof Antonczyk, Ph.D., director of Auschwitz’s digital repository, led the session.

Of note, the workshop was held in the Auschwitz Study Center, which is adjacent to Auschwitz I concentration camp. Center officials said the OUWB workshop was the first time anyone had used the center’s new library in such a manner. The building has a long history, and once was used to store Zyklon B, the toxic gas used by Nazis to kill people in gas chambers.

Wald said she was encouraged by what students are thinking about for projects. Specifically, she said, with regard to people the students have learned about who stood up to the Nazi regime, one way or another.

“Students are talking about how it impacted them, why these people did these things, how they found their voices, how they found their moral courage,” she said. “I can’t imagine that there’s any way that this is not going to help somebody in the future.”