The China Course reports:
Lijiang is by far everybody's most favorite place out of all the 6 places we've been and everybody just wishes we could have more time here. Many students have said this is the real China in their minds before they come to China. Even the four-side courtyard style hotel (Photo 1) makes it stand above all the other modern ones. In Lijiang, we've toured the Black Dragon Pool (photo 2) to see the mirror image of the beautiful Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the cleanest water we've seen in China, the Naxi Museum to learn the unique pictorial Dongba culture (photo3), the Yak Meadow to observe the 13 peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from different angles (photo4). During night, the students have enjoyed the singing competition and fire dance with the local people. Tomorrow, we'll leave Lijiang for Guilin to see the famous Tower Karst in the world. However, many students have said they'll come back in the future, even for their honeymoons.






The WWII Course reports:
On Thursday, we studied areas involved in the Holocaust in Krakow. We first looked at the Kazimierz neighborhood which was a center for Jewish life before the war. The first picture was taken at a site featured in the film Schindler’s List in the scene after the Jewish residents of the neighborhood have been forced to leave by the Nazis and the little girl comes down the steps and is hidden under them by her Polish friend. The second picture is from the Podgórze neighborhood, location of the Jewish ghetto. It shows the square where the Jews were brought to be registered during the closing of the ghetto, after which they were all transported to the Płaszów and Auschwitz concentration camps. After everyone had left, only the chairs where the Nazi registrars had sat were left, providing the model for the current memorial in the square. In the background is the famous Eagle Pharmacy. The third picture is taken in front of Oskar Schindler’s factory, a short distance away. To end the day, we met with a Righteous Among the Nations, a Polish woman recognized by the state of Israel for having risked her life to save Jews during the Holocaust. As a girl of 17, she and her family hid nine Jews under their house for the duration of the war. She told us of her experiences and explained that her father never hesitated when the opportunity to provide a hiding place for the first Jewish family arose, saying it was the only thing to do. On Friday, we’ll explore Auschwitz.









We spent a long day exploring the memorial and museum at the concentration camps at Auschwitz on Friday. The first picture shows us entering the first camp at Auschwitz (Auschwitz I) through the main gate with the infamous cynical slogan Arbeit Macht Frei (Work makes you free) where thousands of prisoners marched out as slave laborers daily. The second picture is also in Auschwitz I at Block 11, showing the Wall of Death where the Nazis executed thousand of prisoners, mostly Polish political prisoners and resistance fighters, by shooting. In the afternoon, we studied the Auschwitz II / Birkenau extermination camp, a short distance away. The third picture was taken in one of the wooden barracks in the quarantine camp which housed several hundred prisoners at a time to accustom them to the unquestioned obedience of camp life. The next picture shows the class on the railroad platform with the gate to the camp in the background. Here Nazi doctors met incoming transport trains and selected those prisoners whom they deemed fit for labor; those not selected were marched directly to the gas chambers at the end of the track. The final picture shows some of us in front of the remains of gas chamber and crematorium II, blown up by the Nazis days before the camp was liberated by the Russians. It was a long and challenging day for us.

Photos 7-11 Auschwitz