Swanson School of Engineering

Yesterday we visited Terezín, the concentration camp. I knew this would be a very solemn day, but there were some parts that surprised me when they stood out to me the most. We’ve all grown up learning about the time of Nazi ruling, but this was my first time visiting a concentration camp so I wasn’t fully sure what to expect from the visit. We started at the gravesite which was already impactful, and then moved on to the quarters which was closest to what I was expecting, but what touched me the most was in the museum seeing the quarters where specifically the young girls would stay. The museum had a replica of what a room for young women would look like with their belongings all around, and this made me feel especially moved because of small similarities I could connect from their shared room to my shared dorm with my roommates. This connection was especially sobering as it made it easier to imagine myself in the extremely hard times they were enduring. They even had in the museum different magazines that the girls made for their quarters, and one group of girls that made their own flag for their friend group, which was really eye opening to how young and similar they were while having to go through this.