Preparing to Depart

We are sitting at the Lot Airlines gate at Chicago Ohare International airport, about to board our direct flight to Warsaw, Poland. Yesterday, many of us were called up to the Torah for an aliyah during services in Southfield. We received a blessing for our journey, and together prayed that our experience be meaningful and memorable.
As I walked around the shul during the Torah procession, members of the congregation extended well wishes for a safe return. Towards the end, an elderly woman took my hand and held on longer than usual. I knew she was a survivor, and that she had grown up in Poland. She told me to send them a message from her--that she is still here. She told me to "remind them of their atrocities in 1946," of a "brutal and barbaric" pogrom which she witnessed. They attacked Jews who had survived the camps, all of them having returned to their homes to begin their lives over again. She told me she attended 42 funerals in one day. She went to them all. "Remind them," she said. "Remind them what they did to us."
Over dinner tonight at the airport, someone asked me about the last time I visited Poland. I was 17 years old, I told her, and it changed my life forever. She asked, "What kind of an impact do you imagine this will have on us, who will see these places for the first time as adults?" I believe these experiences are life altering, regardless of when we have them. Only the sooner we see them, the sooner we can lead a life transformed.