Dr. Rick Halperin will lead a group of 23 people to Poland this winter break to experience history first-hand. 

Winters in Poland consist of sub-zero temperatures, horrific weather and limited hours of daylight, unfavorable conditions that a person would normally steer away from, especially on their holiday break, but not Halperin.

A product of his mother’s upbringing, Halperin came to believe in the idea that all people need to be treated with manners and respect, while simultaneously rejecting violence, and working toward a better world. 

“The world we all think we want – with no violence, no terrorism, no rape – it just doesn’t happen,” said Halperin, director of SMU’s human rights education program.  “It takes education, it takes action and it takes a deep commitment to continually work for a better world.”

Interested in the modern human rights movement, which began after World War II, Halperin thought it was important to pay his respects and visit the places affected by the Holocaust in order to come to grips with what had happened.

Halperin started taking SMU students to Poland over winter break in 1996 as a way to share what happened to the innocent people of the Holocaust and educate students about how they can help in today’s world. He has gone every year since then and will return this winter from Dec. 18 to Dec. 30.

“Most people in this country don’t think about World War II. It is in the past. It was the good war—we stopped Hitler, we won and we got off with being the good country and the rich country,” Halperin said. “It’s just a dramatic oversimplification. The effects of the Holocaust live on for you and me, whether we recognize it or not and whether we think about it or not.”

Halperin traveled to Poland for the first time in the spring of 1983 when the weather conditions were not representative of the harsh situations the area endured 70 years ago.

“It was just too pretty,” Halperin said. “Birds were chirping, grass was green and trees were in bloom. I went again in the fall of 1984, and it was pretty much the same.”

Returning in the winter of 1985, Halperin experienced the severe conditions and decided that this was the time of year to share Poland with others.

“It’s an a-typical kind of way to spend one’s December holiday break. To be in death camps and to be in places where the unimaginable occurred,” Halperin said. “Every year, it’s a transformative experience for anyone who goes.”

Growing from four students in 1996, this year a group of 23 — made up of 18 students, three faculty members from the human rights office and two adults from out of Dallas — will spend 12 days traveling around the entire country, visiting a variety of sites and meeting Holocaust survivors.

“I don’t think there are many people who get this kind of opportunity – to bear witness to a tragedy that has significantly shaped our history, politics and global identities,” senior Stephanie Sawyer said. 

The group will start their journey in Gdansk, stopping in over 12 cities, including Warsaw, Sobibor, Lublin, Majdanek, Krakow and Wroclaw. They will travel by bus and train to visit different cemeteries, museums, churches, synagogues and camps.   

About 11 million people died in concentration camps in Europe, but Poland is the only European country where camps existed for the sole purpose of extermination.

According to the Holocaust Memorial Center, over three million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were located in Poland.  Of the three million deaths, about one and half million took place in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

“The world is shaped today because of what happened in those 12 years, from 1933 to 1945.  As a human rights educator, it’s just not acceptable to me to hear people say, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care’,” Halperin said. 

Sawyer hopes the trip will help her gain a better understanding of what millions of people endured during the Holocaust. She plans on sharing her experience with others in order to help keep survivors alive through memories.

“This [trip] is designed to educate people who want to know what happened and learn what they can do in today’s world. The time for the ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t care’ mentality is over,” Halperin said.

Freshman Melissa Maguire is looking forward to experiencing history first-hand.

“I’m feeling rather inspired by the fact that I’m going to be walking through the gates of places that most people didn’t walk out of,” Maguire said.

Maguire, one of the eight undergraduate students going on the trip, wanted to have a meaningful winter vacation and signed up for the Poland trip after attending an interest meeting.

“It’s not a conventional break,” Maguire said.  “I don’t think anything about it is conventional, but it just seemed right for me. It seems like a humbling experience, and it seems like an educational experience. I think it’s going to hit home pretty hard.”

Although it is not the usual way to spend one’s winter break, Halperin is confident that people who attend will have a better understanding of how fortunate people in this country are and how trivial everyday complaints are when compared to what other people had to endure then.

“People may only go once. But once you’ve gone, whatever you do for the rest of your life in a December – whether you are with your family or friends – your mind will remember the one winter you went to these pretty grim places and tried to come to grips with what happened 70 years ago,” Halperin said.

SMU’s Embrey Human Rights Program is one of 19 undergraduate programs in the U.S.  It strives to educate students and members of the community to understand, promote and defend human rights.

For more information on the Embrey Human Rights Program, the winter holiday trip to Poland or other travel opportunities, visit www.smu.edu/humanrights