Flying into Warsaw on July 5, Julie Klein knew her first-ever trip to Poland would be challenging emotionally.
The Fenwick social studies teacher has studied and taught about the Holocaust for many years, but for the first time, she would see many of the sites that defined the World War II era.
“I was flying on (Poland’s) LOT Airlines, so I was flying in with a lot of Polish nationals,” Klein said. “I was very nervous because I knew the content of the 10 days in front of me would be very heavy and emotional, but I was also very excited.
“I have studied this for so long and to actually be in these physical places with scholars and with people who are committed to Holocaust education like them, I knew it was going to be powerful.”
It was. Klein was one of 14 U.S. middle and high school teachers from across the country to participate in the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous 2026 European Study Program in Poland. They were accompanied by historian Robert Jan van Pelt, one of the world’s leading experts on the Holocaust.
She was there because she had earned an Alfred Lerner Fellowship, nominated by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie. In January, she participated in the foundation’s 2026 Advanced Seminar on Holocaust Education, held Jan. 17-18 in Newark, N.J.
But this would be different, much different. She would see where history – however devastating – was made, with names that have become infamous over time … Treblinka, Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Lopuchowo Forest and the former Warsaw Ghetto.
It was a carefully choreographed trip, she said. Stanlee Stahl, the executive vice president of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, gave each teacher a reporter’s notebook so they could record what they saw, and who they met.
On that first day, that included three of the Righteous, or people who had saved Jews during those years.
“We were in the presence of people who saved Jews and are in their 90s, who demonstrated the best of humanity. It was a powerful way to start the seminar. There were people who resisted this. It was almost like being in the presence of this otherworldly greatness,” she said.
Make no mistake, though. The places themselves and knowing what happened there decades ago was hard to process.
The most difficult day for Klein was the visit to Chelmno, a small village in the middle of lush Polish farmland. During the war, people who arrived at a single-track train station were forced to undress in the basement of a former mansion, before being taken to their deaths via vans.
“You walk right next to the foundation of the mansion and there is kind of a walking path and you’re walking basically the same path,” she said. “I was devastated. The magnitude and barbarity … how does a society get to this point?”
The presence of van Pelt brought much scholarship and context to the situation, especially with relation to the hope and resilience of prisoners, and their individual stories. In addition, there was a guide named Pawel, Klein said, “who wanted us to know there is no single story of the Holocaust. We have to maintain the humanity of the people. Otherwise, it becomes this monolith.”
In a similar vein, van Pelt emphasized the importance of teaching this history, which Klein said can overwhelm any teacher.
“The majority of people who are tasked with teaching the Holocaust often don’t have a deep understanding of it,” she said, “and if you’re not confident in what you’re teaching, it can be intimidating.
“What the JFR does is ensure they have the best professors and access so our knowledge is very intellectually based and evidence based. There isn’t any room for questioning the Holocaust. There is no margin for error there,” said Klein.
In other words, Klein’s goal is to make sure her Fenwick students don’t leave her classroom wondering if the Holocaust happened.
“My role is to build confidence in my students,” she said.