The Sights They Saw

The thin trees that create a bizarre forest. The mixture of colors that swayed into each other creating a horizon. The off-green of the grass. The sky, in its infinite vastness, a symbol of what I'll never know about my family. The emotion at the border of Poland swamped something above me that I cannot comprehend. It missed my body.

I could not come to terms with my family's relationship with Poland, my familial historic return, and the proper sensitivity for the nation's residents, especially those who had nothing to do with why I live in the United States.

At times in my life I have dabbled with the possibility that I am Polish-American. Half of my grandparents were born and raised there. But I know that I'm not. The way the world defines its subjects, I'm Jewish. There have been times where I was American before being Jewish, but not in the States themselves.

I went to Poland wondering if it would feel like home. Did my family and I belong there? The answer I got in one short week was simple. Poland wasn't home. It was a foreign country. One in which I didn't belong.