Team Xavier

by: Greg Reyes

We made it! After traveling for almost 24 hours and three flights later it feels great to have made it safely to the beautiful city of Kraków, Poland. Traveling for so many hours has allowed the team to get to know each other better as we strive to learn about the Holocaust and next week restore a Jewish cemetery. This evening we got the chance to visit the former Nazi German concentration camp “Płaszów.” Our tour guide told us that surprisingly not much has been done to preserve and mark the location except for a memorial that was placed in recent years which was standing strong on top of a hill as the sun was setting when we arrived. The memorial was beautiful and powerful to walk up to even with the colder temperature. The team had a chance to go to a Polish grocery store to get dinner and it was great as we were truly emerged into the culture and ate delicious bread, meats, and cheeses. Tomorrow, we have a full day ahead of us as we tour memorials in Kraków. I am honored to be a small part of a unique and influential team at Xavier University. For months, we have been known as Team Lithuania and Poland but now we are truly Team Xavier. I can’t wait to see what is in store for the next two weeks and the good that this amazing Xavier Team is going to share with the world for generations to come.