Hello, and welcome to my page! My name is Elizabeth, also known as “The Holocaust Hodophile,” as I love to travel, and my mission has been to seek out and document as many former German Nazi Holocaust sites in Poland as I can; some well known and some lesser known. I’m reclaiming the HH! (Even before Kanye West made the song, “HH” was often used for “Heil Hitler” or “Heinrich Himmler.”)
Family History:
My family lived in Warsaw, Poland and my great-great grandparents came from Warsaw to New Jersey in 1905. As most families did before the Internet, my relatives living in Poland wrote letters to my family living in the United States. My relatives in Poland lived just outside of Warsaw, and they raised Arabian horses on a stud farm. In 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, or during the early 1940’s, my family in Poland sent a letter to my family in the US that read, “The Nazi’s came and took our horses today.” That was the last letter my family in America ever received from them. To this day, my family does not know what happened to them. They might have been shot on the spot, kept for slave labor and then killed, sent to a camp, or murdered some other way during the Nazi occupation. I found out about this in 2018 during my grandparent’s funeral in Poland, Ohio, when family from all over the country came together. This reignited my fervor to visit Poland even more, and look for records in the Polish archives.
Middle School:
I first learned about the Holocaust when I was in the 6th grade, so I was about 11 or 12 years old (as of June 2025, I am 40 years old). During that week we were introduced to the Holocaust, and we were shown the 1980’s movie “Escape from Sobibor.” After that, I was hooked. Obsessed. Fascinated by the Holocaust, and I knew one day I had to go to Poland and visit the camp(s) myself. Our teacher also gave us a yellow envelope full of papers and printed photos. We were each assigned a child, similar to our age, who was alive during the Holocaust. My girl was named Rivka, and she was from Prague. Each day of that week, we got to take more and more out of the envelope, and learn more about our child. At the end of the week we got to find out if our child died or survived the war. Rivka was killed by the Nazis. I remember this being so impactful to me at the time.
After this, knowing my interest, my grandparents would buy me big, coffee-table books about the Holocaust every Christmas. Both my father and grandfather were into history, and my dad actually worked as a historian, archeologist and curator at a museum when I was growing up, so it was kind of in my blood. I continued to read books on the subject, watched movies and researched the Holocaust as a hobby. I planned to be a Holocaust educator, or work in a Holocaust museum, once I graduated, but then my senior year of high school, I switched to Psychology. My desire to go to Poland, and study the Holocaust there, never left me, and in 2018 I started planning my month-long trip to Poland to visit Holocaust sites, which was supposed to happen in 2020.
The Journey Begins:
Between July 2021 (Thanks a lot, COVID!) and June 2025, I have spent almost 12 weeks in Poland visiting twenty camps and many, many, many Holocaust and WW2-related sites and memorials. Some easy to find, and some pretty hard to get to. Some famous places, and some barely known by even the people of Poland. This website is my adventure; my journey to become a living Witness, and then create other living Witnesses of the Holocaust.
“I believe firmly and profoundly that whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness, so those who hear us, those who read us must continue to bear witness for us. Until now, they’re doing it with us. At a certain point in time, they will do it for all of us.”
— Elie Wiesel (Holocaust Survivor)
Most people, especially in the United States, will never get to see Poland, or visit these sites that should never be forgotten. It’s impossible to forget something if you never knew it existed in the first place. This is where I come in. I don’t want these places, or their stories, to disappear. I don’t want the victims to become nameless and faceless; lost to history and time. This website is my strong desire to fight back against Holocaust deniers, and show everyone what can happen when we let prejudice and discrimination become stronger than love and respect. The Holocaust did not start with gas chambers; it started with hate.
Let’s go!
Love, HH
The Holocaust Hodophile 