Not even Paris could make a 5:00 AM alarm pleasant, but thats how today started. We boarded our plane at Charles de Gaulle airport and 2 hours later we were meeting our guide/driver, V, for the first time. We traveled 100 km to Radom, the first of our destinations in Poland. It was here that we met Jakub, our resident Radom historian. Our first stop with Jakub was the site of the Radom synagogue, which was built in the mid 19th century, vandalized by the Nazi’s, destroyed in 1946, and created into a monument in 1950 by the stones that had survived demolition. We then traveled to the site of the Radom Ghetto and witnessed the building that the Wajsman family was forced into before meeting their demise. The next stop was the Bata Shoe Factory where several of our relatives were slave laborers, followed by a stop at the local Radom exhibition, The Trace, to remember the Jewish plight that took place in this city. Our final stop with Jakub was at the old Jewish cemetery, where until recently there were no headstones. After turning the cemetery into a more convenient place to murder and leave bodies, the Nazi’s stole all of the headstones and used them to build roads and other construction projects. It was not until recently that through road repairs and other public works, that headstones began resurfacing. Numerous groups including the Polish and Israeli Prison Systems and the 1000 Club UK created a symbolic graveyard with a number of recovered headstones placed in the ground and along the perimeter wall that they created. A monument was also constructed with granite headstones that were recovered from a local stone worker who was going to reuse them for other headstones. The toughest pill to swallow today was the clear attempt to eliminate any sign of Judaism in Radom, the home of the Wajsman blood line, under the regime of the Third Reich. We finished our day at a dinner of traditional Polish foods with V. The acknowledgement of this town’s history through Radomers like Jakub is how the legacy of this city will continue live on, so that history does not repeat itself.