Power of Place: 2026 European Summer Institute for Holocaust Educators is an experiential professional development for teachers where learning unfolds as they tour historical sites across Europe in order to transform their understanding of the Holocaust, WWII, antisemitism, and Jewish life today. Power of Place is planned and co-led by Humanus Network on behalf of JCRC and generously supported by the Minnesota Vikings, the Tankenoff Families Foundation, Allianz of America Corporation and MINNE (Minnesota Norway Education Israel & Holocaust Fellowship).

by Lindsay Nazarenus, Pomona Junior/Senior High School (Arvada, Colorado) | July 6, 2026

Biology has taught us that trees communicate with each other. Through intricate underground root systems trees can warn each other about danger, fire and even impending destruction. This makes me wonder what the massive trees of the Ponary forest witnessed. Could they have warned the innocent Jewish lives that were to be snuffed out by the Nazis and their collaborators? Did they cast shadows to hide as the few survivors planned their escape? A lone bird cries out to no answer. Maybe that’s the point of this place.

The paradoxical beauty of this forest is difficult to explain. Ponary is impossibly beautiful. Sunlight creeps through layered branches. Wildflowers push through the soil above the deep pits scarred into the land. The air smells of pine and warm earth. 

Nothing in the landscape prepares you for what it remembers.

The Ponary forest in Lithuania was a killing site of 75,000 human beings. The vast majority were members of the Jewish community from the Vilna Ghetto. Fueled by lies of resettlement, thousands marched through the desolate forest not knowing the sheer horror that awaited them. They were brought there not simply to die, but to disappear from history. Perhaps it’s their souls that have returned to this place to make this ground beautiful again.

Walking through this forest, the realization came easily. Landscapes are primary sources. How can we as educators help students understand that nature can also tell historical stories – utilizing the power of place to explain not just presence but also absence? Grass, trees, flowers, moss and stone all work to help us gain a collective understanding of history.

Forests have always generated a sense of awe within me. They reflect the sacred and mysterious parts of the world. The woods are often where I go to reconcile my own grief and lay down troubles too heavy to carry. Yet how do we make sense of places where nature heals and history wounds? How do we handle emotionally contaminated spaces? Living in the American West, there is so much to consider.

Sitting on a bench in Ponary, a young couple laughs and children careen on scooters down forsaken paths that connect grass covered burial pits. Do they know what happened here? What is this place to them? I found myself wondering not whether they cared, but how any community learns to live beside this unbearable history. Daily life insists on moving forward. Yet memory asks us to stop. I wonder how many walk home through neighborhoods once filled with Jewish voices; artists, teachers, merchants, and children. How does a city carry so much absence and still become home? How does remembrance coexist with ordinary life? I left Ponary without any answers. The bird was still calling out from somewhere beyond the branches. Perhaps the trees had been telling their story all along.