A group of 26 Old Rochester Regional Junior High School students spent their spring break visiting Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow in the school’s first trip abroad. On Monday night, the students got together to show off what they learned on their trip.

While the trip was mainly Holocaust-related, students also picked another area to study while they were abroad. The topics ranged from architecture to the environment to the feelings of the German armed forces.

Emma Vivino was one of the students who chose to focus on the environmental aspects of the countries the group visited.

Vivino noticed that many more people abroad used bikes to get around, there were more electric cars, more examples of governments switching to sustainable energy, as well as buildings designed to bring in more natural light to use less electricity.

“I felt like the environment was so much cleaner,” she said.

Emma Carroll and Tessa DeMaggio focused on architecture, and noticed the difference between American buildings and European buildings.

“The buildings were closer together, narrower and taller,” Carroll said.

“And there were more details,” DeMaggio added.

Carroll said she wasn’t surprised to find the buildings were so ancient, and even though she loved the architecture in all the cities, she especially liked Berlin because of its more modern feel.

Brian Palker decided to learn about the German military, particularly to find out if Germans still consider serving in the military due to its actions in World War II. He found that though it has improved a bit in recent years, there is still a stigma to joining the military in Germany.

“Pre-2006 soldiers got attacked when they were out wearing their uniforms,” Palker said. “People who joined the military were thought to have racist views and not be able to get another kind of job.”

He added that he was surprised to find that was the case, but “ once you got there, you could automatically tell that.”

Palker said his favorite part of the trip was getting to go to countries that are so much older than the United States.

“They have thousands of years of history,” he said. “And it effects their day-to-day lives.”

Allison Ward shared what she wrote about visiting Auschwitz at the presentation.

The reflection, called “Walking Among the Living Dead,” was about her emotional experience of exploring the deadliest concentration camp in World War II.

“Over one million people walked these paths to their deaths,” she said. “It was mournful…I felt that mourning in a deep way.”

She also spoke about the different exhibits she saw inside the concentration camp, including the shoes and hairs still remaining from the victims.

“I was so much aware of that I was alive,” Ward said.