March Of The Living
They say that when you listen to a witness, you become a witness too.
March of the Living International is a Jewish educational program that takes Jewish students to Poland to learn about the Holocaust from those who lived through it.
“The Jewish people have been slaughtered, have been in the chambers, have been gassed," said Max Webb, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor. "[These students] are going to see it,”
Webb was honored by March of the Living at a ceremony in a Beverly Hills hotel, the same ceremony where the group of Los Angeles who will be participating in this year’s march were formally presented.
“I feel like the trip to Poland is the perfect culmination of my Jewish education,” said Hannah Duvivier, one of the students who will be traveling with March of the Living this summer.
The students travel throughout Poland, meeting with historians and Holocaust survivors. One of the most profound moments of the trip is a silent 3-kilometer trek between two of Hitler’s largest death camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Over 150,000 youths have travelled to Poland to participate in the march, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
The group always includes Holocaust survivors, who tell their stories as they re-visit the very locations where those stories took place.
This year, for the first time, World War II veterans will be marching with the group. These men are called liberators by the Jewish people, who honor them for their bravery during the war.
Retired Sergeant Rick Carrier, one of the vets who will be marching this spring, was a war hero who discovered one of the largest and most secretive concentration camps, Buchenwald.
Carrier was the first American to stumble across the wrought-iron gates of Buchenwald, having heard about it from an escaped Russian prisoner.
He was also the first soldier back the next day with a tank to blow the gates off their hinges and liberate the starving prisoners inside. These are the stories that the older generation wants to pass down to their children.
But there is a new sense of urgency as this really is one of the last generations that will hear the stories of the Holocaust directly from the people who lived through it.
“I hope that they...will be able to bring the message to the future, and pray to God should never happen again what happened during the Hitler regime,” said Webb.
