March of the Living Trip 2025

Monday, April 28
Final Post from Warsaw

Yesterday was a tough day. It began in Tiktin (Tikocin in Polish), a shtetl about three hours from the Lithuanian border. We began in what was once the beautiful synagogue of this little town of about 2,500 Misnagdim. The synagogue was painstakingly restored by non-Jews after having been destroyed by the war. We marveled at the beautiful woodwork, read the inscriptions on the wall (which included important prayers, a reminder not to talk during services, and a few dedication plaques acknowledging the donors who made certain parts of the synagogue possible). We saw a group of teens from the March putting on tefillin to hold their own service, and we even listened to Mandy Patinkin’s rendition of a Yiddish song about the Rebbe Elimelekh.

We walked around the beautiful village and talked about shtetl life. In a lot of ways, the shtetl was stuck in time because the trains of the 19th-century skipped the town and went straight to Bialystock. But it was also an idyllic life. People helped each other and supported the school, shul, burial society, mikvah, and all the other institutions of community life; in summer they swam and in winter they skated on the little river that meandered through the village. This village was also known for its weekly markets in the village square; and in addition to the Yiddish school, it also hosted – from the early 20th-century – a Tarbut school in which instruction was entirely in modern Hebrew.

But the ending was a sad one. On August 16, 1941, the Gestapo arrived with instructions to kill Jews. Some Jews were taken to the forest and told to dig trenches. On August 25, Jews were gathered at the village square; women and children were packed into vans and the other Jews were made to walk towards the forest. Some were thrown into the trenches alive and others were shot. It took just 2 days to rid the entire town of all its Jews. 
 
We walked to the forest and saw the area of the mass graves. (I learned a Hebrew term I wish I never knew – “kever achim, קבר אחים” means “mass grave.”) A few memorial markers were set up, along with makeshift memorials to Israelis kidnapped or killed during the current war in Gaza, but most of the names of those resting in this area for eternity are not known. We recited appropriate memorial prayers and a special “Holocaust Kaddish” before walking silently to our bus. 

And then came one of the stranger announcements of our journey: “Okay, friends, off to Treblinka!” Treblinka was one of three camps established as part of Operation Reinhard. Nearly 1 million people were killed in Treblinka between June 1842 and October 1943; only 70 survived. The killing in this camp was so efficient that the Nazis didn’t bother to set up barracks. We learned about the courageous uprising and escape in October 1943, which led the Nazis to close the camp and destroy most of what was there. Today, the place where the camp once stood is now an open field, filled with a monument of 17,000 stones, representing the number of Jews killed in that place in a single day during the height of its operation. Of the 1 million who died here, only about 100,000 names are known. We held pictures of some of the victims – including relatives of one of our fellow travelers – and recited the Kaddish once more. 

In the evening, the members of our group took time to reflect on the meaning of this incredible journey. We have an obligation to remember. We must advocate and help others to understand the necessity of the world’s only independent Jewish state. And we have a responsibility to live Jewishly and carry on our sacred traditions. Our living Jewish lives adds holiness to the tragically shortened lives of the martyrs we tried to remember and honor all week. 

Sunday, April 27
by Stephanie Hart

The last couple of days have been full from morning to night. Friday morning, we went
to the Majdanek Extermination camp. Again, the rain poured and we trudged, sodden
and chilled, through this miserable place of death. After the high of solidarity in the
March of the Living, we were back to the pain that we knew we came here to
experience. The March of the Living was over 7000 people and we felt huge and
powerful. At Majdanek, two and half times that number of Jews were killed in one day.
Oof.

Even though we all felt emotionally raw from that experience, we didn’t end there. Next
we went to the Yeshiva of Lublin, a renown place of higher learning for many of our
Torah scholars prior to its destruction by the Nazis. Then back to Warsaw to a song
and dance filled start to Shabbat with the Warsaw Orthodox Synagogue- a beautiful
high to the trip. On to a joyous dinner, then our B’nai group had the honor of individual
time with the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Rabbi Schudrich and his wife, Magda.

After morning services, we spent our Saturday on a walking tour, mostly discussing the
Warsaw Ghetto, the inhumane starvation and disease and, finally, the story of the
Uprising- all leading to so much death. Then a tour of the museum Polin- 1000 years of
Jewish history in Poland. Whew!

One of the most meaningful parts of our Warsaw time was actually our bus time- we
spent one of our long rides discussing our experiences with this trip, its meaning to us
individually and as a community. Many of us talked about bearing witness. We talked
about the challenges of bringing this home: how do you tell people? “How was your
trip?” “Great, we went to Poland. Nothing like the death of almost every Jew in the
country to make you appreciate life!” Yes, we are bearing witness- we are learning of
the horrors and putting faces and stories with the numbers. We are learning about the
vibrant Jewish life that used to exist in Poland, and the fledgling Jewish life that is here
now. We are learning exactly how close the Nazis came to wiping out all of Polish
Jewry- and how the world did not care.

Why are we here? For a variety of reasons- for ourselves, for our grandparents, for our
children. We are here because 80 years ago isn’t very long, but people are already
forgetting. Because Antisemitism has risen 893% in the US over the last decade (ADL
Survey released this past week). We are here because the world has forgotten that the
Holocaust is why we have the state of Israel. We are here because we needed to see it
first hand- so that we can truly tell people what happened here. That is how we can
explain to the world that “Never Again” requires people to stand up and speak out. This
trip is my way of saying to myself and to the world that it starts with me.

Friday, April 25
by Rabbi Michael Safra

I write this message on a bus from Majdanek to Lublin. In Lublin, we plan to visit what was once Yeshivat Chochmei Lublin, the great Scholars seminary of Lublin. Founded in 1924, this seminary was a premier institution of Talmudic learning until it was destroyed by the Nazis in 1939. My teacher at JTS, Rabbi Morris Shapiro, was educated in that seminary before coming to the United States and serving congregations in the Northeast and New England.

I plan to offer a teaching from Parashat Shemini, which we will read tomorrow. On the day of the dedication of the Tabernacle, Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, offer a “strange fire” and are instantly struck down and killed. There is much commentary on the nature of Nadav and Avihu’s crime. But I am struck by the strand that suggests they may not have done anything wrong.

“Then Moses said to Aaron: ‘This is what Adonai meant when God said, ‘Through those near to me I shall make myself holy and gain glory before all the people’’” (Leviticus 10:4). Rashi imagines Moses in conversation with Aaron, saying, “Aaron, my brother, I always knew that the sanctuary would be sanctified by confidant of the Holy One, but I assumed it would be you or me. Now I see that they are greater than you or I.” in other words, Nadav and Avihu died not because of something they did, but for something they were. They were holy. And in this interpretation, they were the first in history to die al kiddush Hashem, for the sanctification of God’s name. Nadav and Avihu were the first Jewish martyrs. 

How fittingly it is to consider this interpretation on our way back from Majdaneck, the massive Nazi concentration and extermination camp the outskirts of Lublin where between 89,000 and 110,000 Jews were murdered. These Jews were also martyred. They died for the sanctification of God’s name. 

We who remember them lend sanctity to their lives and sanctity to God’s name. We who practice Jewish traditions and observe Jewish law lend meaning to those martyred lives and sanctity to God’s name. We who pledge: “Never Again” – not for Jews and not for any other oppressed group – lend sanctity to their lives and bring sanctity to God’s world. 
May we be privileged to count ourselves among the inheritors of Moses’s dictum: “It is through those who are near to Me that I make Myself holy “

Shabbat Shalom.

Thursday, April 24
The Actual March 
by Rabbi Michael Safra

Today was my 50th birthday. I joked many times that Auschwitz is not the ideal destination to celebrate a birthday. But today was also Yom HaShoah; and there is no better place to mourn the victims, honor the heroes, and celebrate the rebirth of Jewish life after the Shoah than on the March of the Living from Auschwitz I (the Mother Camp) to Auschwitz II (Birkenau).  

First the bad parts. As we neared the end of our walk, we saw the skies become dark – one might say, fittingly dark. AND then the skies opened up. The memorial ceremony was cut to about 15 minutes; it had to be raining hard to cancel speeches by President Isaac Herzog of Israel, President Andrzej Juda of Poland, and Merrill Eisenhower, great-grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower, all of whom marched with us today. And as we walked back to the bus – about a mile-and-a-half away – the rain only got harder. 7500 marchers leaving through a single entrance to look for 190 buses in a flood was a logistical nightmare. We were soaked and had to sit through a 4-hour bus ride to Warsaw before being able to get into dry clothes. The hot shower was amazing, and if I had a nickel for everyone who pointed out how our suboptimal experience was so much better than anything the prisoners in the camps had to endure. … 

And before all that, the experience of gathering to march – hundreds of different groups from more than 30 countries finding their place and lining up. … And the march itself. … Yesterday we toured the camps and learned the tragic history of humanity’s greatest failure, and today it was like we controlled the place. That was amazing. I dedicated my march to the survivors who courageously told (and tell) their stories.  

Earlier in the day, we visited Plaszow concentration camp. We heard the story of how Jews were interred in this area when the Krakow Ghetto was liquidated, how they hid their Torah scrolls in the attic of a building used to prepare bodies for burial (beit taharah), and how those scrolls were eventually destroyed by the Nazis. This is the ghetto of Schindler’s List. But it was different than our visit to other sites because there was nothing to see. The Nazis destroyed the entire camp and today it is a park with a few memorial boards. Polish residents take their dogs there to walk. We had together a short discussion about what it means to make memory and sang Psalm 23 together: “Though I walk through the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.” 

That verse typifies the entire  trip. Every step is a walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and yet we are experiencing so much life, so much vibrancy, so much excitement … 80 years later.  

Tomorrow we visit Majdonic and Lublin. I plan to teach a session in what was once Yeshivat Chochmei Lublin. It will be a lesson from Parashat Shemini, the Torah portion of the week, which I will share in the pre-Shabbat “rabbinic email” to the congregation.

On the day of the March, a Jewish student at the University of Michigan wrote an opinion piece for the Michigan Daily in which he cynically asked if believing the State of Israel shouldn't exist might make him an antisemitism. One of the leaders of our group (and fellow Michigan alumnus), Joe Tipograph, submitted this piece to the Michigan Daily in response. It's message is germane to our experience on March of the Living.

When a Jewish Wolverine Questions Israel’s Right to Exist, He Asks More Than the Wrong Question
By Joseph Tipograph (LSA '02)

I am a University of Michigan graduate currently in the international March of the Living with a group from B'nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland, led by fellow Wolverine, Rabbi Michael Safra (LSA '97). I write on Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—after marching from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the site of one of the most notorious Nazi death camps. This year’s march brought together over 7,000 Jews and allies from around the world, including 80 Holocaust survivors—people who bore witness to the systematic murder of over six million Jews and millions of others at the hands of the Nazis.

Also joining this year’s March were Israeli hostages who had only recently emerged from captivity in Gaza. Among them were Eli Sharabi and Agam Berger, two of many abducted by Hamas during the attacks of October 7, 2023.

That day was a modern pogrom: more than 1,200 Israelis were murdered, and hundreds—including infants, elderly people, and festival-goers—were taken hostage. Many of those victims were young people, the same age as students at the University of Michigan. They were killed, raped, and dragged into tunnels beneath Gaza. Fifty-nine remain in captivity to this day.

Eli Sharabi emerged from one such tunnel to learn that his wife, two daughters, and his brother had been murdered. Agam Berger, a 20-year-old IDF soldier, was among a group of five young women held hostage. Even in captivity, she made the choice to observe Shabbat. During the March, amidst a torrential downpour and thunderstorm, she played a violin rescued from the Holocaust. Her music echoed across the camp—an act of resilience, continuity, and faith in life.

On the bus ride to Warsaw from Birkenau, we came across an op-ed in The Michigan Daily written by a fellow Jewish Wolverine. He asks if his denial of Israel’s right to exist makes him antisemitic.

This is not an abstract question. Eli and Agam are real people. They were kidnapped, brutalized, and nearly silenced by a group that openly declares its goal to eradicate Jews—not just Israelis, but Jews everywhere. The state they serve is not some theoretical construct—it is the very place that attempted, and is still attempting, to bring them home, including by unthinkably paying the exorbitant price of releasing from its prisons thousands of terrorists many convicted for multiple acts of murder.

The op-ed decries (and in several ways overstates) the undeniable tragedy of Palestinians killed since October 7, but does not mention the attacks of October 7 that precipitated the war. He does not mention the hostages that remain in captivity nor the even more extreme and unreasonable demands being made for their release. He does not mention the very public statements of intent to repeat the October 7 attack that have been made by several Hamas leaders.

I am not suggesting that criticism of Israeli policy is antisemitic. Many of Israel’s fiercest critics are Israelis themselves. But to oppose the very existence of the Jewish state is something else entirely. It means opposing the only place in the world where Jews have sovereignty, safety, and the ability to defend themselves—especially after centuries of diaspora, discrimination, and death.

Last week, Jews around the world celebrated Passover. During the Seder, we read about the Four Sons. One of them—the contrary son—asks, “What does this mean to you?” By excluding himself from the story, the Haggadah says, “Had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.”

This doesn’t mean we cast out or label those who question. On the contrary, we welcome  questions. But there’s a difference between asking hard questions from within the Jewish story, and rejecting the story altogether.

There is also the wise son—the one who approaches traditions and history with curiosity, empathy, and commitment. That, we believe, describes many Jewish Wolverines—students and alumni alike—who have gone on to achieve in government, medicine, business, journalism, and the arts. They have done so not despite their connection to Jewish peoplehood, but because of it.

Only the author of that op-ed knows what is truly in his heart. But we, as Jews and as Wolverines, must be clear: denying the Jewish people the right to a homeland—especially in the face of terror and trauma—does not represent the best of us.

The better question is not “Am I antisemitic?”

The better question is: What does it mean to belong to a people with a story of survival—and how do I will I choose to connect with that story in my life and times?

That is the question I hope more students will ask, and travel to Israel, Poland and elsewhere in search of answers. It is the question that I will never stop asking myself.
 

Wednesday, April 23
by Anne Rubinovitz

Today we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. We walked under the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign. We stood on the platform where cattle cars arrived and selections took place with a hand wave. We stood inside a gas chamber. We saw the opening where Zyklon B, a cyanide-based insecticide never intended for use on humans, was dropped. We saw ovens where bodies were burned to ash. We saw long planks of latrine holes used by actual prisoners. We saw three-tier wooden racks where inmates, shaved, numbered, and emaciated, “slept” head to toe 7 or 8 to a rack. We saw the hair, the shoes, the suitcases, the glasses. The enormity of it all was overwhelming.

In the mounds of hair, stacks of shoes, piles of suitcases, and tangles of glasses, we tried not to lose sight of a single braid, one pair of sandals, a hand-labeled suitcase, an individual’s prescription. Our tour guide Liz was a big help grounding us in the stories of individuals. 

Some stories highlighted the success of the Nazis process of dehumanization, so integral to genocide. We learned about a woman who died of shame. She had one leg shorter than the other and was pushed into the center of a group of SS who whipped her to make her “dance.” She confided to her daughters that she felt so ashamed she wanted to die. In the morning, her daughter found her dead body.

Some stories highlighted unbelievable courage in the face of sadistic cruelty and genocide. The glamorous ballerina Franceska Mann undressing outside the gas chambers noticed the SS admiring her figure. She performed a strip tease and encouraged them to come closer before grabbing a high-heeled shoe, whacking an SS officer in the head, stealing his gun, and shooting another SS soldier, who later died. A rebellion that broke out then and there among the hundred female prisoners was quickly ended with SS bullets or the gas chamber, but it happened.

Another story of courage involved Roza Robota, a Polish Jew and fellow members of the “Young Guardian” female scouting group who helped bomb a crematorium. Roza worked sorting clothing, enabling her to move throughout the camp and smuggle gunpowder, two or three teaspoons daily. The bombing decommissioned one of four full-time crematoriums, but at great cost to the resisters. Roza and three co-conspirators, Ala Gertner, Regina Safirsztain, and Estera Wajeblum, after being tortured, were hanged on January 6, 1945, the last mass execution at Auschwitz. A plaque commemorates their heroism.

Also helpful in understanding the Holocaust was a barrack devoted to an exhibit from Yad Vashem. The word, “Holocaust,” a Greek word for a burnt offering, does not appear in this exhibit. Instead, it is called the Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning catastrophe or devastation, a more accurate description of what happened. The exhibit consists of archival footage of Jews from across Europe, pre-Holocaust. They are dancing, singing, playing at the beach, picnicking, getting married, worshipping, in short, living. The exhibit is the only place we see living Jews, enjoying the precious gift of life the Holocaust snuffed out.

Our last visit before departing was to an ash pit, where remains from the crematoriums were dumped, which is now a rectangular plot choked with weeds. In front of it are four collective tombstones for all the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau, with an inscription in four languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, and English. Rabbi Safra led our group in a recitation of Kaddish here. He emphasized the importance of the work we are doing on behalf of our people: remembering the lives lost and the lives never begun. 

On the bus ride back to the hotel, we wondered what lessons the  Holocaust offers in a post October 7th world. We are worried about rising antisemitism everywhere. We see parallels between the cruel treatment of Israeli victims and hostages of October 7th and the dehumanization of Jews by the Nazis. We reject the weaponization of the term genocide against the nation of Israel, when the situation there in no way resembles the reality we saw here.

We feel depleted by our experience, but also a sense of accomplishment. Several people commented that it had taken a long time to work up the courage to come to this place and engage in the hard work of remembering. Tomorrow we will be back to march in the opposite direction, from the death camp Birkenau through Auschwitz and to free lives. We will wrap ourselves in Israeli flags and hear survivors’ stories. This will likely be the last ten year anniversary since 1945 with living witnesses to tell the horror that happened here. We are grateful to be here and proud of the resilience of our people.

Tomorrow we return to Auschwitz for the official March of the Living. You can join the March virtually at www.motl.org/2025, from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm EDT.

Tuesday, April 22

It was meaningful to open our journey at the JCC of Krakow, where we had a special meeting with CEO Jonathan Ornstein. The JCC is a central address for a thriving Jewish life in Poland. In Ornstein’s words, “It’s not “Auschwitz (period). It’s Auschwitz (comma),” because while the Nazis decimated a Jewish community that once numbered 3.2 million, it did not end Jewish life here forever. Today’s Krakow JCC boasts more than 1100 members, the first Jewish preschool to open in Krakow since the Holocaust, and a program to support 56 Holocaust survivors.  

It also works to find Jews and bring them back into the Jewish fold. Beyond murdering six million Jews, the Holocaust (and Communist period that followed) lost Jews. Some converted, some were raised without religion, and many are now returning to explore their Jewish roots.  

We learned also how the JCC in Krakow works to preserve the Jewish soul. We met surrounded by shelves of dried foods, which are distributed every day to hundreds of Ukrainian refugees now living in Krakow. Since the Russia-Ukraine war began, this little JCC has supported 400,000 Ukrainian refugees – 98% of whom are not Jewish – at a cost of $14 million, which is three times their ordinary annual budget. This JCC has done more for Ukrainian refugees than any other Jewish organization in the world, and they do it because they know they cannot stand silent in the face of suffering like the world stood silent while Jews were persecuted during the Holocaust. It was beautiful to see Jewish community living out Jewish values in a place many remember only for Jewish deaths. 

Next door to the JCC, we visited a synagogue/temple that was founded in the 19th-century. It is no longer used as a synagogue, but the beautiful building hosts concerts, lectures, and other cultural events. We saw how this temple was constructed with an organ because in the late 19th-century, Polish Jewry was experimenting with various reforms to attract largely secular Jews to religious life. We were asked to imagine what the Polish community might have produced – maybe even the first woman rabbi! – had it not been destroyed.

We also visited the synagogue and cemetery named for the ReMA, Rabbi Moses Isserles, the great rabbinic luminary of the 16th-century. This synagogue and cemetery were founded in 1551, although the oldest tombstone is from 1552. We saw yeshiva students praying at Rabbi Isserles’s tomb, and also a wall constructed from broken grave markers left by the Nazis when they desecrated the cemetery. Further into the Jewish quarter, we saw squares and shops where Jews gathered and community thrived. We learned that Jews had been welcomed into Poland since the 13th-century and were even recruited – and willingly served – in the army.  
 
A few blocks away, we saw what remains of the Krakow ghetto, where Jews were forced to live and were routinely rounded up by Nazis to be sent to their deaths. We paid homage to the factory made famous by Oscar Schindler but recognized that the numbers of righteous gentiles were far too few. The main square of the Krakow ghetto includes a monument of 64 chairs, spread throughout the area, where Poles routinely sit and grapple with the lives and stories that are no more.  

Our powerful journey began with life. But beyond celebrating the life that is and remembering the life that was, we couldn’t help but mourn the life that could have been. Tomorrow, we will travel an hour-and-a-half to visit Auschwitz and Birekenau.

I write this first post on the plane, shortly before landing, eager to meet the other 35 members of our group as we begin our journey in Krakow. I’ve never been to Poland before, but my remarks during Pesah services in the moments before Yizkor summarize why the trip is so important. 

Today we will visit the JCC and enjoy a walking tour through Jewish Krakow. Today, our focus will be on the present – the rebirth of Jewish life in a beautiful city. I anticipate a lovely dinner and an early night. It is important to see not just how Jews died, but also how they lived – and live again. Tomorrow, we will be in Auschwitz.

–Rabbi Michael Safra