"With Israeli flags blowing in the
breeze and our heads held high,
we marched for life, we marched
as Jews, we marched as one ...
Despite our different backgrounds
and beliefs, we all joined together
for the same purpose and that is to
always remember and never forget
what happened to the Jews in this
century. It is also to celebrate ---
Hitler may have succeeded in mur-
dering six million Jews, but he
failed in his ultimate attempt to ex-
terminate the entire Jewish people
and we all proved that today."
— Miriam Segelbaum
"Birkenau is the scariest place on
earth. It is just like I pictured —
dank, foggy — this place looks,
smells and feels like death. It's
hard to liik at the ground — to
touch the ground, knowing that
someone died right on that very lo-
cation, their lives cut far too short.
As I was walking, Mr. Cala (Elias
Cala, a survivor who joined the
mission) told me to look down, as I
was looking up at the barbed wire.
'See those patches of grey?' he
asked. 'Those are human ashes.'
All I could do was cry. Then we de-
cided to pick some up in film can-
nisters to bury next week in
Jerusalem."
— Michael Simon
May 7, 1997
"Why do you have to wait so long after
eating meat before you eat dairy?"
While explanations were not always
forthcoming, the teens began to open up
to each other about their beliefs in and ob-
servance of Judaism. It was not unusual
to later see them peppering their own rab-
bis about questions they could not answer.
Nor was it unusual for participants to
question other rabbis about beliefs with-
in the various branches of Judaism. On
Shabbat in Warsaw, Ari Sherizen and Avi
Newman of Akiva Hebrew Day School
drilled Rabbi Yedwab about Reform Ju-
daism.
"They really wanted to know about the
differences, the similarities in what makes
them Jews," Rabbi Yedwab
said.
fter a long tour
through the
grassy yards
here the War-
saw Ghetto once stood, par-
ticipants returned to the
hotel for a quick, light meal
before Havdallah.
Rabbi Yedwab, leading
the group, began a rousing
kumsitz featuring songs in
Hebrew and English.
The teens quickly picked
up on the spirit of the mo-
ment and began singing
song after song, linking arms with one an-
other, dancing in circles. Those from the
Ax
"My excitement for the promised
land grows by the second and I
know that the second we land I will
feel like I have come home."
— Risa Heller, from the airplane over Eu-
rope
Above:
Flames burned at the end of the tracks in Birkenau,
where a ceremony for the Jews who died in the
Holocaust was held.
'What a feeling it was!! The plane landed
and our voices rang loudly with the sound
of Hatikvah. The feeling was absolutely
unimaginable. We departed the plane
and went down the stairs to the ground.
At that point nothing felt more appropriate
than dropping to the ground and kissing
it. Many of us kissed the ground and oth-
ers cried tears of joy for we felt that we
were home ... I just cannot put feelings
into words when you leave a country that
hates your people, that has killed your
people and go to a place that is your peo-
ple."
Right:
In Krakow, children, like this little girl, begged in
the streets.
Below:
The students saw many tombstones in several
cemeteries in Poland, showing the diverse and
vibrant community that once lived there.
North American Federation of Temple
Youth (NFTY) began one song, which led
into another which Akiva students sang.
"I was worried that this would just end
up being another
NFTY song session,
but then the ruach
(spirit) took over," Rab-
bi Yedwab said. "They
started taking turns
leading the singing.
The dancing began in
earnest."
"I don't want to say
that it was a once-in-
a-lifetime experience.
That would be too pes-
simistic," Rabbi Yed-
wab said. "Rather, this
was a lifetime experi-
ence."
It was then — after
a day that began with the egging of a stu-
dent on her way to pray, after walking past
— Risa Heller, after landing in Israel
May 8, 1997
anti-Semitic slogans freshly painted on
the walls of local shops, after standing on
the train platform that once served as the
final stop before the gas chambers of Tre-
blinka — it was in that moment that the
students from such varied backgrounds
in Detroit Jewry began to bond.
And it was a bond that helped them
through the next day's events — the
March of the Living from Auschwitz to
Birkenau.
As the walk began, the Detroit contin-
gent happily chatted with one another.
'We ate lunch outside a school. The
greatest sadnesslirony that I found was
the slide. The slide — a colorful metal
structure -- was built over a bomb shel-
ter. This is life in Israel ...
We climbed Mt. Armel. The ascent was a
steep walk. The descent was a cleff
climbing, bar holding, rope grabbin or-
deal. I was very proud of myself; it was
definitely an accomplishment."
— Amanda Warner
May 9, 1997
'We walked to the kotel and sang as we
walked in. I felt a certain sense of home
in me as I approached the wall and recit-
ed the shechcianu. I prayed for all those
who lost their lives and their
relatives'lives in the Holocaust. I felt it
was my responsibility after seeing the
horrors of the Holocaust in Poland."
— Julie Jonas