21 April 2016

Five young Liberal Jews joined 11,000 people from around the world taking part in this year’s March of the Living.

The March of the Living is an annual educational program, which brings students from all over the globe to Poland, in order to study the history of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hate.

The event takes place over Yom haShoah and involves four days of education followed by the March, from Auschwitz to Birkenau.

This year, our five young members were part of a UK contingent of 250 people, 45 of who were from Jewish youth movements.

Writing a moving blog on the LJY-Netzer website, Daisy Bogod reflected: “Before my trip, I had a decent but somewhat basic understanding of the events of the Shoah.

“During my trip, I learnt how it worked; I walked through the routes taken by the two groups of prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau: the group that was taken straight to the gas chambers and the group that was were stripped, shaven, disinfected, tattooed and crammed into a barrack of a thousand people to await their almost inevitable death.”

She added: “We sang the Netzer song as we walked out of the infamous gates of Auschwitz 1; incredibly, Jews survived this hellish part of our history and new generations of young, proud Jews are still here, trying to make each other and the world a better place through our youth movements.

“It was an f-you to the Nazis, to all who wanted us dead, and a thought-provoking glimpse into our futures and the necessity for us to remember, educate to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again and act to help stop injustice and intolerance that happens at the moment throughout the world.”