During the 2023 March of the Living, Florida student Adam Sobel experienced a defining moment in Auschwitz alongside Holocaust survivor Mary Eckstein

Adam: “I was walking through the camp and past a section with a pile of baby’s shoes. Suddenly, Mary was letting out a scream and began to cry. ‘One of these shoes belongs to my baby cousin,’ she said. Mary’s exclamation suddenly turned the horrific numbers into a single individual. Now it wasn’t just a number out of 6 million Jews that died, it was Mary’s relative which made the experience feel more real but also more surreal.”

 Mary Eckstein was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1936 as Marika Feldman.

“In 1944 Germany invaded Hungary. I was in second grade when my life changed. I had to wear a yellow star and move to the ghetto.”

Mary and her mother managed to escape the deportation to Auschwitz – Birkenau, where over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered, among them Mary’s family members.

“I was very scared and always hungry. We heard the bombing and saw buildings exploding. I was waiting for my home explode. Bodies were laying in the streets.”

Mary and her mother were saved due to a “Schutz pass,” fake and forged documents provided by the Swiss diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. She was moved to Swiss “safe houses” where she was off limits to the local Hungarian Arrow Cross and the Nazis.

80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Mary reflects on the world today:

“The world has not changed much. More and more voices around the world say that the Holocaust never happened.”

“I am extremely concerned about what is happening to the Jewish people today. It seems that the whole world is against us and we need to fight it. We need to stand up to it and educate the young generation, Jews and non-Jews alike.”

Mary is a survivor-educator with the South region of the March of the Living in Southern Florida: “This is such an important program. I was lucky to survive and my job is to educate and speak to the next generation. In Poland I see the reaction of the participants. They can “SEE” what happened to the Jewish people and they get to “experience” what happened by being witnesses. When we go to Poland (and Israel) it reinforces our pride as Jews.”

One of the students that traveled to Poland in 2023 along with Mary was Floridian student Adam Sobel. On his delegation there were four Holocaust survivors. Mary was one of them.

Adam recalled one particularly moving moment from his experience:

“A moment I can’t forget was in Auschwitz. I was walking through the camp and past a section with a pile of baby’s shoes. Suddenly, Mary was letting out a scream and began to cry. “One of these shoes belongs to my baby cousin, she said.” Mary’s exclamation suddenly turned the horrific numbers into a single individual. Now it wasn’t just a number out of 6 million Jews that died, it was Mary’s relative which made the experience feel more real but also more surreal”.

“Hearing the survivors’ stories and seeing their emotions while in the camps added immensely to my overall experience on the March and are some of my most distinct memories from the trip. They each had their own knowledge of the Holocaust that added to our understanding of what happened in Nazi occupied territories and concentration camps because of their years of telling their stories as well as their own personal stories, family stories, and stories about life after the Holocaust and moving on.”

Reflecting on the impact the March had on him Adam said that the March of the Living made him strongly appreciate the Jewish community:

“On the program I was able to see the connection between Jews all over the world who had never met but wanted to learn more about the Holocaust and hear the survivor’s stories. I didn’t feel as if we were from small communities anymore because suddenly, I was able to talk with Argentinian Jews, Brazilian Jews, Austrian Jews, Canadian Jews, and so many other international Jews about their experiences and their lives.

I’m so incredibly glad to be able to go on this trip when I did because there are so few survivors left. Hearing their stories in person and in the camps is so different from seeing video recordings or just hearing another story. I was able to talk a lot with the survivors and I shared their stories with anyone who would listen by the time I came home.”

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Many survivors like Mary want to march this Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Day, with students at the International March of the Living, in Auschwitz.

They need your help.

The International March of the Living asks you to help sponsor a Holocaust survivor’s journey: Bearing witness to their stories is a sacred duty, a vital link between the past and the future. Your sponsorship empowers them to share their experiences, inspiring new generations to remember and fight against antisemitism.

Stand with the survivors. Sponsor their journey so the world will never forget.