Alumni Essay Contest Winners: Passing the Torch

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In advance of the 2026 International March of the Living — taking place this year on Yom HaShoah, April 14 — we invited March alumni from across the generations to reflect on a single question: How did the March of the Living change your life? The response was overwhelming. Hundreds of alumni, from those who marched in the early 1990s to participants who walked just last year, wrote to share their stories. What emerged was not nostalgia, but something far more urgent — a collective testimony to the enduring power of bearing witness. The four winning essays, selected from among hundreds of submissions, span three decades of the March. Yet they share a remarkably common thread: each writer describes a moment when the Holocaust moved from abstraction to inheritance — when history became personal, and remembrance became responsibility. As the generation of survivors continues to diminish, these voices remind us why the March of the Living matters now more than ever. They are the proof that memory, once received, can be carried forward — and that the torch, once passed, continues to burn. Essay One Standing at Auschwitz Changed Me Marching the three kilometers from Auschwitz I to Birkenau reshaped my understanding: the Holocaust was no longer a subject I taught; it was a living inheritance I was responsible for transmitting. Jessica Handler — 2024 March of the Living Alumni My grandfather, Sidney Handler, participated in at least three times on the March of the Living during his lifetime. He did not return to Europe to dwell in death; he returned to bear witness. For him, the March was about continuity. Over time, it also became something deeply personal between us — a shared language of memory, responsibility, and hope. I remember sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table in Newton, Massachusetts, listening to my grandfather speak about an upcoming trip he was leading with the March of the Living. I asked if I could go with him. Gently but firmly, he told me I was not yet prepared for the emotional weight of the March. He assured me, that one day I would go on the March of the Living. Six years later, in 2024, I was leading the Holocaust Museum LA delegation to the march. I did it after earning my master's degree in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa, inspired by my grandfather's lifelong commitment to Holocaust education and remembrance. I do not think a Jewish person has ever been so excited to "return" to Poland. The trip was meaningful in countless ways. What struck me most was the realization that I was walking in my grandfather's footsteps — not as a granddaughter holding his hand, but as an educator entrusted with carrying his story, and the stories of other survivors, forward. Standing at Auschwitz changed me. I had studied the Holocaust for years. I knew the documents, the historiography, the testimonies. But walking the three kilometers from Auschwitz I to Birkenau, surrounded by thousands of Jews and allies from around the world, reshaped my understanding. The Holocaust was no longer only a subject I taught; it was a living inheritance I was responsible for transmitting. My grandfather passed away on August 23, 2025. In the months since, I have felt the weight of that in-between space more acutely than ever. The March of the Living has become one of the enduring connectors between us — when he was alive and now after. It is where I feel closest to his voice, to his footsteps, to the promises we made to one another. I am no longer only the granddaughter listening at the kitchen table. I am now part of the generation responsible for safeguarding his memory. Read the Full Article → Left: Jessica Handler with her grandfather Sidney Handler; Right: Leading the Holocaust Museum LA delegation at Auschwitz (Courtesy) Essay Two God Wears a Blue Jacket I came on the March of the Living as a student and returned 20 years later to close a personal circle. Jon Warech — 1998 March of the Living Alumni The March changed my life. It only took three months — well, 20 years and three months. As a Miami high school kid who couldn't afford to do all of the things in life, I was given the choice of going on the Miami March of the Living, a trip to the concentration camps in Poland followed by a week in Israel, or High School in Israel, an entire semester of fun in the sun in the Jewish homeland. I chose Auschwitz. I wanted to be a witness. I wanted to see things firsthand. But, most importantly, I wanted to feel something. I wanted a reason to cry. Even as a 17-year-old, my kind of Judaism was one that tugged at the heartstrings. So, I packed my bags, threw on my blue jacket, and headed on a flight to Warsaw with what at the time felt like the entire Miami community. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the State of Israel, so it was set to be a monumental March. But, on the first day, I messed the whole thing up. I laughed at the ceremony in Warsaw Ghetto Memorial site. For years I dwelled on that experience. This disappointment would go on to define my life for the next 20 years, until I found closure. Read the Full Story → The 1998 Miami March of the Living delegation at the Western Wall, Jerusalem; Jon Warech (center) with peers in Poland (Courtesy) Essay Three How the March of the Living Changed Me You can study gas chambers. You can read testimony. But stepping inside one erases the distance between history and reality. Stephen B Sokolow — 1994 March of the Living Alumni I went on the March of the Living in 11th grade, in 1994. Until then, I had never left the United States. I was a religious Jewish teenager attending public school, living in two worlds that didn't always intersect — my daily American life and my Jewish identity. I thought I understood who I was. The March changed that permanently. The education leading up to the trip felt less like a high-school program and more like earning a master's degree in Holocaust history. Still, nothing — absolutely nothing — could prepare me for standing in the places themselves. You can study gas chambers. You can read testimony. You can memorize camp layouts. But stepping inside one erases the distance between history and reality. I remember standing there and realizing that this was not a chapter in a book. This was a room where human beings walked in alive and never walked out. Seeing piles of eyeglasses and personal belongings affected me in a way no photograph ever could. Each pair of glasses had belonged to someone who had plans, relationships, arguments, jokes, and routines. Suddenly six million was no longer a number. It was individuals — multiplied beyond comprehension. After the march came the moment that still echoes in my memory. Before our flight from Poland to Israel took off the pilot spoke in Hebrew. He said that we had experienced hell — and now he was taking us home. As he revved the engines and lifted into the sky, the emotional shift was overwhelming. We were leaving death and flying toward life. That week in Israel transformed mourning into continuity. Israel stopped being a concept and became part of our identity. My children have all inherited the education I received from the March — not just facts about the Holocaust, but the responsibility that comes with memory. Read the Full Article → Stephen B Sokolow on the 1994 March of the Living in Poland (Courtesy) Essay Four Between Ashes and Tomorrow How the March of the Living transformed my identity and purpose. Jonathan Thull — 2003 March of the Living Alumni I grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a small Southern city where Jewish life was quiet and sparse. In my religious school class there were only six of us. Judaism felt important, but distant — something inherited rather than fully lived. I knew about the Holocaust the way many students do: through textbooks, documentaries, and solemn remembrance days. I understood it intellectually, but it remained abstract, almost unimaginable. On the March of the Living, I was no longer one of a handful of Jewish kids in a Southern town. I was immersed in a sea of Jewish peers from around the world — so many of us carrying the same ancient history. For the first time in my life, Jewishness was not a minority identity. Yet we were gathered not for celebration, but to confront the darkest chapter of our people's story. That contrast — vibrant Jewish youth standing in places built for our annihilation — was overwhelming and transformative. On the March of the Living history stopped being history. In a world where some deny or distort the Holocaust, there was no room for doubt there. The march transformed my identity. Judaism was no longer just a religion I practiced occasionally. It was a people I belonged to — a global family bound by history, resilience, humor, memory, and hope. The experience awakened a deep sense of connection and responsibility within me. Standing in the shadow of genocide made the existence of a Jewish state feel not political, but existential — a living answer to the question of survival. To MARCH is to walk through the valley of death. To keep marching afterward — in our communities, our identities, and our choices — is to choose life. In that sense, the March of the Living is not a single event. It is a lifelong journey. And I am still walking. Read the Full Story → Live Broadcasts International March of the Living · Yom HaShoah 2026 Erev Yom HaShoah Program Monday, April 13 🇺🇸 LA11:15 AMPT 🇺🇸 NYC2:15 PMET 🇬🇧 UK7:15 PMBST 🇵🇱 POLAND8:15 PMCEST 🇮🇱 ISRAEL9:15 PMIDT 🇦🇺 SYDNEY4:15 AMAEST Annual March from Auschwitz to Birkenau Tuesday, April 14 🇺🇸 LA5:30 AMPT 🇺🇸 NYC8:30 AMET 🇬🇧 UK1:30 PMBST 🇵🇱 POLAND2:30 PMCEST 🇮🇱 ISRAEL3:30 PMIDT 🇦🇺 SYDNEY10:30 PMAEST

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Standing at Auschwitz changed me

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Jessica Handler 2024 March of the Living Alumnus Before my Bat Mitzvah, I remember sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table in Newton, Massachusetts, listening to my grandfather, Sidney Handler, speak about an upcoming trip he was leading with the March of the Living. He described the journey with a gravity reserved for this subject alone: first to Vilna, Poland—his birthplace, now Vilnius, Lithuania—then to Poland, and finally to Israel. Vilna was where his childhood was stolen. Poland was where his father, Hirsch, and older brother, Berel, were murdered at Stutthof. Israel was where his surviving cousin—and the next generations of our family—rebuilt their lives, and where Jewish life continued. I asked if I could go with him. Gently but firmly, he told me I was not yet prepared for the emotional weight of the March. But then he made me a promise: when I turned eighteen, he would take me to Vilna. And one day, he assured me, I would go on the March of the Living. My grandfather participated in at least three Marches during his lifetime. He did not return to Europe to dwell in death; he returned to bear witness. For him, the March was about continuity. Over time, it also became something deeply personal between us—a shared language of memory, responsibility, and hope. On my eighteenth birthday, my phone rang. He and my mother had been secretly planning a trip. We were going to Vilna the following month. He had kept his promise. Walking beside him through the streets of Vilnius—past Subačiaus Street, where he had been imprisoned in the HKP labor camp; through the remnants of the Vilna Ghetto; and to Ponary, where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered, including my great-great-grandparents and so many aunts, uncles, and cousins—I began to understand what it meant to inherit memory. I was not simply learning history; I was stepping into it. Still, I held him to his other promise: that one day, I would go on the March. Left: Jessica Handler with her grandfather Sidney Handler; Right: Leading the Holocaust Museum LA delegation at Auschwitz (Courtesy) Six years later, I earned my Master's degree in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa, inspired by my grandfather's lifelong commitment to Holocaust education and remembrance and having developed my own deep passion for this work. I soon landed my dream job at Holocaust Museum LA. In my first year on staff, the museum began partnering with the March of the Living and sending its own delegation. I shared with my supervisor that I had never been—that participating in the March was something I had always hoped to do. The following year, she told me I would be leading the museum's delegation. I do not think a Jewish person has ever been so excited to "return" to Poland. The trip was meaningful in countless ways. What struck me most was the realization that I was walking in my grandfather's footsteps—not as a granddaughter holding his hand, but as an educator entrusted with carrying his story, and the stories of other survivors, forward. On the day of the March, we were given paddles on which to write the names of those we were marching for. I wrote Hirsch and Berel Rejzewski—my grandfather's father and brother. Their lives were cut short at Stutthof. They have no graves for us to visit. Yet on that day, their names were carried through Auschwitz-Birkenau by their great-granddaughter. Standing at Auschwitz changed me. I had studied the Holocaust for years. I knew the documents, the historiography, the testimonies. But walking the three kilometers from Auschwitz I to Birkenau, surrounded by thousands of Jews and allies from around the world, reshaped my understanding. The Holocaust was no longer only a subject I taught; it was a living inheritance I was responsible for transmitting. To stand between memory and the future is to occupy a fragile and sacred space. It is to hold the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, and to decide—every day—how they will be told. It is to translate trauma into testimony, and testimony into education. It is to ensure that remembrance does not calcify into ritual, but remains urgent and alive. My grandfather passed away on August 23, 2025. In the months since, I have felt the weight of that in-between space more acutely than ever. The March of the Living has become one of the enduring connectors between us—when he was alive and now after. It is where I feel closest to his voice, to his footsteps, to the promises we made to one another. I am no longer only the granddaughter listening at the kitchen table. I am now part of the generation responsible for safeguarding his memory. The March of the Living is often described as a bridge—from Auschwitz to Birkenau, from destruction to rebirth, from exile to Israel. But I have come to understand it as something even more personal. It is the bridge between my grandfather's voice and my own. Between his childhood in Vilna and the classrooms where I now teach in Los Angeles. Between the names of Hirsch and Berel and the students who now carry their memory forward. To stand between memory and the future is not a passive act. It demands courage—the courage to return to places of devastation, the courage to teach in a world where antisemitism persists, the courage to affirm that Jewish life not only survived but continues. When my grandfather promised that I would go on the March one day, he was not simply making travel plans. He was entrusting me with a responsibility. I have walked the path from Auschwitz to Birkenau. I have stood in Vilna where he once stood. And now, in my work and in my life, I carry forward what he carried before me. Memory is not the opposite of the future. It is its foundation. ← Back to All Essays

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How the March of the Living Changed Me

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You can read testimony. But stepping inside one erases the distance between history and reality. Stephen B Sokolow 1994 March of the Living Alumnus I went on the March of the Living in 11th grade, in 1994. Until then, I had never left the United States. I was a religious Jewish teenager attending public school, living in two worlds that didn't always intersect — my daily American life and my Jewish identity. I thought I understood who I was. The March changed that permanently. The preparation alone was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The education leading up to the trip felt less like a high-school program and more like earning a master's degree in Holocaust history. Our teachers, Gene and Miles, were extraordinary. They did not simply teach dates, names, and events — they built a narrative of human beings, communities, and a civilization that once lived and breathed. By the time we left, I could practically draw blueprint maps of the camps from memory. I was in awe of both of them before the trip, and even more so during it. They didn't just transmit information; they transmitted responsibility. Still, nothing — absolutely nothing — could prepare me for standing in the places themselves. Stephen B Sokolow on the 1994 March of the Living in Poland (Courtesy) You can study gas chambers. You can read testimony. You can memorize camp layouts. But stepping inside one erases the distance between history and reality. I remember standing there and realizing that this was not a chapter in a book. This was a room where human beings walked in alive and never walked out. Seeing piles of eyeglasses and personal belongings affected me in a way no photograph ever could. Each pair of glasses had belonged to someone who had plans, relationships, arguments, jokes, and routines. Suddenly six million was no longer a number. It was individuals — multiplied beyond comprehension. Another unexpected experience was the security presence. Israeli security teams guarded us closely everywhere we went. At the time, I had never been to Israel and had never really interacted with Israelis. Yet I became friends with the agent assigned to our group, Erez. He wasn't just a guard — he was a protector, someone whose job existed because Jews must never again be defenseless. For the first time, I felt the difference between remembering Jewish history and living Jewish continuity. Then came the moment that still echoes in my memory. Before our flight from Poland to Israel took off, the pilot spoke in Hebrew. He said that we had experienced hell — and now he was taking us home. As he revved the engines and lifted into the sky, the emotional shift was overwhelming. We were leaving death and flying toward life. I had never been to Israel, and honestly, my imagination was simple: deserts and camels. That changed instantly. As we flew along the coastline in the early morning hours, I was stunned by the beauty of the land. The Mediterranean shimmered beside cities full of light. I was overtaken by a feeling I didn't expect — belonging. When I stepped off the plane, something inside me settled. I knew immediately that I never wanted to leave. That week in Israel transformed mourning into continuity. We commemorated Yom HaZikron together with the entire country — sirens sounding, people standing still, a nation remembering as one body. Soon after, we danced in the streets with strangers celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut. I had never experienced a place where grief and joy existed side by side as parts of the same story. It was the clearest expression of Jewish survival I had ever seen: from ashes to independence within days. The impact of the March did not end with the trip. In 2011, we made aliyah. Although circumstances eventually brought us back to the United States, we still see ourselves as connected to the land and intend to return. Israel stopped being a concept and became part of our identity. My children have all inherited the education I received from the March — not just facts about the Holocaust, but the responsibility that comes with memory. The lessons of the March feel even more relevant today. I learned that Jewish history is not only something to study; it is something to carry forward. The experience reshaped how I see my role in the world — as part of a people who endured destruction yet chose life, rebuilding, and continuity. I am deeply grateful to the March of the Living for giving me that understanding. It didn't simply teach me about the past. It gave me a direction for the future — one rooted in memory, responsibility, and belonging. ← Back to All Essays

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God Wears a Blue Jacket

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Jon Warech 1998 March of the Living Alumnus As a Miami high school kid who couldn't afford to do all of the things in life, I was given the choice of going on the Miami March of the Living, a trip to the concentration camps in Poland followed by a week in Israel, or High School in Israel, an entire semester of fun in the sun in the Jewish homeland. I chose Auschwitz. I wanted to be a witness. I wanted to see things firsthand. But, most importantly, I wanted to feel something. I wanted a reason to cry. Even as a 17-year-old, my kind of Judaism was one that tugged at the heartstrings. So, I packed my bags, threw on my blue jacket, and headed on a flight to Warsaw with what at the time felt like the entire Miami community. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the State of Israel, so it was set to be a monumental March. The 1998 Miami March of the Living delegation (Courtesy) But, on the first day, I messed the whole thing up. On CAJE's Miami trip, each bus oversaw a tekkes (ceremony), where students read poems, told stories and lead prayers for the entire group at each stop. It captured the moment. It moved us away from the history report and made us part of the story. On the first day, my bus was chosen to lead at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial – a serious place, with a serious story. Our group got up in front of what felt like hundreds of students, adults and educators, and read poems and testimonials meant to spark the emotions that I yearned to experience. But, in the moment, whether out of nervousness or immaturity, I started to laugh. Uncontrollably. Mark Baranek, my bus educator, looked back with an anger in his eyes. On day one, I had ruined the trip for everyone. For years I dwelled on that experience. This disappointment would go on to define my life for the next 20 years. I thought my obituary would one day read, "Jon Warech: Survived by no one, laughed at the Holocaust." I didn't know it at the time, but what I needed was faith. Twenty years, almost to the day, I found myself chaperoning Miami's Leo Martin March of the Living teens. I was now one of those adults in charge of making sure my bus was in the right place to lead our tekkes at Treblinka, the memorial at the sight of the extermination camp where more than 900,000 Jews were murdered. Treblinka was also the first place I cried on the March of the Living in 1998. That year, Mark walked us over to the Wierzbnik gravestone and told us that one time both he and his father, survivor Martin Baranek, were leading groups on the March of the Living. He said that during that trip, when Martin walked over to visit the Wierzbnik stone to honor the family he lost, he saw a single rock on top of the stone. A rock symbolizes that a person is not forgotten. It's a sign that someone was there. When Martin saw the rock on the Wierzbnik grave, he knew that Mark was there the day before. The idea that this one rock could have so much meaning – that the connection not just from father to son, and not just from one Jewish person to another, but from generations of Jewish people sticking together to honor one another and continue our traditions – just hit me in ways I could not even imagine. Twenty years later in the same spot, standing with an adult group from Miami, wearing his March of the Living blue jacket, was Mark Baranek. I took a deep breath and went right up to him to introduce myself. He seemed genuinely happy to see me, almost as if he didn't remember the thing that ruined our lives. He even rolled up his sleeve and showed me a silver ID bracelet that was inscribed from our bus in 1998. We bought that for him and not only was that what he remembered from the year, but it's been on his arm ever since. I looked around at the people – my people. I looked at the students – my students. I looked at Mark, standing a few feet in front of me in his blue jacket, just like he did in 1998. This time, with student Alexandra Fincheltub singing a heartbreaking version of "Sound of Silence," tears rolled down my face instead of the insecure laughter of a child who couldn't handle the moment. I knew God brought me there for a reason. I knew I wanted to be like Mark. I knew I wanted to do something bigger for this community. I knew that this moment was a second chance at an opportunity that no one in a million years would think was possible. I knew while standing there in Treblinka, that the vision that was planted in my brain was something only God could make happen: a career as a Jewish professional. Three months later I was hired as the Director of the Hillel at Florida International University, a Jewish organization that creates out-of-the-classroom programming to guide future leaders in our Miami Jewish community. The following year I worked with FIU to purchase 5,000 copies of Martin Baranek's memoir of survival, as the year's required reading for incoming Freshmen. Martin came to campus to tell his story multiple times. I wore my blue jacket with pride. The March changed my life. It only took three months – well, 20 years and three months. "God Wears a Blue Jacket" is a modified excerpt from Warech's upcoming memoir "Arm in Arm," scheduled for release in 2027. ← Back to All Essays

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Between Ashes and Tomorrow

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Jonathan Thull 2003 March of the Living Alumnus I grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a small Southern city where Jewish life was quiet and sparse. In my religious school class there were only six of us. Judaism existed in a small room once a week, in holiday rituals at home, and accompanying stories handed down through generations. It felt important, but distant — something inherited rather than fully lived. I knew about the Holocaust the way many students do: through textbooks, documentaries, and solemn remembrance days. I understood it intellectually, but it remained abstract, almost unimaginable. On the March of the Living I was no longer one of a handful of Jewish kids in a Southern town. I was immersed in a sea of Jewish peers from around the world — so many of us carrying the same ancient history. For the first time in my life, Jewishness was not a minority identity. We were all Jewish. Yet we were gathered not for celebration, but to confront the darkest chapter of our people's story. That contrast — vibrant Jewish youth standing in places built for our annihilation — was overwhelming and transformative. Nothing prepared me for what it meant to stand in the camps themselves. You can read every book, watch every film, memorize every statistic, and still be unprepared. What struck me most was not just what I saw, but what I physically experienced. At one point, walking through the camp in the freezing cold, snow covering everything, I suddenly became overwhelmed. My body reacted in a way I could not explain. I was sweating — drenched in heat — despite the winter air. A friend beside me was shivering, so I took off my coat and gave it to them. I continued walking in short sleeves, still burning, as we passed through the very chambers that murdered my brethren. It felt as if my body was processing something my mind could not yet grasp. By another barrack in a memorial, we saw piles of ash and bone. Not symbolic remains — actual human remains. The smell of death lingered in the air. It was unmistakable, physical, undeniable. History stopped being history. It became present reality beneath my feet and in my lungs. In a world where some deny or distort the Holocaust, there was no room for doubt there. The evidence was not in books. It was in the ground, in the air, in the silence. Yet alongside the horror, something else was happening inside me. For much of my life, I had been on a quiet quest for Jewish love — for a sense of Jewish-ness and belonging that I had rarely felt growing up in such a small community. On the trip, I witnessed the manifestation of that love in the most unexpected way. My cousin met the woman who would become his wife during our journey through Poland and later Israel. Watching their connection form in the shadow of tragedy felt like a defiant affirmation of life. Even in places designed for death, Jewish continuity was unfolding in real time. As difficult as many of the days were, the evenings were something entirely different. After confronting the darkness, we gathered together — arms around one another, singing, dancing, laughing, crying. We celebrated life as Jewish youth. Those moments were not frivolous; they were essential. They were proof that the Nazis did not win. The contrast between the shows of death by day and the explosion of life by night created a kind of emotional whiplash, but also a profound clarity: being Jewish is not only about remembering how we died, but about how we live. That realization transformed my identity. Judaism was no longer just a religion I practiced occasionally. It was a people I belonged to — a global family bound by history, resilience, humor, memory, and hope. The experience awakened a deep sense of connection and responsibility within me. In the years that followed, that connection only deepened. I returned to Israel nine times, eventually becoming an Israeli citizen and spending nearly six years there across those journeys. Before the March, Israel had been an idea — a distant homeland spoken of in prayers and news headlines. During the march Israel became our refuge and an oasis of milk and honey. After the March, it felt essential. Standing in the shadow of genocide made the existence of a Jewish state feel not political, but existential — a living answer to the question of survival. The March also changed how I see injustice in the world. Once you witness the consequences of hatred taken to its extreme, it becomes impossible to ignore suffering anywhere. The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers; it began with words, stereotypes, exclusion, and indifference. That lesson echoes loudly in our world today. In memory of my father, I later helped raise over $25,000 at a small community college to support Holocaust education, including a collection, a course, and ongoing social justice initiatives. This work felt like a continuation of the responsibility I first felt in Poland — to ensure memory leads to action, not paralysis. This brings me to the question of what it means to stand between memory and the future. The past must be remembered, but it cannot become a weight that immobilizes us. Memory should be a compass, not an anchor. If we live only in mourning, tragedy defines us. If we forget, we risk repetition. The task of my generation is to carry memory forward in a way that fuels life. The March of the Living did not give me simple answers. Instead, it gave me a deeper awareness of both humanity's capacity for evil and its capacity for resilience and love. It connected me to my people, my history, and my purpose. I left Poland with a realization that has stayed with me ever since: the story does not end in the camps. It continues in the lives we build afterward. Every act of kindness, every effort toward justice, every Jewish wedding, every child born, every song sung is a quiet victory over those who tried to erase us. To MARCH is to walk through the valley of death. To keep marching afterward — in our communities, our identities, and our choices — is to choose life. In that sense, the March of the Living is not a single event. It is a lifelong journey. And I am still walking. ← Back to All Essays

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