EG Teens Take Part In 'March Of The Living'

Four East Greenwich teenagers recently returned from BBYO’s national delegation of the March of the Living, a two-week international experience where teens from around the world come together each year and bear witness to the destruction of the Holocaust in Poland and then travel to Israel to rejoice in the Jewish homeland. 

The March of the Living commemorates Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, as participants march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. They then celebrate Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, in the streets of Jerusalem. While the March of the Living welcomes delegations from around the world, BBYO’s delegation is the only one to bring teens together from all backgrounds and from across the United States for this experience. This year, 200 teens were a part of BBYO’s delegation, which traveled with two Holocaust survivors for the duration of the trip.

“The most moving part of the trip was marching from Auschwitz to Birkenau with over 10,000 people. Ten thousand people from around the world were there to march for the same reason. All of the delegations had so much Jewish pride. We all had Israeli flags, and banners, and people were singing Jewish songs,” said Julie Harlam, a member of BBYO’s delegation to The March of the Living. “At the end we sang Hatikvah. With 10,000 people singing Hatikvah in a camp that Hitler planned to be the end of the Jewish people, you could see that the Jewish people had won and are stronger than ever.” 

Other highlights for the BBYO delegation included an opening ceremony at the Treblinka Memorial in Poland, a walking tour of the Warsaw Ghetto, a Motzei Shabbat event at Warsaw University with Canada’s National Delegation, a visit to The Western Wall in Jerusalem and a memorial service for Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day, with BBYO’s sister youth movement in Israel, Maccabi Tzair. 

Now back home, the teens – Julie Harlam, Jason Harlam, Andrea Wollin, and Rachel Fried of East Greenwich, and Lindsay Goodman of Cranston, are energized and determined to do their part to take a stand against genocide.  BBYO Stand UP Week – a week-long initiative under the umbrella of BBYO Stand UP, BBYO’s grassroots service, philanthropy and advocacy campaign – took place in April with the One Million Bones Challenge. Created in partnership with Students Rebuild and the Bezos Family Foundation, the One Million Bones Challenge invited teens to take a stand against genocide by making a bone as part of an arts project to cover the National Mall in Washington, D.C. For every bone made, the Bezos Family Foundation donated $1 to CARE International to help rebuild lives in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).