Serena Mlawsky – Senior Column

A March To Remember

This year, I had the privilege of attending a two-week trip called March of the Living. On this trip, along with 160 other Jewish teens, I saw years worth of torture, genocide, and survival. I heard stories from survivors as well as the dead. In Auschwitz I was told “here, red is not red and green is not green. If you are looking to find logic here, you will not find it.” I could not have heard a truer statement; the more I looked, the more questions I had and less answers. I saw the blue and red stains on the ceiling where my people were carelessly murdered with Zyklon B gas or beaten to death. In one of the deadliest camps, Majdanek, a rainbow appeared over a place the Nazis left in such pristine condition that it could be running back to its full potential in 48 hours. In Birkenau, I rejoiced with 10,000 other Jews singing the Israeli national anthem, and realized just how lucky I am to be alive.

After a week in Poland, I came to the conclusion that the perils of high school are honestly irrelevant. I saw how the Jewish people were able to carry on after tragedy and injustice to form an invincible state surrounded by hateful enemies. In Eastern Europe in the 1940s, it didn’t matter who was prom queen or the SGA president, because everyone would suffer the same ominous fate. In Israel, national security and pride are more important than popularity and personal struggles. Today, we all lose track of what really matters, because we get so caught up in superficial realities—whom dates who, who got what expensive car, who was cheated on, and so on. Let’s all take a second to realize how fortunate we all are and be grateful for all that we have: democracy, protection, shelter, and the fact that we can be someone. We aren’t just a number or a statistic, nor are we robbed of a promising future due to one attribute.