Quotes and Messages for
March of the Living (2003)

Sue Hampel, Australian MOL Leader
We arrived in Israel yesterday and have some photos to send through, but unfortunately internet access is hard to come by and I am using an internet kiosk to send this email and cannot connect the camera to download the images. We are hoping to do this later in the week. In the meantime I thought I would send you a piece written by Sue Hampel, the Aust MOL Leader which could be useful<:br>
Our students have learnt so much from their journey to Poland. The experiential nature of this trip has impacted on them far more then a classroom lesson ever could. They have walked down cobblestoned streets where their grandparents once lived. Their eyes have observed while their hearts have wept. They have made inroads on the path of tolerance and understanding by meeting young Polish youth at their local schools and cleaning long forgotten and abandoned Jewish cemeteries alongside with Polish teenagers their own age. Our Australian students enjoyed Shabbat at the Nozyk Shule in Warsaw. A highlight was spending shabbat afternoon with 5 young jewish Polish teenagers. Slowly Jewish life is re-emerging in Poland. When we left Poland, we carried with us the torch of remembrance for those who died here.

The students are now in Israel. Today is Yom Hazikaron. Together with the whole nation we are remembering the 21,541 Israelis who have fallen in the wars in Israel and in terror attacks. We are united in their memories.
 

Thoughts from the Students in Poland and Israel

Serena Burd, Melbourne Australia
"Looking back on being in the Jewish Quarter today, I was drawn back sixty years into vibrant Jewish life in Kazimiez, a feeling I would never have obtained without being there. I was able to close my eyes and hear the chanting of Jewish prayers in the old synogogues and I could taste the traditional Jewish dishes from the restaurants. It was so real. Looking around seeing my Australian friends made me recall why I was here: to remember the past - not only their torture and persecution, but their lives previously."


Jess Krulis, Melbourne Australia
"Through the challengs of the past week I have come to realise that I will always hate poland. Throughout the trip I have tried to maintain focus on what was lost due to the tragic event of the holocaust. I have been desperate to try and find answers to my many questions, but the professor put it best 'you stay in Poland for a week and you think you have all the answers, stay any longer you'll never have any explanation'. I stood in Treblinka earlier today and all I could think about was all of the people who re as angry, confused and upset as I am. And all of those people who have the same hatred towards the Nazis as I do. I feel for all those who lost loved ones, all those survivors who live with bitte memories and all of those who's lives were cut short due to the tragedy of the holocaust. Although I will never forget what I have seen and I promose to retell stories in an attempt to preserve the holocaust memories. I never want to return to the bitter, anti semetic, cold Poland I have come to know in the last week."


Kim Heine, Melbourne Australia
"So far this journey has been the best experience of my life. We arrived in Poland as a group and departed Poland as one"


Jess Rosenberg, Melbourne Australia
"M.O.L is an experience that one can't describe. The mind can't imagine what the eye can see. M.O.L not only unites all Australians, but also Australians with Jews all over the world"


Tobey Hofman, Melbourne Australia
"I am so grateful for being able to do M.O.L. It has been the most meaningful time of my life. The contrast of the tainted Poland with the beauty that is Israel, has been the most phenominal time of my life"


Serena Burd, Melbourne Australia
"Upon departing Poland, I felt I had fulfilled any moral obligation as a Jew to recall, revisit, and remember. March of the Living has presented me with a truly unforgetable experience"


Michal Levitt, Perth Australia
"Poland hasn't only been an incredible learning opportunity for me, but I feel connected to my Judiasm and our past. It was something I had to see with my own eyes. Israel will be a perfect closure to this unforgetable experience"


Jess Goulburn, Sydney Australia
"Arriving in Israel was incredible, especially being able to share this experience with so many amazing and inspirational people. M.O.L so far has been unbelievable, and a fascinating learning opportunity. We have an incredible group of people and I know this experience will be unforgetable.


By Meytal Hollis, Masada College 6th May 2003

"The highs and lows of this trip have been extremes in both cases. I am sitting in a bus in the middle of Israel about to go on a dig to discover the past and this time last week we were in Auschwitz marching to demonstrate our future."


A Personal Reflection 5th May 2003
"Why We March" by Daniel Abelsohn, Masada College
"We march here in silence not a sound in the air
but with music in our heart of song and prayer
We stand here proud as one and all we are jews,
we are back you didn't bring us down.
We've come from near and far but here we're all the same
proud to be jews we're all under the same name.
We've marched here in silence singing in these fields
songs and prayers which will forever be real"


Arran Schlosberg & Antony Pinshaw, 5th May 2003
"Poland has been an unbelievable emotional journey. Trying to describe our experiences in words would not do this week justice. We leave for Israel tonight were we hope to meet up with the international students we have already met.


Romy Braitberg, Melbourne, 6th May 2003
"After the emotional roller coaster of Poland, Israel is such a relief, especially when I saw my sister who I haven't seen since January. A famous quote goes as follows 'It takes one tree to make a 1000 matches but it takes one match to burn a 1000 matches' I wrote this on a plague that I placed next to the Lodz stone in Treblinka."


Leora Hyman, 5th May 2003
"My friend and  I walked
Those cobbled streets today
I thought of you
All the things we were s'posed to do
I felt
I prayed
I waited there for you
Your ancestors, your grandpa, he used to pray right here
I touched, those walls I could barely believe the pain, emotions Piercing right through me I stepped those steps, absorbing the spirit Walking the roads that your grandma loved My friend I cried for you could not be here Your family never left here, so we will never meet."