I'm sitting on the Southern Region's Green Bus pulling away from Auschwitz-Birkenau following the closing of the 25th March of the Living. I hear bits and pieces of my fellow delegates' conversations; the hum of the bus buzzes indistinctly in the background. Though I haven't heard them for hours, there are a handful of notes which overpower all the sounds made by my 35 or so fellow delegates: the notes to Ani Maamin, an incredibly moving piece composed by a victim of the Shoah on the way to Treblinka.
Just as all 10,000 Marchers did today, I walked beneath the haunting and iconic Ar Beit Macht Frei gate. Most teens around me were silent upon crossing into the Auschwitz Camp as countless others did during the Holocaust to meet an unimaginable fate. As we marched, the unmistakable notes of a violin consumed the crisp air as a teen who would otherwise be a stranger to me performed the Ani Maamin.
I will never forget the sites I have seen over the past five days: the barracks, the barbed wire, the suitcases, the shoes. I will never forget the touch of the scratch marks on the walls of Auschwitz's gas chambers or the feeling of walking on train tracks. I will never forget the sound of the Shema chanted in a gas chamber, the shofar blaring through rows of barracks or the broken testimony of a Holocaust survivor speaking through his tears. I will never forget the notes of Ani Maamin, nor will I ever take for granted the opportunity this trip gave me to always remember.
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