Earlier this month, 11 Ottawa teens went on the March of the Living trip, a transformative experience that brings students to Poland to mark Yom HaShoah, and then to Israel for Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut. The following will be two reflections from students who went on this year's trip.
Grade 11 student Freida Kaplan-Myrth shares her experience from the 2025 March of the Living trip:
Growing up in Ottawa, I was rarely surrounded by many Jewish peers — at most, there were about five Jewish students in my school at any given time. It wasn’t until 2022 that I made my first Jewish friend who was my age. That changed during the March of the Living in 2025. For two weeks, I was surrounded by Jewish youth who shared the same goals: to learn, to mourn, to remember, and to celebrate. From the moment I walked into the airport to the moment I stepped back out, I never once felt alone.
When we first arrived in Poland, what shocked us the most was how beautiful the country was. The trees were green, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing. People felt uncomfortable. How could a place so lovely do such horrible things? Many students felt uneasy upon arrival. It was almost as though it was a betrayal to be back in a place that had so hatefully kicked out our families.
Even though no one was anything but welcoming to us, we weren’t allowed to wear our March of the Living jackets in Poland. There was a fear that we would be harassed or attacked because of our association with Israel, so some people wore it inside out, and some people just got wet.
When we got to Auschwitz 2, it felt as though we were stepping onto the set of a movie, like it was the real concentration camp but through a mirror, so that where there was supposed to be mud and stone, there were flowers and red brick buildings. We walked along the train tracks, but it was too difficult to conceptualize that we were truly in Auschwitz 2.
There was a similar feeling in Auschwitz 1, where there were displays of shoes, hair, and suitcases, making it feel like a museum rather than a death camp. There was also a hallway lined with pictures taken of hundreds of the people who had been held prisoner there. Some people looked scared, some looked determined, but most of them looked like family.
I went back to the hotel that night feeling like every person who had worked, survived, and died in that camp were running their fingers down my back.
When we returned the next day, it was with laughter and joy and Israeli flags wrapped around our shoulders. We were joined on the International March of the Living by over 8,000 Jews and non-Jews. Upon walking through the gates of Auschwitz 1, I was greeted by a delegation from Australia and then I danced with three girls from Israel to Kol Ha'olam Kulo.
As we walked across the bridge between Auschwitz 1 and 2, there was a small group of people with their young children who were Polish and non-Jewish, and they were there alone to cheer us on, and it was so heartwarming. It was such a small act of support from people who did not need to do it, but they chose to, and they chose to bring their kids and teach them what small kindnesses look like.
Our delegation then had the honour of hearing the testimony of Nate Leipciger, huddling in one of the barracks to avoid the rain and hear the story of a boy our age surviving Auschwitz. It didn’t matter that Auschwitz had flooded, cutting the ceremony short, and none of us minded that we got soaked down to our socks, because we were together, and we were celebrating our lives while mourning those who were lost.
When we finally arrived in Israel, it was like a breath of fresh air. We were suddenly surrounded by people who were educated and interested and treated us like family.
We visited the site of the Nova Festival, walking around the grounds, reading memorials of people who shared the names of our loved ones, while in the distance, the biggest forest fires in Israel in a decade were raging and smoke made it hard to breathe.
That night was the Yom Ha’atzmaut transition ceremony, and we danced for two hours straight. It was like we were taking all this sadness, fear, and hurt, and dancing until it turned into pride. That night was the first time we felt like a real mishpucha, a family. We all understood how badly we needed to fully revel in being in Israel for Yom Ha’atzmaut, so we danced until 11pm.
The most striking thing about this trip, is that at the end of every survivor testimony, the survivor was asked what message they want to pass down to the future generations, to us. Every time, without fail, the survivors said, “be proud of who you are, be proud of being Jewish, be proud of being Israeli, and be proud of being a Zionist.” Sometimes, being a Zionist Jew in Ottawa can feel like you’re the only person in the world who believes that Israel has the right to exist but being told by people who survived the Holocaust that what you believe is important, is one of the most empowering things I’ve ever experienced.
I now live with the knowledge that there are people my age, around the world, who stand with me and understand the hurt that I feel when I see disinformation circulating in schools and on the internet about October 7th. I now have friends in Sweden and down the street who I have cried with and comforted, and who I joined on the most impactful trip I have ever been on.
March of the Living gave me friends to celebrate with, people to remember, and family to share the most touching moments with. I left knowing one other participant, and I returned feeling incredibly connected to Jewish communities across the globe. This trip gave me the courage and strength to keep doing what I believe is right, to stand with those who believe the same, and to stand for those who no longer can.
Leah Freedhoff, another student who went on this year’s March of the Living trip, wrote this poem about her experience:
Unextinguished
By Leah Freedhoff
We walk amongst shadows.
Those cast by history,
those cast before their time.
In the silence between footsteps
we hear their echoes.
In the stillness,
we feel their breath of absence.
We came to say “never again.”
But again has come.
And still-
we are here.
We carry the lost.
The stolen.
The silenced.
The ones who never came home.
The ones still finding their way back.
We carry them like broken glass in our chests,
shards of names pressed against our hearts.
We carry them
in this prayer,
in this march,
in our neshama- our soul-
that will not dim.
Regardless of smoke,
we’ll light our candles.
Not because the world is kind,
but because we refuse to let it make us cruel.
Not because we were given space,
but because we carve it-
out of sorrow,
out of song,
out of the light we share with each other.
They can try to fray our thread-
to unravel our joy,
erase our memory,
unmake our people.
But we are sewn together
by a strength that outlives empire,
outlasts exile,
outshines fear.
“Esh tamid tisharef al hamizbeah”
A perpetual flame shall burn upon the altar.
It shall not go out.
That flame is ours.
Lit in hidden corners.
Lit in cracked voices and trembling hands.
Lit on Shabbat tables across the world-
no matter the weather outside.
This is not just remembrance.
This is resistance.
This is emunah- faith with teeth.
This is our power. This is our people.
We do not gather in fear.
We gather in defiance of it.
We dance at simchas
with the same feet
that walked through fire.
We pray with voices
that were once forced into silence.
We do this not in spite of our history,
but because of it.
They try to reduce us to ash.
So we answer with our flame.
The same flame they failed to put out.
The same light.
The same people.
We hold each other in the dark and we whisper:
More light.
More love.
More of us.
Because our fire still burns.
Because we still burn.
Unbroken. Unafraid. Unextinguished.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Eleven high school students from Ottawa went on this year’s March of the Living trip. Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, the experience sees students connecting with the Jewish past and present over two weeks as they visit Poland and Israel. To learn more about March of the Living, click here