“We did not come as witnesses.”
On Yom ha-Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we pause not only to mourn the six million Jews who were murdered, but to confront the enduring responsibility their memory demands of us. We are called not only to remember how they died, but how they lived, and to carry their stories forward with clarity, courage, and purpose.
This past summer, I traveled to Poland with 30 Jewish mothers through NCSY TJJ for Moms. We did not go as tourists. We went as witnesses.
At a time when global anti-Semitism is once again rising, the echoes of history no longer feel distant. In Poland, they were immediate, palpable, unrelenting, and impossible to ignore.
Our journey was not simply a visit to historical landmarks. It was an act of remembrance, a confrontation with truth, and a commitment to ensuring that the stories of our people are never forgotten.
We walked through once-vibrant Jewish quarters, stood in centuries-old synagogues, and wandered through cemeteries that whisper the names of generations. There was beauty there, evidence of a rich, creative, deeply rooted Jewish life that existed long before it was nearly extinguished. A reminder that Jewish history is not defined solely by tragedy, but by resilience, culture, and enduring spirit.
And then, we arrived at Auschwitz and Birkenau.
No book, photograph, or classroom lesson can prepare you for the weight of that place. Walking beneath the words “Arbeit macht frei,” seeing piles of shoes, suitcases, and the remnants of human lives dissolves any illusion of distance. These were not numbers. They were mothers, fathers, and children. They were families. They were ours.
As mothers, we experienced this in a uniquely profound way. We saw our own children reflected in the unimaginable stories of those who perished. The grief was overwhelming, but so, too, was the clarity that emerged from it.
We would remember. We would speak. We would not allow silence to prevail.
At a time when global anti-Semitism is once again rising, the echoes of history no longer feel distant. In Poland, they were immediate, palpable, unrelenting, and impossible to ignore.
One of the most powerful moments of our journey took place in Kraków’s Plac Bohaterów Getta, Ghetto Heroes Square, where 70 empty chairs stand as a haunting symbol of lives uprooted. As the sun set, we lit candles and stood together in quiet reflection. Then, softly at first, we began to sing “Ha-Tikvah.”
In that moment, surrounded by absence, we chose presence. We chose hope. We chose life.
Throughout the journey, we formed deep bonds, grounded in shared memory and purpose. We came to understand that we are not simply observers of history, we are its continuation. As mothers, daughters, and granddaughters, we are part of an unbroken chain of Jewish continuity.
The responsibility to remember does not belong to history books alone. It belongs to us, in how we speak, what we teach, and what we refuse to ignore.
I returned home changed. More connected to my identity. More aware of my responsibility. More committed to ensuring that these stories endure.
Because I saw, firsthand, what happens when the world looks away. When hatred is dismissed. When silence prevails.
And there, among the stones of silence, I made a vow, not only to remember, but to carry something of this place with me.
I brought back stones.
Not as souvenirs, but as witnesses. As weight and as proof. They now sit in our homes, small, unassuming, and impossibly heavy reminders of what was lost, and what we are now responsible to carry forward.
Because memory is not something we visit.
It is something we carry.
