RENEE BOSS

TRAIN TRACKS leading into the World War II concentration camp Auschwitz, areB filled with the placards and signs carried the day before during the 38th annual March of the Living, in which Woodford County High School teacher Renee Boss participated. (Photo by Renee Boss)

By Renee Boss

WCHS journalism and English teacher, head of English Department

On April 15th, I stood on the tracks at Auschwitz in Poland, where over a million people were unloaded from overcrowded cattle cars during World War II, and I tried to comprehend the atrocities that occurred there 81 years ago.

Young people, middle-aged people and older people stood side-by-side, carrying a commitment to remember the events of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hatred. Some people walked with relatives, and some of us walked with people we had either just met or had never met. One woman, Amy, walked through the same place where her mother had been imprisoned. Hearing Amy share the story of her mother while standing in the very place her mother survived was a powerful reminder to me of why I was there.

I was walking alongside over 7,000 people from around the world for the 38th annual March of the Living on Tuesday, April 14th, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The distance for the March was only three kilometers, a fraction of the distance walked by victims and survivors during the Holocaust when they were forced to march in January of 1945 as the Third Reich was on the verge of military defeat. SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered prisoners still alive at all concentration camps be forcibly evacuated toward the interior of the Reich. The evacuations took place for varying reasons, but largely because SS officers did not want prisoners to fall into enemy hands to tell their stories. Thousands of people died during those death marches.

"We will march in the present to honor the past and in hope for future generations to come," shared a presenter.

I spent the week in Poland, attending the March and visiting Holocaust sites so that I could bring my experience and learning back to Kentucky through my work as a teacher at Woodford County High School and as a leader with the University of Kentucky-Jewish Heritage Fund Holocaust Education Initiative, which grew out of the Ann Klein and Fred Gross Act of 2018. This legislation requires “every public middle school and high school to provide instruction on the Holocaust and other acts of genocide.” We work to pass on to the next generation the shared need to stand up when we see and hear injustices, prejudice and hatred of all kinds.

In the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, "When you listen to a witness, you become a witness." The March itself is not only about remembering the past, but what we choose to do in the present. I am grateful to Ricki and Joe Rosenberg and UK-JHF HEI for sponsoring my trip.

Because of this experience, I will carry these stories into my classroom, helping my students not only learn about the Holocaust, but also grapple with its human impact and their responsibility in the world today. As a leader within the UK-JHF Holocaust Education Initiative, I will also work to extend that impact beyond my own classroom by supporting teachers across Kentucky to teach with purpose, intentionality and empathy so that the lessons of the past can shape a more just and humane future.

We all carry the responsibility to speak up against hatred and to ensure that these stories are never forgotten. That responsibility did not stay in Poland; it came back to Kentucky with me.

To learn more about the work of UK-JHF please visit the website:https://holocausteducation.uky.edu/