By Heidi Gantwerk
Jewish Federation of San Diego
JERUSALEM — Thursday night, I said goodbye to my companions (and new friends) who travelled with Federation to Poland for the International March of the Living, and then onto Israel. From the shtetl of Tykocin, to the ashes of Treblinka, to the energy of Tel Aviv, it feels as though I have lived lifetimes over the past two weeks.
An email you can read on your phone cannot possibly capture the power of the experience we shared in Poland. Moments stay with you; the photo of a young boy, maybe 7 years old, holding his toddler twin brothers’ hands as they walk to the gas chamber at Auschwitz. The lovely homes a stone’s throw from the ovens used to burn the bodies at Majdanek. The 17,000 stones displayed at Treblinka, each representing an entire community, a whole world, extinguished in the flames of the Shoah.
Our San Diego group was extraordinary. We visited death camps with our participants who are children of survivors—people who have carried the trauma of the Holocaust every day of their lives—and with non-Jews who shared in our pain and performed the mitzvah of bearing witness. Hearing everyone’s personal stories, holding them up as they spoke through tears, and being held up by the group as our own tears flowed moved me even more deeply than any museum or monument.
Leaving Poland, there was no question that the work we are undertaking with the Goldberg Family Holocaust Education Program & Mobile Museum is a profound responsibility and honor. It is not only our mission to educate every student about the specific history and enduring lessons of the Holocaust, but also to ensure that San Diegans are empowered to recognize rising hate and take a stand.
As intense as our time was in Poland, our time in Israel was even harder and more emotional. Our first stop was Nahal Oz in our partner region of Sha’ar HaNegev. We witnessed evidence of the October 7th attack, heard stories from survivors, and saw photos of Ziv and Gali Berman, and Omar Miran, three hostages from Sha’ar HaNegev still in captivity in Gaza, everywhere we went.
Yet even in the shadow of pain, our group experienced the strength, resilience, and life force of the residents. In Nir Am, we visited a healing “magic garden,” a fully shielded music room and performance space, and later raised a glass and sang with young adults in a pub—just a few of the community projects made possible by your generous donations.
At Kibbutz Or Haner, we were warmly welcomed into the homes of families that will become lifelong friends, and met young adults from across Israel working with the children and teens of Sha’ar HaNegev through “Base Camp,” another program made possible by your support. Throughout the trip, we grew our family with every “Shalom, naim meod-nice to meet you.”
San Diego is deeply woven into the fabric of Sha’ar HaNegev, and it is both our obligation and our privilege to stand with them as they rebuild, stronger than before.
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Heidi Gantwerk is President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego.