Editor’s Note: Former San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman participated in the Walk of the Living, a learning trip through the concentration camps in Poland followed by volunteering with the IDF in Israel prior to the war between Israel and Iran.
By Shelley Zimmerman
SAN DIEGO — Reflections of my journey from Holocaust remembrance to volunteering with the Israel Defense Forces. I didn’t just witness history; I walked in its shadow, served in its name, and now I carry it forward.
This journey – across continents and generations – was one of memory, mourning, identity, resilience, resolve, and service. From the haunting grounds of Poland’s death camps to volunteering with the Israel Defense Forces, every step deepened my understanding of what it means to be Jewish and to be human.
This spring, I had the profound honor of traveling to Poland with the San Diego Jewish Federation for the March of the Living, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. The March of the Living is held on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Thousands – Jews and non-Jews, young and old – from around the world walk the 3 kilometers (1.8) miles from Auschwitz to Birkenau, two of the most infamous Nazi death camps in Poland.
It is called the “March of the Living” because it reverses what once happened there, the Nazi attempts to extinguish the Jewish people who were forced to walk to their deaths. Now, we walk that same road as the living, in freedom, in remembrance, and in defiance of the hate that tried to erase us.
The day before the march, we bore witness at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Before we entered Auschwitz, one member of our group shared, to her knowledge, that no one in her family had perished in the camps. We moved through the exhibits, room after room filled with haunting artifacts and photographs. There were many people inside the rooms, but it was eerily silent until a loud gasp followed by sobs broke the silence. In a glass case filled with suitcases once carried by Jews deported to their deaths, many labeled with their family name, one stood out. It bore her family name.
As we walked outside one of the exhibits, I listened in as a Holocaust survivor with another delegation shared her story. Her group spontaneously began to sing Hatikvah. I watched as the survivor, seated in a wheelchair, struggled to rise. And then she stood with fierce pride and strength singing. Our delegation joined in song. She had survived the unimaginable, and she understood, as we all did, what it meant to sing the national anthem of Israel on the very soil where so many did not walk out alive.
At Birkenau, we stood in Barrack #C-26, the very place where survivor Rose Schindler once endured the camp’s horrors. We stood with two of her children, Jeff and Roxanne, who read a passage from their parents’ book, Two Who Survived. As we recited the mourner’s Kaddish, a flock of birds flew towards us, circled, and soared away. It felt like the souls of the murdered whispered, thank you for remembering us.
This year’s march brought together 144 delegations from around the world—7,000 participants, including 80 Holocaust survivors and seven hostages released from Hamas captivity. The march commenced with the sounding of the shofar.
When we arrived at Birkenau, we placed small wooden placards on the train tracks, each one inscribed with personal messages of remembrance, hope, resilience, or the names of family members. Rain was forecast, but it held off until we entered Birkenau. Then, the sky opened with a heavy downpour of tears, accompanied by the fury of thunder and lightning. We were soaked and cold, yet no one complained. We knew we’d soon be warm and dry. As we passed the rows of barracks on our way out, we couldn’t help but reflect on those imprisoned here; there was little shelter, little warmth, little food, and little hope. And for so many, no way out.
At Majdanek, another camp where we bore witness, the crematorium stood just beyond nearby homes. So close that a frisbee thrown from a backyard could have landed in the crematoriums where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered. The townspeople knew. Their silence was unforgivable.
From Poland, I continued to Israel with a smaller group with the San Diego Jewish Federation. One of our first stops was the Nova Music Festival memorial site, where Hamas terrorists murdered hundreds. A sign warned: “You are under the threat of rockets. If a siren sounds, you have 15 seconds to seek shelter.”
As I walked through the site, I watched a young survivor share his story with older visitors. In Poland, it was elders speaking to those who were younger – but the message was the same: Jews were hunted, attacked, and murdered.
We visited Sha’ar HaNegev, near Gaza and San Diego’s sister city—one of the areas brutally attacked by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Many residents were murdered or kidnapped into Gaza. Among the victims murdered were Lili and Ram Itamari, who hosted me in 2023 at their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza. This time, we visited another kibbutz where rocket damage from the ongoing attacks was still visible. We met a woman who told us about Yotam Haim, a musician from Kfar Aza who was kidnapped and later tragically killed by friendly fire while escaping Hamas tunnels. In his honor, she built a music room inside a bunker.
She led us down into the bunker—where a drum set, keyboard, and guitars stood ready for others to play in safety. Yotam, she told us, was a drummer, showing us a drawing of him holding drumsticks. I had brought drumsticks from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I gave them to her. She had written a song and asked me to play drums as she played guitar and sang. It was a moment born of coincidence yet filled with intense meaning. A spontaneous purchase in Cleveland—a simple pair of drumsticks—had found its way into a bunker-turned-sanctuary in a community scarred by loss. In that safe space, where instruments now wait for hands to bring them back to life, the sticks became more than a souvenir —a promise that even in the shadow of tragedy, in Yotam’s memory, the music would go on.
After the Federation portion of the trip concluded, I remained in Israel to volunteer with the Israel Defense Force through the Sar-El program. This program enables volunteers from around the world to contribute to the security of the State of Israel by assisting on IDF bases.
On the very first day of my IDF volunteer service, while I was at Ben Gurion airport, a Houthis missile fired from Yemen struck just off the road near the International Terminal where we had gathered. I was assigned to an Air Force Base near Gaza for my volunteer service with the IDF. Leaving the airport for the base, we passed the enormous crater left by the missile and the wide debris field.
Serving in the logistics unit on base, I worked alongside volunteers from eight different countries—some Jewish, some not. We came from diverse backgrounds and spoke many languages, but we were united by a shared purpose: to stand with Israel in a time of need.
From my home in Scripps Ranch, I often hear the roar of fighter jets from the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar—a sound I’ve always associated with freedom. But on the Israeli Air Force base, just miles from Gaza, as Israel defends itself, fighting a war on multiple fronts, the sound of fighter jets took on a new meaning. It was the sound of survival—Israel’s survival.
Now, back home again, the numerous attacks against Jewish people are not happening in some faraway land – they are happening right here, in our country, our cities, our backyards. To those who remain silent, who fail to call out and act against antisemitism in every instance, you are complicit in this violence. We must confront hate wherever it resides because history has shown us what begins with words never ends with words. “Never again is now” is not a slogan; it is a call to action. Speak up and challenge antisemitic words, images, and behavior wherever you encounter them. Remaining silent is not neutrality; it is a betrayal of our shared humanity.
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Shelley Zimmerman was San Diego’s second Jewish police chief. The first was Bill Kolender, z”l, under whom she served. This article initially published by the Jewish Federation of San Diego.