Each year, 60 students from diverse backgrounds across Canada participate in the March of Days and Remembrance. Like the March of the Living, this trip takes students to the Nazi death camps in Poland, but it differs in that it is a multi-faith trip aimed at university students.
Director Fern Levitt focuses on six of the participants, all of whom filter their experiences through a particular lens relevant to their personal histories. Participants include a gay activist, a Sudanese immigrant, and an Iranian whose family was persecuted for their Baha’i faith. When asked to dedicate their march to a cause of their choice, the youths’ responses are wide ranging, including the fallen soldiers in the IDF, the children who died in Gaza, and the victims of the Rwandan and Darfur genocides. The particularity of these responses underscores the message that if the Holocaust is to have any relevance to young people today, it has to be processed and internalized in an individual way.
