By Stacey Dresner

HARTFORD, Conn. – On the 2023 Voices of Hope (VOH) Adult March of the Living, members of the local delegation will get the chance to join with 10,000 people from around the world to march in solidarity in Poland on Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Commemoration Day which this year marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and the travels to Jerusalem to celebrate the the State of Israel’s 75th birthday. 

Dr. Samuel Kassow as the group’s educator and historian.

Dr. Kassow, the Charles Northam Professor of History at Trinity College in Hartford, is a renowned scholar on Modern Jewish history and the Holocaust, and author of nearly 50 books on Jewish history and Holocaust. A resident of West Hartford, Connecticut, he is also the descendent of Holocaust survivors.

Kassow’s book Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto, about Polish historian Emanuel Ringelblum and the Oyneg Shabes, which secretly worked  for three years to chronicle the lives the ghetto’s inhabitants as they suffered starvation, disease, and deportation by the Nazis. The book was later the basis of a documentary. In 2006-2012, Kassow was a lead historian for two of the galleries of Polin, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.  

“We know this will be a memorable and informative experience for our participants as Dr. Kassow’s personal connection with Poland and his vast historical knowledge will help us to learn not only about the Shoah [Holocaust], but also about life before the war and what was lost,” says Kathy Fishman, executive director of Voices of Hope. “This trip is an important step to help further our organizations’ mission which promotes a culture of courage to stand up against hatred through Holocaust and genocide education and remembrance.”

Despite many trips to Poland, this will be the first time Kassow has participated in the March of the Living.

“I’ve led many trips to Poland and I worked on the museum but I’ve never been on a March of the Living trip,” Kassow told the Ledger. “I’ll be an educator – every place they are going to I have been too and I know about. I feel that I can contribute something to these people’s experience.” 

That experience will begin the morning of April 17, which is Yom Hashoah, when the Connecticut group will join thousands of others as they march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest German Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex.  

The group will then travel to Warsaw to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. On April 23, the delegation will leave Poland to spend three days in Israel. 

After experiencing the dark history of Poland during the Holocaust, the goal of the visit to Israel is to instill a “love for Am Yisrae [the nation of Israel], an appreciation for and connection to the Jewish people in every land, throughout the ages and in contemporary times,” according to the March of the Living organization. The hope is that “participants return with a greater commitment to Israel, to remembering the Holocaust, to strengthening Jewish identity and practice, and becoming involved in their local Jewish communities.”

For more information about the Voices of Hope 2023 Adult March of the Living, or to register, contact Robin Landau at robin@ctvoicesofhope.org. The deadline for registration is Dec. 1. An application can be found at https://www.motl.org/apply/voh/