Lakewood Ranch High senior experiences 'March of the Living'

As a teenager, I used to visit a friend whose family had a World War II book on a coffee table.

I sat on a couch and opened the book, flipping through pages which were filled with photos of concentration camps, gas chambers and horrific atrocities committed against mankind. The photos were vivid and terrible.

As much I enjoy history, I lasted about 15 minutes, and then closed the book. I walked away and continued with my tranquil and happy life.

Over the years, I have had similar short periods where I would try to digest as much as I could about The Holocaust. It's hard to digest evil from decades in the past when the future is so bright.

Even so, I've always been a big believer we should understand our past so we don't repeat our atrocities.

I am not sure how much is taught about The Holocaust in our schools today, but I would imagine it is done in bits and pieces. No young person could handle more.

Unless you are Abigail Zion.

From April 9-21, the Lakewood Ranch high senior participated in the March of the Living international program as part of a delegation sent by the Jewish Federation of Sarasota and Manatee, which paid for her trip. She spent half the trip in Poland and the other half in Israel.

Much of the time in Poland was spent visiting concentration camps and other points of historical significance involving The Holocaust. The visit to Israel included recollections of those surviving the horrors.

There was not a sit-by-the-pool and party break. It was relentlessly grim, and yet, important.

"It was weird to be excited about going on a trip that is so sad," said Zion, who is a GreyHawk Landing resident and who belongs to Temple Emanu-El of Sarasota. "But it was an honor to go there and see it first-hand, so I can now educate other people. My friends say to me, 'You were at Auschwitz, what was it like?' I tell them that a lot of times, my feet would hurt or I was hungry, and then I would go to this horrible place where, at one time, there was no grass because people hadn't eaten in a week and they were eating the grass because they were starving. It makes me appreciate everything I have."

In Poland, Zion participated in the actual March of the Living, which was a 3 kilometer walk from Auschwitz to Berkenau, a "termination camp."

"At first I tried to keep up with my friends, but then I marched by myself," Zion said. "I needed to focus and breathe."

She also visited concentration/extermination camp sites in Majdanek and Treblinka. She visited Tarnow, a mass grave site where 800 children were murdered.

In Israel, she digested more stories of those who had lost their family members and who were fortunate to survive.

"It might have been hard for us, but I thought it is harder for a mother or father to go through it because they can feel the sort of love I can't feel yet because they have kids," Zion said.

Grouped with 150 teenagers who went from place to place on four buses, Zion said they would quietly reflect on what they had seen at each site, and then would sing.

"But we were all teenagers and it's kind of hard to be depressed for seven days," she said. "We were meeting people from around the world."

As far as food, she said it was awful in Poland, where they brought in mostly bread and egg salad for the students. Basically, she ate bread for a week because she doesn't like egg salad.

"Then in Israel, we had amazing food," she said.

Zion's parents are Rebecca and Andrew Zion. She said her father is not Jewish, but he supports her activities, such as the youth group she started at Temple Emanu-El. She is now headed for Tulane University in New Orleans, which she said has more than a 30% enrollment of Jewish students. 

"On the trip, I did think about not taking your loved ones for granted," she said. "I was inside the gas chamber with my hand on the wall, and I imagined, 'what if I was in here with people I loved?' I can't imagine how my mom would feel being in there with me."