Posted on Wed, May. 07, 2008

Back in high school, before we turned the first page of War and Peace and other literary classics, I remember a wise, bespectacled teacher instructing us to stay focused on a theme that continues without fail throughout history.

It’s a sobering theme: the inclination of people, century after century, to inflict pain, torture and even death upon others only because of their nationality, religion or race.

Once again today, we don’t need to look too far to see headlines that call out the global struggle for human rights. Genocide in Darfur. Torture in Zimbabwe.

In the Kansas City area, as graduation time approaches, many of us sit in our fine, suburban homes, isolated in so many ways from the rest of the world. I can’t help but wonder how many of our sons and daughters have even a basic understanding of the human rights battles now taking place.

I do know this for sure: When younger people travel to foreign lands and trace the footsteps of history, they gain valuable insight and perspective on important matters such as human rights.

The worldlier our kids can be in spirit and experience, the more understanding and tolerant they will be every day.

I trust this will be the case for a trip that began April 28. Fifty-six 11th and 12th graders from the Kansas City area are visiting Poland and Israel to participate in the “March of the Living.”

This educational program brought teens from around the world to Poland on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, May 1, for a re-enactment of the two-mile death march from the Auschwitz to Birkenau concentration camps, and then on to Israel to tour the country and observe Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day.

March of the Living is sponsored by the Central Agency on Jewish Education/Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City. It will allow area youth to witness the horrors of the past and envision the strength of their future as they experience Israel and celebrate the 60th anniversary of its independence.

The famous journalist Edward R. Murrow once said, “Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices, just recognize them.”

Meaningful journeys like the March of the Living free our children to see history through their own eyes, and help shape the next generation of ambassadors in the struggle against hatred.

Dan Wilinsky is serving as an adult chaperone for the Kansas City area’s delegation to this year’s March of the Living. He lives in Overland Park. For more information, go to www.jewishkansascity.org<