In high school, I was part of a Jewish youth organization which offered yearly trips on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to take part in the March of the Living which is a silent march from Auschwitz to Birkenau to commemorate those who were wrongfully taken from their homes and forced to face unspeakable torture and brutal slaughter during the Holocaust. I never went on the trip with my youth organization, but I have many friends who have (with my organization and countless others)and as a result, every April and May, my Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat feed is teeming with teens eager to post their experience. But it can be easy to get caught up in the emotions of the experience and the excitement of traveling with close friends, new and old, and end up committing some pretty serious infractions. To make it easier for future March of the Living attendees to figure out what they should and should DEFINITELY NOT post on social media, I’ve compiled a list of Do’s and Don'ts based what I've seen done in the past.
DO
Do post as many statuses about how you are having "the experience of a lifetime" in Poland and explain as many of those experiences as you wish. Yes, it may get a little annoying to sift through personal reflections, but there is something to be said for having to do so. Inspire people with your words, tell stories you have learned about the resilience of the Jewish people, talk about how the overwhelming emotion brought you closer to your Jewish identity or the people you traveled with. I would love to hear about your experiences and the meaning behind them.
DO NOT
Do not post about how your trip to Poland was "the time of my life." Do not talk about how you had so much fun with all of your new friends and how you had such a great time seeing the country. Remember why you are there and remember what people will think when you post things like that. If I could interchangeably use your status to describe your night out partying last week or your family trip to the Bahamas, it probably isn't getting the proper message across.
DO
Do take hundreds upon hundreds of pictures to capture those raw emotions that you felt there, especially if it's painfully sobering images of gas chambers juxtaposed with pictures of your friends laughing once in Israel for Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day). The trip is designed to bring you from a feeling of deep mourning to wild celebration and your photos should certainly show that.
DO NOT
Do not post pictures of you and your friends taking smiling group pictures outside of gas chambers or under the ARBEIT MACHT FREI--Work makes you free-- sign at the entrance of the camp. The trip is meant to commemorate and memorialize the 6 million Jews and the other 5 million non-Jews who were killed during the Nazi's reign over Europe, and all I ask is that you think about this before you take a group picture smiling gleefully in the largest concentration camp built in WWII. If you wouldn't take the same picture at a cemetery, maybe don't take it at a concentration camp.
DO
Post inspirational quotes from survivors, friends, authors, philosophers, directors, playwrights, or anyone else who seems to have said something applicable to the trip you are currently experiencing. I am truly in awe of how many people have said such beautifully, and at times painfully, eloquent things about the Holocaust and it will never cease to terrify me to see how many people were directly or indirectly touched by such a horrific event. Sometimes it takes another person's words to sum up what you are seeing first hand and finding a quote to express what your feeling in ways that you may not be able to is perfectly respectable
DO NOT
Do not misquote the speaker of your quote. There are many famous quotes like Elie Wiesel saying "Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere," "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," and "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness." But let it be known that, although he may have repeated the quote, it was George Santayana who is quoted in saying "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" almost 40 years prior to the Holocaust.
DO
Do think out your captions so that they get they convey the exact thing you want them to. Let people know how your experience have shaped you or enlightened you in some way. Let it all out.
DO NOT
Do not spend your whole trip planning out a witty caption for your picture on Instagram. There are NO accepted, witty captions for your picture. Not "release the Krakow", not "Hey Hitler! You missed one!" (both actual captions I have seen on Instagram).
So, get lost in your experiences! Memorialize them in your photos and your words of inspiration! Meet people and bond over this commonality in your histories! But please, PLEASE, do so tastefully!
