For the Living

In January 1945, after 2 years as a prisoner in a death camp, 10-year-old Holocaust survivor Marcel Zielinksi embarked on a perilous 60-mile journey by foot from Auschwitz-Birkenau through an active war zone to Krakow, Poland. A child's desperate search for any surviving family members. A journey from Darkness to Light. Decades later, 250 cyclists from 12 different countries traveled to Auschwitz and re-traced 84-year-old Marcel's liberation path as a collective act of empathy called "Ride for the Living," which was created by JCC Krakow. Marcel's dehumanizing Holocaust experience and the empathy demonstrated during "Ride for the Living" provide a stunning parallel for Humankind's equally perilous journey between the two extremes of our nature: Dehumanization to Empathy. Darkness to Light. Igniting the urgent conversation: When will we stop building monuments for the dead and get busy re-humanizing the living? When will we finally say NEVER AGAIN and truly mean it.