On May 5, more than 50 community members gathered at the top of Rabb steps to participate in Alpha Epsilon Pi’s Lambda Beta Chapter’s “We Walk to Remember,” a commemoration of the lives of Holocaust victims and survivors. The walk, which coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day — Yom HaShoah — ended with a group reflection in Ziv Quad. The annual event began with the reading of a portion of Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” which described the hanging of a Jewish child. Rabbi David Pardo, co-director of the Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus and an honorary AEPi brother, then addressed the crowd, touching upon a trip to Auschwitz that left him considering the struggle his survivor grandparents had gone through. “The story of the gates of Auschwitz is our story. It’s humanity’s story. There’s no question,” he said.

He also noted that, as a staffer on the trip, he was expected to have an explanation for what had caused the Holocaust. “What I learned is that no one knows why the Holocaust happened, because there is no answer. … The question isn’t ‘why,’ but ‘what,’” he said.

After a silent march across campus, the march attendees reflected on the Holocaust, some choosing to share their thoughts with the group.

“Oftentimes, we think of the Holocaust as this concept, instead of a period [in time],” AEPi President Gabriel Goldstein ’18 said, adding that as he walked across campus and saw the budding trees and flowers, he “wondered if people in the camps saw the same colors.”

One march attendee spoke about visiting Auschwitz and seeing a couple bicycling through the camp, a beautiful scene that stood out against the somber backdrop. “How do you find beauty, how do you find life in such a dark and gray time?” they asked.

Another reflected on the sound of the footsteps the group made as it marched from Rabb. “I imagined that those footsteps weren’t leading to the other side of campus, but somewhere I can’t even imagine,” they said.

“I think the craziest part is that it could have been us,” another attendee said. “We were born in the 20th century, and by sheer luck, we are still alive. It could have been us.”

After several others shared similar reflections on the march and various experiences visiting concentration camps and Yad Vashem — the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel — the event came to a quiet close.

—Editor’s note: Gabriel Goldstein ’18 is a staff writer at the Justice. AEPi member Noah Hessdorf ’18 is an Associate Editor .