When Edmontonian Yuri Rogaev heard a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor’s story on the grounds of Auschwitz, he felt the time gap between the 1940s and today close in. Yuri was one of the adult participants at the 2024 March of the Living.

“I felt like I had a connection now because he’s still alive. He had memories there. It changed me from acting like a tourist to being able to relate to someone who was there. Just outside of the gates, there were anti-Israel protesters. That’s when it hit me. How can you have a 97-year-old telling us the same things that led up to the Holocaust and I’m seeing it happen all over again?” says Yuri.

He took part in the March of the Living through a Christian organization called Friends of Israel. Yuri grew up in the former Soviet Union and his mother believes her grandmother was Jewish, but it was very difficult to be Jewish in this country. Yuri considers himself to be Christian and attends Beth Israel Synagogue weekly with his wife. When he lived in Las Vegas, he began volunteering with the local Jewish Federation. 

“I always loved serving the Jewish community. When I was in Las Vegas, I met about 40 Holocaust survivors and formed strong bonds with many of them. I heard the opportunity to go on the March of the Living and thought it was an open door to witness and experience the Holocaust. When they told me I will go with 3,000 other Jewish people, I felt so privileged,” he says.

The first part of his 10-day trip focused on New York, Philadelphia, and Poland, which was separate from the March of the Living. In 1938, a group established the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry as a compassionate effort to address the spiritual and physical needs of Jewish people displaced by the Holocaust. The organization started in New York City and Yuri took part in a Passover Seder during his visit. In Poland, he toured a Jewish community centre and visited different death camps in the area. They met up with the March of the Living delegation to show solidarity. For Yuri, it became a journey of understanding and connection.

“We felt very uneasy as we walked through the area and saw the remnants of the death camps. It showed you how large this massacre and genocide were. You can’t replicate it unless you walk on the March of the Living. This trip really broke me because I just kept seeing camp after camp. It was an unexpected event, but also one I’ll never forget,” he says.

Yuri’s trip left him determined to express himself. “If we don’t speak out for Israel, we will repeat the same mistakes as what led to the Holocaust.”