"As a Baptist woman in her 40's, I went to pay my respect with my good friend Steve Sutton. I flew across the world and met some really wonderful folks of all races and religions who shared this experience with me, and we all experienced these events differently; yet, we were all deeply moved and will never forget what we learned and saw in Poland." - Gay Johnson, Crested Butte, Colorado

"I knew so little when I arrived in Poland and although I have learned much I understand now that if I spent every waking moment of my remaining life studying and learning about the Holocaust I could only scratch the surface. What the future would have held for these victims and the world that was never realized is just one of the many tragedies." - Fred Ross, Atlanta, Georgia

"General Eisenhower was so mortified by what he saw that he told his troops: "Take as many pictures as you can, because one day someone will deny this ever happened." And we all know too well that he was right. It is heartening to know that the General understood that the world needed to know about man's inhumanity to his fellow man and what could happen if we allow the weak to be dehumanized and marginalized, as the Jews of Europe had been. It is a lesson we all need to learn." - Sandy Fried, Atlanta, Georgia

"I am writing this from a non-Jewish perspective. I have spent close to 20 years reading and studying WWII...Nothing that I had studied in all these years prepared me to the reality of visiting Poland--whether it was standing in the open fields of Waldlager or looking at the millions of personal possessions at Auschwitz or standing over the massive gas chambers at Birkenau. It brought me face-to-face with our ability and capacity for evil." - Adil Choksey, Atlanta, Georgia

"Memorialized on a small stone tablet only paces from the crematoriums at Birkenau is a simple yet deceptively powerful request: For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity. Ironically, it was that opportunity to stand in their footsteps, to hear their cry, and to carry forever their warning that compelled me to travel so far. And though I had clearly departed the Pacific Northwest in search of a destination, I had instead found a journey. As I suspect it does for the others in our group, that journey continues today and is fueled by a reignited desire for promote understanding and tolerance.

I am profoundly grateful for, and humbled by, my experience." - Derek Somerville, Seattle, Washington

"Heaps of snow and mud in gutters. Dirty water splatters on clothes. People work their way through the puddles. Horses flounder around in the mud, people help them, carts and handcarts pushed or pulled by emaciated and starved figures everywhere, (...) None of them, neither those who hurry up and drag some loads, nor pull them, or plod, nor those who work or look, guardians and wards, people and horses...nothing that moves along the street, nothing has any sense, like puppets on the stage...and the more often I observe the scene, the more absurd all that appears. For whom? What for? Why? For how long? There is no answer to any of these questions. It was absurd at the beginning, and it is absurd now." - The diary of Oskar Rosenfeld, 1942