A delegation of the blind from the Israel Guide Dog Center participated in the March of the Living on Thursday for Holocaust Memorial Day. An Arutz Sheva reporter spoke to group participants to find out how blind people and their sighted guides experience the March of the Living
"We're a delegation of six blind and visually impaired people from the Israeli Center for the Visually Impaired," a group guide explained. "We came here to provide the visually impaired an opportunity to experience what's happening here."
Many people say how important it is to come to the death camps and see what happened here. How do you accomplish this with a visual impairment?
"The truth is that before this earth-shattering trip, I had a lot of fears," a visually impaired group participant answered. "One of them was how I would experience this without seeing it. But the testimonies and the stories, what I touch and smell - the other senses that we have - simply turned this into an unbelievable experience."
Explain to us further. When you stand in front of a concentration camp block, for example, what do you do?
"We use our sense of smell," the group participant responded. "We listen to the sighted guides, what they tell us. We listen to the testimonies. The testimonies are chilling and for that, we don't need to see."
What does this experience teach you as a sighted person who is guiding the blind on this trip? Are you experiencing the trip through them?
"First of all, it forces us to look at things in much more detail," the group guide elaborated. "We need to explain to them what we're seeing and what we're feeling. We can't just say 'Look, here are the barracks.' We have to say, 'Here are the barracks - there are chimneys above and below is...' It forces the sighted guides to 'see' much more than usual."