A total of 25 cadets and midshipmen from five U.S. service academies have arrived in Poland to take part in the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation’s (AJCF) American Service Academies Program (ASAP), an impactful 16-day educational experience that challenges future military leaders to confront the history of the Holocaust and apply its lessons to modern-day ethical leadership.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the program, which has educated hundreds of U.S. military students since its inception.
The cohort includes cadets and midshipmen from the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. An additional ASAP group will travel later this summer.
ASAP brings these future leaders through an intensive itinerary in both the United States and Poland, focusing on Holocaust history, ethical responsibility in the armed forces and the moral consequences of leadership during times of atrocity. Participants engage with survivors, scholars, elected officials and educators across two continents in a transformative journey of remembrance and responsibility.
In Poland, the program began on June 1 with an opening dinner and orientation led by Auschwitz Jewish Center directors and the program’s Scholar-in-Residence professor Jody Russell Manning. Over the next several days, the group will engage in guided study visits to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, tour the Kazimierz Jewish Quarter and the former Kraków ghetto, meet with Holocaust survivors, visit the Auschwitz Jewish Center and museum and roll up their sleeves to help maintain the Oświęcim Jewish cemetery. The group will then travel to Warsaw to visit the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Treblinka Death Camp Museum and Warsaw Uprising Museum. It will conclude with academic seminars, reflection workshops and commemorative events.
They then travel to New York, where the group will visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, meet with Holocaust survivors and Poland’s Consul General, visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and participate in the AJCF’s annual gala on June 11.
“For 20 years, the American Service Academies Program has empowered young military leaders to understand the consequences of hatred, the fragility of democracy and the importance of moral courage,” said AJCF chairman Simon Bergson. “By immersing these cadets and midshipmen in the history of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, we hope to inspire ethical leadership rooted in humanity and justice.”
“These young men and women represent the future of our nation’s armed forces, and they are confronting some of history’s darkest chapters to become the kind of leaders the 21st century needs,” said AJCF director General Jack Simony. “Twenty years of ASAP have shown us that education in ethical leadership is one of the most powerful tools we have to fight hatred and uphold democratic values.”
This year’s ASAP is made possible with generous support from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany; the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future; the German Federal Ministry of Finance; the Taube Family Foundation; and the David Berg Foundation.