Lynnwood High School English teacher participates in Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship

Last summer, Lynnwood High School English teacher Micah Reitan experienced a life-changing journey that deepened his understanding of one of the most tragic periods in human history: the Holocaust.

Through the competitive Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship sponsored by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation, Reitan was selected to join 42 other educators from across the U.S. on a tour of Holocaust memorials, historical sites and concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Before joining the fellowship, Reitan had already set out on a European vacation with his wife. However, a casual conversation at a local bookstore with a woman from the Seattle Holocaust Center changed the course of his summer.

“She just mentioned the fellowship, where they take students and teachers to Poland to study the Holocaust, and I was immediately interested,” Reitan said.

After writing an essay, going through interviews and being selected, he embarked on a  journey that combined history, personal reflection and professional development.

The group visited sites significant to Holocaust history, including the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.

The fellowship offered an immersive learning experience in Poland. Led by expert guides, the group toured Warsaw, where they saw remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto. They then traveled to Kraków, exploring the Jewish quarters and synagogues before visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau, two infamous Nazi concentration camps.

“We also saw the Shoes on the Danube Bank in Budapest, which was especially moving,” Reitan recalled.

Reflecting on Auschwitz and Birkenau, he was struck by the stark reality of these two camps’ differences.

“I didn’t realize they were two separate places,” he said, describing how Auschwitz was initially used for training Nazi officers and eventually evolved into a site for mass extermination.

Birkenau, a half-mile away, was built specifically for the systematic killing of Jewish people. Standing at the very location where innocent people were divided between life and death was overwhelming, he said.

“You could almost feel the history beneath your feet,” Reitan said. “The wildflowers growing around and a deer running through—it was surreal.”

The experience will positively impact his teaching this year, giving him newfound credibility and depth when discussing the Holocaust in the classroom.

“Telling students that I stood there, learning from world-renowned Holocaust experts, will hopefully bring the subject to life for them,” he said.

Reitan also plans to share stories from his trip to help students grasp the emotional weight of such events. In addition to teaching, he sees himself now as an ambassador of this experience, spreading the importance of understanding history to prevent future atrocities.

“We travel to break down walls and stereotypes, and we become ambassadors for the cultures we immerse ourselves in,” Reitan explained.

In a time when the world seems increasingly divided, his message to students is clear: Empathy, understanding, and learning from the past are essential steps toward building a better future.

– Story provided by the Edmonds School District