Former NBA All-Star Ray Allen is on the board of the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum. Image by U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Davidson College men’s basketball team will fly to Poland on Saturday to visit Auschwitz, in hopes of keeping alive the tragic memory of the Holocaust and its victims.

The four-day trip grew out of an invitation from a Davidson alumna involved with the Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust, a non-profit focused on Holocaust education and remembrance. The organization is organizing and funding the trip — which will not involve any basketball — as well as making a documentary about the team’s experience.

Inspired by 10-time NBA All-Star Ray Allen’s visit to Auschwitz last year, Davidson alumna Amanda Caleb thought it would be worthwhile if more athletes could help tell the story of the Holocaust to young people.

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MIMEH partnered with CANDLES, a nonprofit organization founded by Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of Josef Mengele’s medical experimentation in Auschwitz. She will help guide the team’s visit.

“The volatility of our world today invites a response,” basketball coach Bob McKillop, who visited Auschwitz years ago, said on Davidson’s website. “A trip like this prepares us exceptionally well as … our coaching staff and our players are [granted a platform to be] out front, leading the charge about the dignity of human life.”

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com

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