UNE Center for Global Humanities presents Maine’s premiere screening of 'For the Living'

In January 1945, after two years in a Nazi death camp, 10-year-old Holocaust survivor Marcel Zielinksi embarked on a perilous, 60-mile journey by foot from Auschwitz-Birkenau through an active war zone to Krakow, Poland. The child’s desperate search for any surviving family members represented an against-all-odds journey from despair and darkness to hope and light.

Decades later, 250 cyclists from 12 different countries traveled to Auschwitz and retraced the now 84-year-old Zielinksi’s path to liberation as a collective act of empathy called the “Ride for the Living.” The event was chronicled by filmmakers Tim Roper and Lisa Effress, and, in October 2024, the documentary “For the Living” was released.

The University of New England will host the Maine premiere screening of the film on April 14, followed by a conversation with the filmmakers and UNE Professor of Philosophy David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., who appears in the film as an expert commentator. 

Event Details: 

• 5–6 p.m.: Welcome Reception (Parker Pavilion)  
• 6–8 p.m.: Film Screening (WCHP Lecture Hall)
• 8–8:30 p.m.: Conversation (WCHP Lecture Hall)

Attendees will learn the remarkable story of Zielinksi’s dehumanizing Holocaust experience and witness the empathy demonstrated during the Ride for the Living.  They will be prompted to ponder such questions as: When will we stop building monuments to the dead and get busy rehumanizing the living? And when will we finally say never again and truly mean it in the face of man’s inhumanity to man?

Reserve your seat with a free ticket. 

This will be the fifth of seven events this spring at the Center for Global Humanities, where events are always free and open to the public. For more information, visit the Center for Global Humanities website.