May 2026
FROM BERLIN AGREEMENT TO AUSCHWITZ REFLECTION: GLOBAL POLICE LEADERS REFRAME THEIR DUTY
Michael Gips- Reprinted from Police1
of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, the Manchester synagogue shooting on Yom Kippur and other recent attacks on the global Jewish community.
A former research fellow at Yad Vashem( the World Holocaust Remembrance Center) in Israel, Szkop told the assembled law enforcement leaders that she resists comparisons between today and 1930s Europe because“ law enforcement has been supporting the Jewish community and saving people during these attacks.” That distinction is critical. The same institution, 81 years later, but with a different moral compass.
From symbolism to institutional commitment
That shift was not only symbolic; it was institutional.
After confronting the Holocaust and modern attacks, police leaders are rethinking prevention and their role in protecting communities
Catherine Szkop, a Holocaust researcher, had just left a diplomatic function at the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on May 21, 2025, when she heard what she later described as“ an insane amount of popping.”
At first, she thought it might be fireworks. But the sound didn’ t stop.
Remembering something a Marine friend once told her—“ You’ ll feel the bullet before you hear it”— she instinctively checked herself for injuries. There were none. Then she ran. Realizing she was exposed and moving in a straight line, she dove beneath an SUV. From there, she heard the gunfire that killed two of her colleagues, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky. Sarah had been shot 11 times while trying to crawl away.
Eyewitness testimony meets police leadership
Immediately before arriving in Poland, many of the same leaders gathered in Berlin to launch a multinational initiative focused on democratic policing and community protection. The moment was notable not only for its scope, but for its symbolism: law enforcement leaders from across Europe and North America convening in a city once central to authoritarian power to reaffirm policing’ s role in safeguarding democratic values.
As delegation Chair Paul Goldenberg put it,“ In Berlin, senior police leaders from across Europe and the United States came together to make a clear professional commitment:‘ Never Again— Not on Our Watch.’ This was not symbolic.”
Nearly a year later, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, more than 130 police executives attending the 2026 March of the Living— an annual international program that brings participants to Holocaust sites in Poland to reflect on history and its modern-day implications— heard Szkop recount that moment.
They had spent days confronting the horrors of the Holocaust. But this account was not from a survivor of Nazi Germany. It was a young woman describing life in Washington, D. C., in 2025.
It wasn’ t an isolated story. The delegation also heard firsthand accounts from victims
For the first time, a broad coalition of major police associations from both continents participated together, signaling a level of international alignment rarely seen in the profession.
The delegation’ s presence at the March of the Living built directly on that foundation,
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