climbing through darkness towards the light

By Debra Brunner

Back in January, we announced that we would be climbing Mount Snowdon as a charity challenge to raise money for The Together Plan’s work supporting vulnerable communities in Belarus through humanitarian aid, practical assistance, Holocaust education, and heritage preservation. In the UK, the funds would also support our Making History Together programme, helping young people develop resilience, critical thinking, and moral courage while learning from hidden Holocaust history, work that feels more important now than ever before.

Twelve people signed up for the challenge, including two participants travelling from the USA: Carl Kaplan, a volunteer for The Together Plan, and Sofia Dobkin, daughter of Polina Dobkina, who escaped from the Minsk Ghetto and survived in the Belarusian forests with Russian partisans during the Holocaust.

A training schedule was shared, preparations began, and soon a WhatsApp group was buzzing with conversations about walking boots, waterproofs, energy snacks, and blister prevention! It quickly became clear that this was going to be much more than simply climbing a mountain – it was becoming a team effort grounded in friendship, determination, and shared purpose.

Sadly, three members of our team were unable to take part on the day due to injuries sustained during training. And so, in the early hours of May 4th, it was eight of us who assembled at the foot of the mountain at 1am, ready to begin the ascent. Sofia still made the journey to Wales and supported us from the sidelines, which meant so much to us all.

Kitted out with headtorches, layers, and nervous excitement, we began the climb. Once we were in motion, there was no going back.

Within moments we had built up a sweat, hearts pounding as we tackled the first steep stretch of tarmac before turning through a gate and stepping onto the rocky terrain of the mountain itself. The path ahead alternated between gravel tracks and giant boulder steps that seemed never-ending as we climbed higher and higher into the darkness.

With only the small circle of light from our headtorches illuminating the path immediately ahead, we could see almost nothing around us. The mountain was hidden in darkness. Occasionally, the moonlight revealed the faint outline of distant peaks, while ahead of us stretched a mesmerising trail of tiny lights from other climbers making the ascent through the night.

Those lights disappeared upwards into the heavens as far as the eye could see, and we knew we were heading there too.

It felt dreamlike. Intense. At times overwhelming.

There was pain. There was sweat. There were tears.

But there was also extraordinary camaraderie. Everyone supported each other. We held hands, encouraged one another forward, and kept climbing together for something bigger than ourselves.

In many ways, climbing Snowdon felt like a stark parallel to the work we do at The Together Plan.

The hidden history of the Jewish people in Belarus – a region shaped by empires, shifting borders, war, and political upheaval – is a story that remains largely untold, yet it contains vital lessons that help us better understand the world we live in today.

The lands that make up modern-day Belarus once sat at the heart of the Pale of Settlement, established in 1791 and dissolved in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. For centuries, Jewish communities in these lands faced hardship, persecution, and restrictions, yet they adapted, endured, and preserved their identity against all odds.

After the collapse of the Pale and the rise of Soviet Communism, many Jews living under Soviet rule faced new forms of oppression. Religion was banned, Jewish identity was suppressed, and many Jews were labelled “rootless cosmopolitans” and persecuted as a result.

Then came the Holocaust.

On June 22nd 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen (Nazi mobile killing squads) marched alongside the Wehrmacht with the explicit mission of hunting down and murdering Jews by bullets across Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and beyond. Entire Jewish communities were wiped out in forests, ravines, and fields.

After the war, Stalin suppressed Jewish narratives further, insisting that everyone had suffered equally as Soviet citizens. The Holocaust in the Soviet territories was denied, and Jewish survivors were often silenced.

Today, Jewish communities still exist in Belarus, but many are fragile. Some Jewish people no longer know how to reconnect with their identity, while others do not realise they have a story to tell at all.

Moreover, Belarus today exists within a deeply complex geopolitical landscape, and working in this field as a charity is filled with challenges. Raising funds is difficult. Navigating bureaucracy is difficult. Preserving memory in places where history has been silenced is difficult.

But we continue because we must.

And we continue because we have an incredible team on the ground in Belarus, something we have worked tirelessly to build over many years.

Our work impacts Jewish and non-Jewish communities not only in Belarus, but around the world. And just like climbing a mountain in darkness, even when the path feels steep and uncertain, we keep going because we know there is light at the end of the journey.

For us on Snowdon, that light came in the form of sunrise.

Standing at the summit as dawn broke across the mountains was an emotional moment none of us will ever forget. After hours of darkness, exhaustion, and pushing ourselves beyond what we thought possible, the sky slowly filled with colour and light.

It reminded us exactly why we do what we do.

Thank you to everyone who supported the team and our cause, and thank you to every member of the team for stepping up to take those steps up the mountain.

But it does not stop here.

There are still many steps ahead.

We hope you will continue supporting The Together Plan so that we can help communities revive, continue vital research to uncover hidden history, tell more untold stories, and educate future generations so there is deeper understanding of the suffering and resilience of the Jewish people.

To watch our post climb short reel on Instagram – click here

Special thanks to our team of eight climbers:

Emma Phillips of Houseman Properties Letting Agents, London – click here 

Chris Fairclough of Martin Gerrard Estate Agents, Hampstead, London – click here 

Michael Zeminedes of the A-Z General Practice – click here 

Josh Leitner of Evertex Table Linens, Accessories and Printed textiles, London – click here  

Elias Hadjikyriacou of Wise Owl Bookkeeping Services, London click here 

Tracey Kieve, Trustee for The Together Plan (UK) – click here

Carl Kaplan, Senior Caseworker in the Archive Services Department at The Together Plan 

Debra Brunner – CEO and co-founder of The Together Plan, fundraising in the UK click here and President and founder of Jewish Tapestry Project, fundraising in the USA – click here

Thank you for your support

For more information about the work of The Together Plan and how you can continue to support, please get in touch – [email protected]