Davidson College's men's basketball team walked the grounds of a Nazi concentration camp in August. The four-day trip to Berlin extended a program commitment to Holocaust education that began in 2018.

The Wildcats traveled with the Benjamin Ferencz Institute for Ethics, Human Rights and the Holocaust, a nonprofit named for the Nuremberg prosecutor who tried Nazi officers for crimes against humanity. The trip, announced by the college Sept. 28, took players to sites where the Nazi regime planned and carried out genocide.

Their itinerary included the Olympic Stadium the regime built to showcase itself to the world, the House of the Wannsee Conference where officials coordinated the murder of Europe's Jews in 1942, and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Sachsenhausen held hundreds of thousands of prisoners before its liberation in 1945.

The players were not just spectators. They visited the Places of Remembrance art installation in Berlin's Bavarian Quarter, where 80 signs scattered through an ordinary neighborhood document the gradual restrictions imposed on Jewish residents. They stopped at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and met with Jewish athletes from Makkabi Berlin, who described antisemitism and discrimination they still face.

"It gave me a new perspective on everything," sophomore forward Jackson Keith said. "My previous education on the Holocaust didn't cover anything we covered here. Seeing everything here really makes me motivated to speak out."

Keith, a 6-foot-6 transfer from Butler who led Durham's Southern High School to a 3A state championship in 2025, was one of several players who reflected on the experience.

Freshman Eetu Heinonen, who grew up in Finland and moved to Madrid at 14, said the trip showed him that hatred grows when people stop questioning what they are told. Another player said the experience taught him that a moral compass is built through everyday choices, not just major decisions.

The Berlin trip builds on a 2018 journey to Auschwitz, when the Wildcats toured the former death camp with survivor Eva Mozes Kor. Amanda Caleb, a 2002 Davidson graduate and former scholar-athlete, organized that trip along with Stacy Gallin, founding director of the Ferencz Institute. Caleb and Gallin also facilitated the Berlin program.

The Ferencz Institute, formerly the Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust before a 2023 name change, has built on the Davidson model to launch its Athletes Against Antisemitism and Discrimination initiative. The program aims to bring immersive Holocaust education to collegiate athletes nationwide.

Gallin detailed the Berlin itinerary in a Sept. 20 op-ed in the Times of Israel, writing that the players' questions reinforced the power of experiential learning.

Bob McKillop, who retired after 33 years leading the program, said in 2018 that the Auschwitz visit would prepare his staff and players to be "out front, leading the charge about the dignity of human life." His son Matt McKillop is now in his fifth season as head coach, coming off the program's first 20-win season under his leadership.

Davidson opens its 2026-27 season Nov. 2 at Washington State, with the home opener set for Nov. 7 against Mercer.