In Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, a new Torah scroll will be dedicated to a synagogue and the Jewish community during spring break.

This will be the first Jewish event in the town since the Holocaust, said Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel of Chabad Center for Jewish Life, and it is taking place to honor the arrival of 25 U.S. college students who are traveling from the University to Berlin, Germany this spring break.

“We are going to make a statement for Jewish survival and revival,” Tiechtel said.

The group is leaving Thursday evening from O’Hare International Airport. They plan to serve the Jewish community, experience the culture of Jews in Germany and meet with German college students, Tiechtel said.

“I like the idea of being able to travel internationally and to help other people and experience their culture,” said Danny Obeler, sophomore in LAS, who is going on the trip.

The group’s itinerary includes a stop at Germany’s only Jewish school to meet with children and a trip to a Jewish senior citizens’ home to talk to Holocaust survivors.

“It’s a very important thing for us to understand our past,” Tiechtel said. “For students to understand themselves and where they come from to understand where they’re going.”

Tiechtel said many people do not understand why Jewish college students would want to visit Germany, the country where so many Jews were killed during World War II.

Parents of students who are attending the trip and others who hear about it, generally react with surprise, Tiechtel said.

“My parents were very reluctant at first,” said Scott Heller, junior in Business, who is traveling with the group.

However, Heller, Obeler and others were able to convince their parents of the trip’s importance, and raise $675 toward the trip’s combined $38,000 cost.

“Once we said we were going as Jewish students but to help in Berlin, they understood,” Obeler said.

The group will be staying at a hotel near the Chabad house in Berlin and will get to meet Jewish college students from the city. Tiechtel said the students there are excited to meet their American counterparts and become partners, at least for a week.

Still, others think the German people’s history and reputation with Jews is hard to overcome and do not see the country as a welcoming environment.

“Germany’s got a very bad connotation with Jewish families,” said Matt Kushner, senior in LAS, who is traveling to Berlin. “I’m going to try to flip my stereotype. I would not have gone to Germany ever if not for this trip.”

Helping Jewish residents in Germany is important because the country is home to the fastest-growing population of Jews in the world, Tiechtel said.

“I can’t think of a better place to go for spring break because it’s in Germany that we can make the biggest impact,” Tiechtel said.