March of the Living to mark Israel’s national Holocaust Remembrance Day, will take place this year on April 28th at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. After a two-year hiatus during the COVID-19 global pandemic, the march has started today at the historic “Arbeit macht frei” gate and the participants headed for the former concentration and extermination camp Birkenau.
“In the last few years, the International March of the Living and the world as a whole have lost many Holocaust survivors,” said President Phyllis Greenberg Heideman and Chairman Dr Shmuel Rosenman. “This is almost the last opportunity to march alongside Holocaust survivors. It is our responsibility to carry the torch of their memory even in the face of the tragic ongoing war in Ukraine.” (The Jerusalem Post)
The March of the Living is an educational ceremony. Mainly pupils and students, under the aegis of Jews from all world, visit the place of the Holocaust in the occupied Polish territory by Germans during WWII. They also learn about the history of Polish Jews. The march between the former concentration and extermination camp on Yom HaShoah (יום השואה), in English Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, commemorates the murder of approximately 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany.
President Andrzej Duda has participated in the march and has been at the front of it together with Edward Mosberg. They commemorated the tragedy and put the wreath under the Death Wall.
Prezydent @AndrzejDuda wraz z Edwardem Mosbergiem złożył wieniec przed Ścianą Śmierci. pic.twitter.com/u4Bn6yQlhO
— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) April 28, 2022
#MarszŻywych pic.twitter.com/TK6UTyGKax
— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) April 28, 2022