“We must not stay silent. We must never again allow a wild lust for destruction to take hold,” emphasized President Andrzej Duda ahead of the March of the Living. “Today, we are not only looking back at history—we are showing that remembrance must endure as a sign of respect for those who were murdered and who fell.”
Prezydent @AndrzejDuda i Prezydent Izraela @Isaac_Herzog złożyli wieńce przed Ścianą Śmierci. pic.twitter.com/pT4cVnuo5X
— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) April 24, 2025
President Andrzej Duda, alongside Israeli President Isaac Herzog, is taking part in the March of the Living, an event organized by the international organization International March of the Living.
Jewish youth from various countries, along with Polish students, participate in the march to honor the victims of the Holocaust. Several dozen Holocaust survivors are also present. The ceremonies are being held on the grounds of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz–Birkenau. The event was preceded by a meeting between the two presidents.
Following the meeting, a press conference was held during which the Polish head of state stressed that “The March of the Living is a demonstration of life and memory, but also a powerful call: never again to hatred, to chauvinism, to antisemitism.”
The President noted that the Nazis created Auschwitz-Birkenau and turned it into a site of extermination—primarily of the Jewish people—where more than a million citizens of the Republic of Poland were murdered, including Poles, Jews, and Roma.
“We must not remain silent”
President Duda emphasized that participation in the March of the Living is “a sign that we cannot remain silent, that we must never again allow a wild desire for destruction to prevail.”
“Today, we are not only reflecting on history—we are showing that remembrance must endure, as a tribute to the murdered and the fallen,” he added.
“And above all, we must not remain silent in the face of any manifestations of hatred between nations, or of racial and ethnic hatred. Because when we stay silent in the face of hate, the final consequence can be what happened here—what the Germans did here during World War II when, driven by ethnic hatred and a savage lust for destruction, they sought to erase the Jewish people from humanity,” said President Duda.
He added that both he and President Herzog expressed hope that “the war in Ukraine will end with a just and lasting peace, and that Russian imperialism will be stopped.”