11,000 youths to attend March of the Living

IDF chief of staff, Israeli ambassador to Warsaw, to join Jews from around the world at Auschwitz concentration camp to mark Holocaust anniversary.

By SAM SOKOL
March of the Living in Polish cemetery_370 (photo credit: Yossi Zeilger)
March of the Living in Polish cemetery_370
(photo credit: Yossi Zeilger)
Eleven thousand young people will take part in this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day activities at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland under the auspices of the March of the Living program.
The participants, who are mostly Jewish, hail from over 50 countries, including Morocco, Turkey, France, the United States and Canada, said march spokesman Yoram Dori.
Among those participating in this year’s remembrances at the death camp will be IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, former chief rabbi Israel Meir Lau, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder and Zvi Ravner, Israel’s Ambassador to Poland.
March of the Living is an education program that brings high-school youth to Poland for a week of touring Nazi death camps, followed by a week in Israel. Participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest death camp built by the Germans.
Following their tours of the death camps in Poland, the youth from the Diaspora will arrive in Israel in time to take part in both Remembrance Day, commemorating the fallen of Israel’s wars, and Independence Day.
Five hundred survivors are also slated to take part, accompanying the March of the Living groups and telling them of their personal experiences during the war.
March of the Living founder and chair Shmuel Rosenman said that this year a “special effort” was made to enable young people to hear testimonies firsthand from the dwindling population of survivors.