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Participants in Fraternal Relay Pay Homage to Auschwitz Victims

July 16, Oświęcim (PAP-Polish Press Agency) – About 200 young people from around Europe covered the 3-kilometer "Road of Death" from the site of the Auschwitz I Main Camp to Auschwitz II-Birkenau on Sunday. The young people, taking part in the "Fraternal Relay," paid tribute to the people murdered in Birkenau by laying red roses on each of the 21 plaques at the monument to the victims at the site. After the ceremony, they set out for Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis.

The young people started out from the Crematorium I building at the Auschwitz I site. They carried the flags of the 21 nations whose people perished in Auschwitz.

The Italian social activist and lawyer Bortolo Brogliato, founder of the Fraternal Relay, said that war and its allies have vast funding. Peace is poor, he said, but has young people on its side, and the future belongs to them. He appealed for each young person to become a weapon of peace.

Brogliato said that the young people set out to Assisi from the Auschwitz site, which is a symbol of evil even though it was also the scene of the greatest of human triumphs. He was referring to the figure of St. Maksymilian Kolbe, who gave his life for a fellow prisoner. Brogliato said that the route of the Fraternal Relay leads to St. Francis's city, Assisi, a symbol of good.

Participants in the Relay read out a message appealing for peace in several languages at the foot of the monument to the victims at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site. The ceremony ended with the playing of Silence on the trumpet.

Young people from all over Europe have been arriving in Oświęcim since Saturday. They toured the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. In the evening, they carried torches from the Auschwitz I site to Birkenau and held a ceremony in memory of the victims at the railroad unloading platform ("ramp") inside the camp.

The relay left Oświęcim and started out for Assisi on Sunday afternoon. They will arrive there on July 24. Along the way, they will visit other German atrocity sites, including the Fossoli camp in Italy, which was founded by Italian fascists in December 1943 and taken over by the Germans at the turn of February and March, 1944.

Deportations of Italian Jews to Auschwitz

The Germans deported about 7,500 Jews from Italy to Auschwitz in 1943 and 1944. Despite its alliance with Hitler, Benito Mussolini's fascist regime consistently refused until 1943 to turn over Jews from Italy and Italian-occupied territory. Only after the overthrow of Mussolini and the declaration of a ceasefire by Petro Badoglio's new government in September 1943 did the Germans occupy north and central Italy, and begin arresting Jews. The first transport of about 1,000 men, women, and children arrived in Auschwitz from Rome on October 23, 1943. 196 of these people were selected for labor, and the remainder exterminated. The Germans deported a total of 40 thousand Italian citizens to camps during World War II.

Fraternal Relays

The first Fraternal Relay was held in 1982. This year's Relay is the 13th. The Auschwitz site was added to the route in the 1990s.