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The 24th March of the Living
On April 16 the 24th March of the Living took place at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. Several thousand people, mostly young Jews from over 45 countries, but also a large group of young Poles, marched from the 'Arbeit macht frei' gate at former Auschwitz I camp to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where main commemorative events were held near the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria
The sound of shofar, ram’s horn calling for repentance in the Jewish tradition, was the signal to start the March.
This year, the organizers particularly commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of numerous German Nazi concentration and extermination camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Shoah. Young people participating in the March shall be the generation listening to survivors’ stories, as they will be responsible for passing them on.
Main commemorative events of the March of the Living took place near the monument at former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Six symbolical memorial candles were lit there as a symbol of six million Holocaust victims. Kaddish, Jewish prayer for the dead, was said by the participants of the ceremony at its end.
In many places in the former camp, participants of the March left wooden plaques with the names of the murdered, symbolizing Jewish gravestones (matzevas). Many of them were placed on the ramp where the german Nazis carried out the selection of Jews brought from all over Europe.
The March of the Living is part of an international educational project carried out in Poland and in Israel. For nearly a week, the groups visit the places connected with Jewish tradition and the Shoah. The second part of the program takes place in Israel.
The March of the Living has been organised since 1988 on the Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), whose date is related to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The first march was attended by approximately 1.5 thousand Jews. Since 1996, it has been held annually. The largest took place in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when it was attended by nearly 20 thousand people.
The Holocaust was an unprecedented attempt at mass murder through industrial methods, which has never before or ever since been carried out on such a scale. The idea was to lead to the "final solution of the Jewish question" - the murder of an entire nation. In Auschwitz, the largest extermination centre, the Germans exterminated more than one million one hundred thousand people, mostly Jews, but also including Poles, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war and citizens of other nations.
