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Young Jews and Poles in the 16th March of the Living in Oświęcim
About 7 thousand young people—Jews from all over the world and Poles—joined the 16th March of the Living in Oświęcim on Monday. First held more than a decade ago, the March represents homage and an expression of remembrance towards the victims of the Shoah.
The young people covered the Death Trail between the Auschwitz I Main Camp and Auschwitz II-Birkenau sites. Together with them, at the head of the column, marched representatives of the government of Israel: education minister Yuli Tamir and Rafi Eitan, who is now responsible for senior citizens’ affairs but who also led the operation that captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal Nazi war criminals. Israel Meir Lau, who experienced the Holocaust as a child and is now the head rabbi of Israel, also marched.
In the remarks that he delivered during the ceremony at the monument to the victims of the camp at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site, Eitan said that all of them had assembled that day in order to recall that the human race, which had produced such an enormous machinery of evil, was capable of producing such evil again through acts of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Eitan emphasized that young people from all over the world came to the Polish land that suffered under the Nazis in order to recall both the victims of the Holocaust and the iniquity of those who committed the crime.
In the morning, Jews from Israel, North America, and Europe visited the camp exhibition, mostly in Block no. 11, the so-called “Death Block,” and Block no. 27, dedicated to the destruction of the Jews.
The March of the Living set out from the Auschwitz camp gate with the Arbeit macht frei inscription after 1:00 PM. Its start was signaled by the blowing of the shofar, the ram’s horn that the ancient Hebrews sounded during religious ceremonies. Its sound is an appeal to God for mercy.
Rabbi Johann Fried from Israel played the signal on the shofar. He has attended the marches for this purpose for many years. “Each time I play, it is as if I am doing it for the first time. I’m not a professional, but I do this from the heart. I know that the sound will be heard,” he said. “The shofar is like the March—it symbolizes sadness, but also joy. The sadness of this place, Auschwitz, and the joy of youth, because that is what gives hope.”
The Jewish and Polish young people marched to Birkenau for the main ceremony. Six enormous candles, symbolizing the Jewish victims, were lighted at the monument. The Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, was said at the conclusion of the ceremony. The national anthem of Israel, the Hatikva [Hope], was also sung.
In Judaism, the Kaddish is a part of all communal prayers. It is also recited annually by men for an entire year after the death of a close relative, and on each anniversary of the death (yahrzeit). The Kaddish requires a minyan—the presence of ten adult men.
Participants in the March placed dozens of wooden tablets symbolizing the matzevah, the Jewish headstone, on the train tracks and the unloading platform (ramp) where the Nazis performed the selection of Jews from all over Europe, as well as at the ruins of the crematoria. Young Jews recalled in a multitude of languages the family members who died in the Holocaust, and expressed reassurances that they will never forget the tragedy that befell their forebears during the Second World War.
