Torrential downpour curtails annual March of the Living in Poland 

Oświęcim, Poland—Thousands of people, including scores of elderly Holocaust survivors, braved a torrential downpour on Thursday which cut short the annual March of the Living at Auschwitz in Poland , in tribute to the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

The annual event, which was held in the backdrop of a global uptick in antisemitism following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct, 7, 2023, comes eight decades since the liberation of the last Nazi death camps in the winter and spring of 1945.

Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said “80 years after the Holocaust, the same vicious hatred is again marching. Each generation finds new excuses for the same old hatred.”

About 8,000 participants from more than 40 countries around the world passed through the notorious gateway at Auschwitz, where the words Arbeit macht frei (German for “Work makes you free”) still stand.

The April morning soon turned overcast with heavy thundershowers, followed by downpours that began where the mile-long march got underway after the blowing of the shofarat the gate to the death camp. Many of the teenagers present, draped in Israeli flags, chanted Am Yisrael Chai (“the people of Israel live”) as they made their way through the camp.

More than an hour later, as the crowd—led by the Polish and Israeli presidents, as well as Holocaust survivors in their 80s and 90s—reached Buchenwald, the pounding rain and even hail forced organizers to cut short the outdoor uncovered event for the first time in its 37-year-old history as the drenched participants exited the site.

Before the event ended, Agam Berger, 20, an Israel Defense Forces field observer who was released from Gaza on Jan. 30 after 482 days in Hamas captivity, played musical selections from the 1993 film “Schindler’s List” on a 130-year-old violin that survived the Holocaust.

 

‘A universal human imperative’

Earlier in the day, the Shoah and the Oct. 7 intertwined, with both former hostages and hostage families—some chanting “Bring them home now!” at the Nazi death camp—mixed with aged Holocaust survivors, and the fate of the hostages still being held in Gaza was raised by the Israeli president in his remarks with his Polish counterpart.

“With a broken heart, I remind us that although after the Holocaust we vowed ‘Never Again,’ today even as we stand here … 59 of our brothers are still being held by terrorist murderers in Gaza in a horrific crime against humanity,” said Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who led the march alongside Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland. “The return of the hostages is a universal human imperative, and I call from here upon the entire international community to mobilize and put an end to this humanitarian crime.”

Herzog and Duda also visited exhibitions in Auschwitz and paid their respects at the Book of Names.

Pastor John Hagee, of Christians United for Israel, told JNS at the event that “antisemitism is a sin that condemns the soul, and every Christian should be taking a bold and aggressive stance against it. Not to speak is to speak.”

Israeli entrepreneur Haim Taib, who led the Oct. 7 delegation to the event, said that “what happened to us 80 years ago, and a year and a half ago, is the same evil intent to destroy. But if we remain united, the people of Israel will overcome all our enemies.”

Eli Sharabi, a hostage who spent 491 days in captivity in the Gaza Strip, taken from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, declared: “We will never forget or forgive the horrors of the Holocaust, which are without parallel. Every representative who has come here is a triumph of light for the Jewish people and a reminder that we are the victory of the spirit.”