OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) – Thousands of people from around the world, many draped in Israeli flags, paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust on Thursday with a somber march from the barracks of Auschwitz to nearby Birkenau.
Organizers of the March of the Living, held annually on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, said about 10,000 participated in the event in southern Poland, occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Among them were about 150 Holocaust survivors, Israel’s justice minister, Knesset members and people from 42 countries who voiced a wide range of emotions: deep grief at the loss of 6 million Jews, joy at the continued existence of the Jewish people and hope that the many young people taking part means the world will continue to remember.
“My grandparents of blessed memory died in the Holocaust along with five of their seven children and I am here to say memorial prayers for them, out of respect and out of hope they are resting in peace,” said Michael Berks, 77, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The marchers gathered under the infamous gate at Auschwitz bearing the sadist Nazi motto “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Will Set You Free). The chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Yisrael Meir Lau, an Auschwitz survivor from Poland, marched at the head of the group holding Torah scrolls.