On Thursday, April 28, Polish President Andrzej Duda in Auschwitz and Birkenau will take part in the March of the Living, which is a tribute and an expression of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.

The March of the Living is traditionally held on the Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 2022, it is on April 28. The participants of the march together walk the three-kilometer route leading from the “Arbeit macht frei” gate in the former German Auschwitz I camp to the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

This year’s March of the Living will take place during the war in Ukraine. As emphasized by the organizers of the international organization March of the Living, the universal goal of the March is to inspire its participants “to fight indifference, racism and injustice by witnessing the atrocities of the Holocaust.”

This year it will be attended by eight Holocaust survivors, as well as about 2,000 young participants, including about 350 Poles.

In 2018, President Andrzej Duda took part in the March of the Living together with the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin. “We are coming together to bear witness to the memory of the extermination of the Jewish people, to say: ‘Never again”, said the President of Poland at the time.

The “March of the Living” project is an international event in which Jews from various countries visit the sites of the Holocaust, created by the Germans during the war in occupied Poland to pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. The march between the former Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps is the culmination of the project in Poland. This year’s March will take place in Auschwitz and Birkenau after a two-year break caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adrian Andrzejewski