OSWIECIM, Poland — The Polish and Israeli presidents joined thousands of Israeli youth and others in an annual march Thursday at the former Auschwitz death camp on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The group included Holocaust survivors and former Israeli hostages who were captured by Hamas and held in the Gaza Strip, organizers said.
Every year young Israelis, many with their national flag around their shoulders, are among those making the March of the Living to remember the victims of the Holocaust. It is part of a larger educational effort to instill in them an appreciation for Israel, a haven for Jews after the genocide in Europe during World War II.
The march’s traditional 3-kilometer (2-mile) route leads from Auschwitz’s infamous “Arbeit macht frei” (works sets you free) gate to Birkenau, a site with the ruins of crematoria where Jews and others were murdered.
Polish President Andrzej Duda and his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, spoke to reporters ahead of the march, describing their presence as part of an effort to stand against antisemitism.
The Nazi German forces ran the camp in occupied Poland during World War II. They killed some 1.1 people there, the vast majority of them Jews from across Europe, but also Poles, Roma and others.
The camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on Jan. 27, 1945. The 80th anniversary was marked at the site earlier this year.
