March of the Living

The March of the Living, is an annual educational program which brings students from all over the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom Hashoah), thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest Nazi German concentration camp complex built during World War II. Marchers come from countries as diverse as Panama, Turkey, Estonia and New Zealand. The program was established in 1988 and takes place annually around April and May, immediately following Passover, for two weeks. At the climax of the program is the march, which is designed to contrast with the death marches which occurred towards the end of World War II. When Nazi Germany withdrew its soldiers from forced-labour camps, inmates usually already starving and stricken by oppressive work were forced to march hundreds of miles in the snow, while those who lagged behind or fell were shot. This contrast of the living walking the path of a death march serves to illustrate the continued existence of world Jewry despite Nazi Germans attempts at their obliteration.