March of the Living
Native name Marsz Żywych (Polish), מצעד החיים (Hebrew)
DateMarch or April annually
LocationAuschwitz-Birkenau, Poland
TypeMarch
ThemeThe Holocaust
CauseHolocaust remembrance and education
ParticipantsStudents, Holocaust survivors, dignitaries
Websitehttps://motl.org/about

The March of the Living (Hebrew: מצעד החיים, Mits'ad HaKhayim; Polish: Marsz Żywych) is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar (Yom HaShoah), thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau.

History

The program was established in 1988 and takes place annually for two weeks around April and May, immediately following Passover.

The Israeli founders of the March of the Living were politician Avraham Hirschson educator Dr. Shmuel Rosenman, and attorney Baruch Adler. They were assisted in the early years by Jewish communal leaders and philanthropists from the United States (Alvin Schiff, Gene Greenzweig, Dr. David Machlis, and Joseph Wilf, the first North American Chair of the March of the Living), and Canada (Walter Hess, Shlomo Shimon, Rabbi Irwin Witty, and Eli Rubenstein).

Commemoration of World War II death marches

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 – most already starving and stricken by oppressive work – were forced to march hundreds of miles further west, while those who lagged behind or fell were shot or left to freeze to death in the winter climate. The March of the Living, in contrast to the death marches, serves to illustrate the continued existence of the Jewish people despite Nazi attempts at their obliteration.

After spending a week in Poland visiting other sites of Nazi Germany's persecution, such as Majdanek, Treblinka, and the Warsaw Ghetto, and former sites of Jewish life and culture, various Synagogues, many of the participants in the March also travel on to Israel where they observe Yom HaZikaron and celebrate Israel's Independence Day.[1]

Exhibit

In mid January 2014 a new exhibit on the March of the Living opened at the United Nations, which housed the exhibit until the end of March 2014. Titled "When you Listen to a Witness, You Become a Witness", the exhibit includes photographs, documents and writings devoted to the 25-year history of the March of the Living.

An interactive component of the exhibition allows visitors to fill out their own pledge of tolerance and compassion which may be taken on the March of the Living and planted alongside thousands of other plaques of tolerance and compassion on the very grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau.[2]

The title of the exhibit is taken from the words of Judy Weissenberg Cohen in a speech given to students on the 1997 March of the Living describing the last time she saw her mother during the selection of Hungarian Jewry in Auschwitz-Birkenau in the spring of 1944.[3][4][5]

On March 10, 2014, a group of students from New York's Pine Bush High School[6] – part of a district where there have been press reports alleging widespread anti-Semitism – visited the UN Exhibit. They were addressed by Holocaust survivors Judy Weissenberg Cohen and Fanya Heller, as well as by Rick Carrier, a World War II Liberator.[7][8]

The UN Exhibit became the basis of a book published in the fall of 2015, titled, Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations. The book has a unique interactive feature where the survivors, World War II liberators, and Righteous Among the Nations featured in the book, include an invisible link embedded on their image. When their image is accessed with a smart phone or other device, the reader is taken to an excerpt of their video testimony on USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education (created by Steven Spielberg) or March of the Living Digital Archive Project websites.[9] Translations in several other languages are already in the works.[10]

President of Poland Andrzej Duda with Aharon Tamir, Deputy Chairman, March of the Living

In recent years the March of the Living (MOTL) has attempted to broaden its focus from only concentrating on the Holocaust, and include other program content in the Poland portion of the trip. These elements include: celebrating Jewish life before the war, establishing dialogue with Polish students, meeting with Polish Righteous among the Nations, and connecting with the contemporary Polish Jewish community.[11]

Cultural impact

Canadian teens meet with their Polish counterparts in Warsaw on the March of the Living (2 photos)

In 2009 two different documentaries featured March of the Living participants or students on similar experiences during their time on the trip. The documentary Defamation, by filmmaker Yoav Shamir, includes a group of Israeli students during their time at Poland sites, including the stop at Auschwitz.[12] Director Jessica Sanders made a documentary titled March of the Living, which focuses entirely on the program and participants.[13]

Late 2015 saw the release of Blind Love, a documentary film about blind Israelis traveling to Poland with the help of their guide dogs on the March of the Living to learn about the Holocaust. The film premiered during Holocaust Education Week in Toronto, with the co-sponsorship of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. It was also broadcast on the CBC's Canadian speciality channel Documentary in late 2015 and then again in 2017 on Holocaust Remembrance Day, as well as in Israel on its main station Channel 10 (Israel) on the same day.

2020 cancellation

For the first time since its inception in 1988, the March of the Living program to Poland and Israel was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting thousands of prospective participants – including students, survivors, educators and dignitaries from around the world.

See also

  • Edward Mosberg, Holocaust survivor, one of the biggest supporters of the International March of the Living, often attending the march wearing his original concentration camp uniform.

References

  1. ↑ "BBYO Passport: March of the Living". Passport.bbyo.org. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  2. ↑ March of the Living. CBC Radio: Metro Morning audio recording.
  3. ↑ UN to host March of the Living exhibit The Canadian Jewish News, January 20, 2014.
  4. ↑ New exhibit at UN dedicated to preserving Holocaust memory Jewish World - Jerusalem Post 2014.
  5. ↑ Holocaust exhibit at UN stresses memory and hope The Times of Israel 2014.
  6. ↑ Weiserjan, Benjamin (January 25, 2014). "U.S. Cites Evidence of Anti-Semitism in School District". The New York Times. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
  7. ↑ Brown, Kathryn (March 10, 2014). "CBS 2 Exclusive: Students From District Plagued By Anti-Semitism Meet Holocaust Survivors". CBS New York (WCBS-TV). Retrieved April 24, 2017.
  8. ↑ Verikaitis, Vac (October 3, 2014). "Auschwitz: "It's Not the Sights so Much as the Sounds"". The Huffington Post (Canada). Retrieved April 24, 2017.
  9. ↑ "Watch Testimony Clips in New Book from the March of the Living". USC Shoah Foundation. 18 December 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  10. ↑ Lungen, Paul (13 November 2015). "Book Passes the Torch of Holocaust Memory". The Canadian Jewish News. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  11. ↑ "Waving the flag at Auschwitz is not an 'exercise in chauvinism'".
  12. ↑ "Israeli Documentary Challenges Jewish Responses to Anti-Semitism | Film". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  13. ↑ "Jessica Sanders - Documentary". jessicasandersfilm.com. Archived from the original on 2015-12-01. Retrieved 2015-11-19.

Further reading

  • Rubenstein, Eli (1993). For You Who Died I Must Live On: Reflections on the March of the Living. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press. ISBN 0889625107.
  • Shevelev, Raphael; Schomer, Karine (1997). Liberating the Ghosts: Photographs and Text from the March of the Living. Anacortes, Washington: Lenswork Publishing. ISBN 1888803002.
  • Berlfein Burns, Jan, ed. (2014). March of the Living: Our Stories: A Collection from the Holocaust Survivors of the Los Angeles Delegation of BJE. Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. ISBN 9780985835439. OCLC 940568018.
  • Rubenstein, Eli (2015). Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations. Toronto, Ontario: Second Story Press. ISBN 978-1927583661.
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