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Holocaust survivors from around the world joined thousands of people in the March of the Living on Tuesday, an annual event held at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland in memory of the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
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Of the 50 survivors taking part, some had travelled from Israel, organisers said, despite logistical difficulties caused by airspace restrictions associated with the Iran war.
Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy chief executive of the International March of the Living organisation, warned that antisemitism is alive today despite the lessons of the Holocaust.
“Since 7 October, antisemitism has surged and is spreading everywhere,” she said. “The scale and normalisation of this hatred echoes the dark times we have seen before and, today of all days, we know how it ended.”
The march in Poland took place on what is Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Jewish calendar.
It began at Auschwitz and ended 3 kilometres away at Birkenau, where Jews from across Europe were transported by train and murdered in gas chambers.
Among the guests were survivors of recent antisemitic attacks, including the mass shooting in December in which 15 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Hannah Abesidon, the daughter of 78-year-old Holocaust survivor Tibor Weitzen, one of the 15 people killed in the Bondi Beach massacre, recounted her experience of the attack in which her father was killed.
“My father didn’t make it because he was a Jew,” Abesidon said. “It starts with the Jews but it doesn’t end with the Jews.”
The annual march, now in its 38th year, usually draws thousands of participants, including Holocaust survivors and Jewish students, leaders and politicians.
Tributes in Israel
Israel came to a standstill on Tuesday as sirens sounded across the country in tribute to the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
At 10:00 am local time (0800 CET), Israel observed a two-minute silence, with traffic coming to a halt and the rhythm of everyday life suspended in a symbolic act of remembrance for those who perished.
The commemoration, held each year in April or May in accordance with the Hebrew calendar, is separate from International Holocaust Remembrance Day which is marked on 27 January.
This year’s commemoration comes amid a fragile two-week ceasefire with Iran after a war that began on 28 February, when a joint US-Israeli air attack killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Additional sources • AP
