The International March of the Living will hold a Virtual March on Holocaust Remembrance Day led by Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, Holocaust survivors, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Jewish Agency Chair Isaac Herzog, KKL Chair Avraham Duvdevani, and Rabbi Israel Meir Lau paying tribute to medical staff.

Among the Holocaust survivors participating are those who survived due to the selfless acts of medical professionals. Participants in the Virtual March from across the globe were filmed using innovative 3D technology so they appear to be marching along the traditional March of the Living route at Auschwitz – Birkenau.

As a tribute to the medical professionals who risked their lives during the Holocaust, numerous medical associations around the globe, including the World Health Organization, as well as those on the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 will participate in this virtual program. Among those marching will be doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Also, marching will be Israel’s Coronavirus Commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash, 2nd generation to doctors during the Holocaust who is today leading physicians on Israel’s medical front against Covid-19, Prof. Idit Matot, Director of Anesthesia in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital and Galia Rahav Head of the Infectious Disease Unit and Laboratories at Sheba Medical Centre, Magen David Adom Director-General Eli Beer, and Haim Freund, CEO of Ezer Mitzion who is marching with his mother, Holocaust survivor Tzipora Freund.

Special for 2021 the International March of the Living will be airing a Virtual MARCH: (youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akdIQv9M9dk). The Virtual March will air on Thursday, April 8, at 7 am PST and will be followed immediately by an online memorial ceremony with the first torch of remembrance lit by President Rivlin. All programming can be viewed following tge events as well on motl.org.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said: “We all have a duty to pass on the memory of the Holocaust to future generations, not to forget, not to let it be forgotten. During this pandemic we are prevented from stepping on the accursed earth, saturated with the blood of six million of our people. Yet, we have vowed never to forget or let go. Technology allows us, each and every one of us, to participate in the March of Living without leaving home while contributing to the commemoration of the Holocaust and its victims. We must harness all the tools at our disposal to fight racism, anti-Semitism, attempts at denial. We must continue marching.”

“The fact that this is the second year that we will not march in the March of the Living on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps is difficult,” said March of the Living World Chair, Dr. Shmuel Rosenman and March of the Living President, Phyllis Greenberg Heideman. “However, will never stop the work of remembrance. This year we found a unique way to hold a virtual march in a way that brings us as close as possible to a feeling that cannot be explained in words. We will be in Auschwitz-Birkenau in spirit and soul, and we will be joined by millions of people around the world.”

Jewish Agency Chair Yitzhak Herzog: “The ‘March of the Living’ connects between those who learned about the Holocaust firsthand and those who did not; between the generation of survivors that is disappearing, and the younger generation that grew up around the world not knowing firsthand the story of the Holocaust and the struggle of the Jewish people as well as the predatory powers of racism and antisemitism.”

International March of the Living is the largest annual international Holocaust education program which, until the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, has taken place in Poland and Israel without interruption, since its establishment in 1988. Some 300,000 participants, including students from across the globe, have taken place in the March since.

Please be a part of the MARCH OF THE LIVING’s Annual Plaque Project as we do every year in Birkenau: http://nevermeansnever.com.

For Erev Yom Hashoah, Wednesday, April 7, 2021, 4:00 PM PST, join the Erev Yom Hashoah Educational Symposium: Medicine and Morality: Lessons from the Holocasut and COVID-19.

Presented by The Miller Center for Community Protection & Resilience, Rutgers University, International March of the Living and Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust, in cooperation with the USC Shoah Foundation.

The active participation of the medical community – those who took an oath to “first, do no harm,” – in the labeling, persecution, and mass murder of millions of those deemed unfit, represents one of the darkest periods not only in the history of medicine but in the history of humankind. Yet, even in the darkest times, one can always find the light. Stories of physicians who remained dedicated to healing and saving lives prove that the power and privilege of medicine can be an inspiration to us all.

Also at this Symposium, there will be a special performance by Grammy Award-Winning artist Miri Ben-Ari and the presentation of the Moral Courage in Medicine Award to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

All programming can be screened on motl.org

Marcia Tatz Wollner
Director, Western Region March of the Living
marcia@motlthewest.org
858-395-3590
http://www.motlthewest.org