March of the Living Holocaust commemoration held at virtual Auschwitz amid pandemic

This year’s March of the Living, an annual commemoration in which Holocaust survivors and thousands of others walk silently between Auschwitz and Birkenau, has been conducted online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A special 3D virtual march was created featuring parts of the traditional route at the former German Nazi concentration and death camp that was located in occupied Poland. Among those to participate were Israeli president Reuven Rivlin.

“This year, we are unable to physically march along the cursed rail track between Auschwitz and Birkenau,” said Rivlin, quoted by Deutsche Welle. “But we are not exempt from our duties to remember and recall the Holocaust.”

“Technology makes it possible for each and every one of us to participate in the March of the Living without leaving our homes,” continued Israel’s president. “We must harness all the tools at our disposal to fight racism, antisemitism, the attempt to forget and the denial.”

This year’s event was dedicated to the medical personnel who risked their lives to help those in need during the Holocaust and who are currently combating the coronavirus pandemic. Attendees included Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the US president, and Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, whose parents survived the Holocaust.

Fauci was recognised with a special award for moral courage in medicine, reports the Times of Israel, and told participants that he believed “that the healing arts lie on the path of goodness, the same path all of you have chosen in remembering and listening to the voices of those who perished in the Holocaust.”

It is the second year in a row that the annual commemoration has had to move online. This year a webpage was also set up to allow users to create memorial plaques that could be placed on a virtual version of the infamous rail tracks leading into the camp.

The March of the Living, the largest annual Holocaust educational programme, was established in 1988 and brings people from across the globe to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust, as well as issues around prejudice, intolerance and hatred. Usually, tens of thousands of people take part in events, which include meeting Holocaust survivors.

The programme culminates in a commemorative march on a three-kilometre path between Auschwitz and Birkenau on Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day. More than 260,000 participants from 52 countries have taken part in the march since the inception of the programme. 

Main image credit: International March of the Living/YouTube (screenshot)

Juliette Bretan

Juliette Bretan is a freelance journalist covering Polish and Eastern European current affairs and culture. Her work has featured on the BBC World Service, and in CityMetric, The Independent, Ozy, New Eastern Europe and Culture.pl.