31ST MARCH OF THE LIVING
Auschwitz Memorial
This year signifies the 80th anniversary of the extermination of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz. In the main deportation phase spanning from mid-May to early July 1944, approximately 420,000 Jews were transported to Auschwitz, followed by a few smaller deportations in the late summer and autumn of 1944. Taking into account the 3,800 individuals deported in April, the overall number of deportees amounts to 430,000.
It is also known from surviving documents that during the selection, the SS doctors sent 52,000 men and a comparable number of women to the camp. This indicates that approximately 330,000 people were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after the selection process.
For more information on the deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz, see our online lesson.
This year's March of the Living event attracted approximately 6,000 individuals, predominantly young Jews from different countries worldwide, namely Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Israel, Canada, Lithuania, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A group of 500 Hungarians arrived at the Memorial via a designated "Train of the Living", which had departed from Budapest's Keleti railway station the day before. Polish students also participated in the event.
The March was also attended by a group of people affected by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023. This group also included several Holocaust Survivors.
After passing through the "Arbeit macht frei" gate, the participants of the March of the Living walked from the site of the Auschwitz I camp to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
During the main ceremony of the March, a commemoration was held for all those who lost their lives at Auschwitz. Six symbolic candles were lit to symbolise the six million victims of the Holocaust. Several speeches emphasised the dangers of antisemitism, both in the past and present. Those gathered at the site of the former camp, situated between the ruins of the two gas chambers and crematoria, recited the Kaddish - the Jewish prayer for the dead.
The March participants left many wooden plaques with the victims' names at the site, symbolising Jewish tombstones - matzevot. Several of them were found on the railway tracks adjacent to the platform where German SS doctors conducted the process of selecting Jews deported from various occupied European countries for extermination in Auschwitz.
On 6 May 2024, the 31st March of the Living was held at the site of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. It was led by a group of 55 Auschwitz and Holocaust Survivors. The group consisted of more than 20 survivors from Hungary. In addition to others, the participants included Yoav Kisch, the Education Minister of Israel, Izabela Ziętka, the Deputy Education Minister of Poland, and Andrzej Szejna, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland.