SAN DIEGO (Press Release) –Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the March of the Living will be hosting multiple virtual events and programs to commemorate Yom HaShoah- Holocaust Remembrance Day. View the promo video https://youtu.be/akdIQv9M9dk to learn more about this year’s theme and how we will be place memorial plaques on the train tracks leading into Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The theme for the virtual March is a tribute to the medical professionals who risked their lives during the Holocaust, numerous medical associations around the globe, including the World Medical Association, 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. Local Holocaust survivors Dr. Edith Eva Eger and Fanny Krasner Lebovits have been interviewed for their role in the medical field since WWII. San Diego MOTL alum, Dania Halperin, was nominated to be a torch lighter, as she is currently a medical student at Sackler Medical School in Israel.
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 Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin. Programming can be viewed on motl.org at the initial screening as well as following the initial screen time. 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.
One of the most moving aspects of the March of the Living is the opportunity for participants to memorial plaques with personal messages on the train tracks at Birkenau. The public is invited to participate and have their personal message virtually placed against the backdrop of the infamous train tracks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Individual plaques and messages can be placed via a dedicated minisite https://nevermeansnever.com/
“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, we 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.”
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 inception in 1988.
To date, close to 300,000 International March of the Living participants have marched en masse along the 3.2-kilometer path from Auschwitz to Birkenau, in tribute to the greatest loss in the history of the Jewish people and all humanity.
We hope that the two week journey of the March of the Living will take place in 2022. For more information about the San Diego delegation, contact Marcia Tatz Wollner, Western Region Director, marcia@motlthewest.org
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Preceding provided by the March of the Living