8,000 make March of the Living

Some 8,000 Jews from all over the world participated in the 16th annual March
of the Living in Poland. The silent two-mile walk is made from the
gates of Auschwitz, the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland, to Birkenau,
the part of the Auschwitz complex with gas chambers, where more Jews were exterminated
than at any other Nazi camp. Rafi Eitan, the Israeli Cabinet minister responsible for pensioners, led Monday’s march. Eitan led the 1960 Israeli operation that
resulted in the arrest of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.Many of the marchers
were wrapped in blue-and-white Israeli flags as they walked along railroad
tracks where cars from all over Europe brought Jews to their death during
World War II.Participants in the march include large
groups of young people, as well as Holocaust survivors. More than 1 million
Jews were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. During the commemorative march, the victims’ names,
ages and places of origin are broadcast over a loudspeaker.