The World ORT General Assembly in Poland commemorated the Holocaust in Warsaw and at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
More than 600 people, including 200 delegates from 32 countries, gathered Sunday at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial for a ceremony that featured an Israel Defense Forces honor guard.
World ORT President Sir Maurice Hatter reminded the crowd how World ORT workshops operating until the end of the ghetto provided a life-prolonging refuge for many people.
“Here in this place they broke our bodies, they murdered our men, women and children, but they did not destroy the essence of our people,” Hatter said. “Our presence here today is living proof that the Jewish people has been blessed by God and is built to survive.”
On Monday, the group traveled to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp for a tour that culminated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial at the end of the rail line that brought more than 1 million adults and children to their deaths.
Gideon Sidderman, the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Transport, warned Iran and its supporters that Jews would not allow themselves to be victims again.
“We the living hear too well those voices calling today for our extermination – the same apologetics and wording [as the Nazis],” he said. “No one believed this could happen. Today we know that behind these declarations are clearly defined intentions. The wave of anti-Semitism that Iran is leading should be stopped by all means and by all nations.”
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