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.
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