March of the Living

What it is

The March of the Living is a programme of study and remembrance that has taken young people to Poland every year since the late 1980s. Participants spend about a week visiting the places where the Nazis persecuted and killed Jews, and then walk together from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust remembrance day in the Jewish calendar. A second week in Israel follows for many of them. Organisers count almost 300,000 people who have joined over the years, among them survivors, teachers, heads of state and other public figures.

How it began

The idea took shape in Israel. Avraham Hirschson, a Likud politician, the educator Shmuel Rosenman and the lawyer Baruch Adler are named as the founders, and Jewish leaders and donors in the United States and Canada helped them in the early years. Adler was the child of a survivor whose mother owed her life to a non-Jewish rescuer. His first visit to the site came in 1986, when he both laid the ground for a march and tried to trace that rescuer, whom he could not reach until communism fell in 1989. The first march, on 14 April 1988, drew wide press coverage.

The name and its meaning

Meir Uziel, a writer and journalist, suggested the name. He wanted it to stand against the death marches of the war's last months, when the Nazis moved prisoners on foot away from camps they were abandoning; those who could not keep up were shot or left to freeze. A march of living people over the same ground says the opposite: that Jewish life went on in spite of the plan to destroy it. Speakers have returned to this idea often. At Birkenau in 1994, Hirschson told the crowd that the dead were marching with them and would go back with them to the land of Israel.

Beyond the march

In 2014 the United Nations hosted an exhibition on the programme's first 25 years, with photographs, documents and written testimony, and visitors could add their own pledge of tolerance. A book followed in 2015, its pages carrying hidden links that open video testimony from survivors, wartime liberators and rescuers. Two years later a large event was held near Jerusalem on Israel's Independence Day. In 2018 the United Nations marked 30 years since the first march, with survivors, ambassadors and a photography exhibition. In 2026 survivors spoke at the United Nations and at the New York Stock Exchange on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Today and change

The programme has widened its subject beyond the killing years. Recent trips also look at Jewish life in Poland before the war, arrange meetings with Polish students and with Polish rescuers, and connect visitors with the Jewish community living in the country now. Non-Jewish young people take part as well; organisers say close to 40 per cent of participants in recent years are not Jewish, an effort they link to fighting antisemitism. The Israeli delegations cancelled their plans for the march scheduled for 14 April 2026, citing safety fears and limits on flights out of Ben Gurion airport. The pandemic years had earlier brought full cancellation.

How March of the Living is kept

Participants spend about a week in Poland, visiting sites such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and Treblinka, the Warsaw Ghetto, and former synagogues and centres of Jewish life. The march itself takes place on Yom HaShoah, when thousands walk in silence from Auschwitz to Birkenau. Many groups then fly to Israel for a second week, where they mark Yom HaZikaron and celebrate Independence Day. Before travelling, participants usually take part in preparatory meetings about the Holocaust and about Israel.

When and where

The programme runs each year for about two weeks in spring, in March, April or May. The march itself is held on Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust remembrance day in the Jewish calendar, and in the earliest years it fell just after Passover. It has been held every year since 1996, apart from the pandemic years.

It begins in Poland and centres on the former camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, near the town of Oświęcim. Groups also travel to other Polish sites, among them the Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek and Treblinka. A second week takes many participants to Israel. Delegations arrive from many countries, with the largest numbers from Israel, North America and France.

What March of the Living means

The name was chosen to answer the death marches of the war's final months, when prisoners were driven west on foot and many died. Walking the same ground as free, living people makes a different statement: those who were meant to disappear are still here. Organisers and survivors speak of handing on memory, and of loyalty, courage and hope. At the 1994 ceremony at Birkenau, the crowd was told that the dead were marching alongside them.

Days March of the Living is marked

Questions people ask about March of the Living

See also

Martin Luther King Jr. DayAn American federal holiday honouring the civil rights leader with service and remembranceYom HaZikaronIsrael's national day of mourning for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism.Christmas treeA decorated evergreen or artificial tree placed indoors to mark the Christmas season.PassoverA Jewish spring festival celebrating freedom from slavery with ritual meals

Good reading and sources

• 2021 MOTL Holocaust ceremony goes virtualDeutsche Welle, Article
• 2021 MOTL Holocaust ceremony goes virtualDeutsche Welle, Article

• March of the Living on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.