This week Rabbi Woznica reflects on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
From Auschwitz to Jerusalem
The path from Auschwitz to Birkenau (also known as Auschwitz II-Birkenau) is three kilometers. It is less than two miles. Yesterday morning, tens of thousands of high school students from around the world, alongside thousands of adults, voluntarily walked that path. They participated in a concluding ceremony in Birkenau in memory of the millions of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
They are on the International March of the Living. Since its inception in 1988, the International March of the Living has brought some 300,000 participants from 52 countries to walk the three-kilometer path.
They will visit other death camps and meet survivors in the coming days. And then, next week, they will do something the victims of these camps literally could never have imagined.
They will board a plane bound for Israel. Please read the previous sentence again.
While in Israel, they will celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel. In addition, they will honor the Jewish heroism and bravery of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which took place 80 years ago.
May the next generation of our people never forget what their ancestors endured. May they embrace the Jewish future with hope. And may they embrace Israel with love.
Rabbi David Woznica
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