Ukrainian refugees to join March of Living at Auschwitz for first post-COVID commemoration
The event gathers 2,500 people from 25 countries for a memorial march through the former death camp in Poland.
Participants of the March of the Living exit a gate in the former Nazi camp Auschwitz in Poland, May 2, 2019. (Courtesy of the International March of the Living)
(JTA) — Refugees from Ukraine are scheduled to join the March of the Living commemoration event at Auschwitz.
The refugees are among 2,500 people from 25 countries who have signed up for the mission to the former death camp, the first since March of the Living suspended such activities due to COVID-19, the educational group said in a statement. The March brings young people from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust.
The event on April 28 will culminate in the traditional two-mile march between the Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau camps near Krakow in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, the statement said.
One of the Ukrainian participants is Yefim Podlipsky, a Jewish refugee from Vinnitsa. He ran a tourism company before he fled Ukraine after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of the country.
Lila Buzeniuk, another Ukrainian refugee participating in this year’s event, also comes from Vinnitsa.
“The war divided our family and forced us to leave our home and our country,” Buzeniuk, a mother of three, said in the March of the Living statement. “But we survived and we are alive. We found shelter and refuge in a sister country,” she said of Poland. “Thanks to wonderful people we will live, we will remember — and never forget.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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