KKL-JNF delegation to lead ‘March of the Living’
For the first time, the Keren Kayemet L’Israel – Jewish National Fund delegation will lead the annual “March of the Living” taking place in Poland. This year is the 30th anniversary of the march.
The delegation is led by: KKL-JNF World Chairman Daniel Atar; David Grossman, winner of the Israel Prize for Literature; and MKs Sharren Haskel, Meirav Ben-Ari, Yisrael Eichler, Michael Malcheili, Haim Jelin, Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin and Eitan Broshi.
The group set out to tour various death camps throughout the country on Sunday. In commemoration of this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, the delegation toured the Majdanek extermination camp on Wednesday.
Moved by the experience, Giora Zaltz, head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council and the son of a Holocaust survivor from Germany, said despite the human advancements being made in science in technology, there is still much work to be done in terms of how people treat one another.
“In the new world, we are able to communicate with each other with smartphones from all corners of the globe, we can manufacture goods with 3D printers, establish settlements in space, create sheep in a laboratory... at the same time we are still witnessing scenes of genocide – the strong abusing the weak, just because they can,” he said. “The world sees this, understands this and does not lift a finger.”
“We must demand from ourselves to answer the question: How can this continue to happen – that hundreds of thousands of people are getting murdered, raped, expelled from their homes, and we stand by and do not do anything to stop these things?” Zaltz said.
This year’s march is in honor of the state’s 70th anniversary.
Other members of the delegation included Amir Ritov, chairman of the Regional Council Center; Meir Tzur, secretary-general of the Moshav Movement; Nir Meir, secretary-general of the Kibbutz Movement; Danny Zamir, CEO of the National Council of Pre-Military Leadership Academies; and Gadi Yarkoni, head of the Eshkol Regional Council.
The KKL-JNF delegation also met with the head cantor of the IDF, Shai Abramson, and the IDF Choir in a Krakow synagogue.
KKL-JNF General Assembly member Dalia Hubner said while visiting Majdanek: “For many years my parents refused to talk about what happened to them in the death camps, but their behavior exposed everything: In our house it was forbidden to leave food on our plates, peel potatoes, and whoever ate bread on our table had to eat all the crumbs. Every step we take here is in honor of them and their memory.”