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HEALTH-VIRUS-POLAND-HOLOCAUST
March of the Living at Auschwitz postponed over virus
WARSAW, March 9, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The annual March of the Living
commemoration for Holocaust victims at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
camps has been postponed due to worries over spread of the new coronavirus.
The event, which was due to take place in April, has been held in Poland
for 32 years and each year attracts thousands of people from about 40
countries, according to the organisers.
Holocaust survivors, VIPs and young people pass through the gate at the
entrance to the Auschwitz camp before marching more than three kilometres
(two miles) to the Birkenau camp, the main extermination site.
“After consulting with the relevant health bodies and officials, it is
with a heavy heart that we are forced to announce the postponement of this
year’s March of the Living in Poland,” Shmuel Rosenman, the organisation’s
world chair, said in a statement Sunday. “Our primary concern is the health
of the many participants and the Holocaust survivors who would be joining
them.”
Between 1940 and early 1945, Nazi Germany exterminated about 1.1 million
people at Auschwitz-Birkenau, including one million Jewish people from
various European countries. The camp, where some 80,000 non-Jewish Poles,
25,000 Roma and 20,000 Soviet soldiers also died, was liberated by the Red
Army in January 1945.