University presidents from the US and Canada are set to gather at Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland,...
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A man walks through the grounds of the former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp for the annual International “March of the Living” in Oswiecim, Poland, April 18, 2023. Jakub Porzycki/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS
University presidents from the US and Canada are set to gather at Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland, to commemorate the Holocaust amid a global rise in antisemitism that has erupted on college campuses.
The International March of the Living, a Holocaust education program founded in 1988, announced the event on Wednesday in a press release. Held as part of the observance of Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — on Monday, it will include Yeshiva University President Ari Berman and former US Education Secretary John King, who will be joined by a delegation of their peers drawn from faith-oriented schools and historically black colleges and universities, as well as 55 Holocaust survivors.
The International March of the Living has been holding a similar event for more than 30 years and estimates that over “300,000 alumni from 50 countries” have participated in the same march on the 3-kilometer path leading from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the Nazis’ largest death camp where 1 million Jews were murdered.
“Europe’s most educated and advanced country in terms of higher education, in both the arts and sciences, was none other than Germany and yet this was the very same nation that singled out for eradication an entire people — the Jewish people — in the most horrifying manner,” International March of the Living vice chairman David Machlis said in a statement.
“As we travel through Poland and see the results of Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies towards the Jews, we will see the direct link between antisemitism and the road to Auschwitz,” he continued. “We hope that through this mission, which is planned to be expanded in future years, university presidents will become allies in the fight against antisemitism — because we know all too well the potential devastating outcomes of ignoring the issue.”
The event comes amid a burst of antisemitism throughout the world that had been building for several years but fully erupted after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. The terror attack, in which Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others as hostages, was the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
In the months that have passed since Oct. 7, anti-Zionist activists inspired by Hamas’ barbarity have bullied and even assaulted Jewish students while demanding that colleges implement a full boycott of Israel — an action that would purge schools of Jews and Zionists, experts have told The Algemeiner. According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents on college campuses, which The Algemeiner covered extensively, rose 321 percent in 2023, disrupting the studies of Jewish students and leaving them uncertain about the fate of the American Jewish community.
Across the US, antisemitic incidents surged a harrowing 140 percent in 2023, with 8,873 incidents — an average of 24 every day — amounting to a year unlike any experienced by the American Jewish community since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all spiked by double and triple digits, with California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts accounting for nearly half, or 48 percent, of all that occurred.
“Education is the most powerful tool we have in fighting antisemitism, hatred, discrimination, and war,” Eva Kuper, the child of a Holocaust survivor, said in Wednesday’s press release. “Our children are our future and we must equip them to remember the past, to learn from the past, to honor the past, to become witnesses who bring the truth of the Holocaust forward for generations to come.”
She added, “But they most also look to the future with hope. As Elie Wiesel said: ‘Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.’ There are indeed many stories of horror during the Holocaust, but there are also many stories which attest to man’s goodness. They too are a part of the history of the Holocaust.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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