WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Fifty descendants of officers of the Nazi SS, Wehrmacht and World War II-era German police officers will be among the participants in the March of Life.
Several hundred people from Poland, Israel and Germany will take part in the program, which starts Sunday and commemorates the victims of the Holocaust and opposes anti-Semitism.
The participants will visit Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek, Chelmno, Sobibor, Warsaw and Kielce.
Among them will be 50 people from Germany who are descendants of the officers of the Nazi SS, the Wehrmacht and the World War II-era German police. At the sites of the former death camps there will be ceremonies during which both the descendants of the victims and perpetrators will speak.
The main ceremony will be on Aug. 23 in Warsaw. Special guest of the March will be Lia Shemtov, a deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset and a member of the Yisrael Beitenu party.
March of the Living is an initiative of Jobst and Charlotte Bittner, and TOS Ministries of Germany, a non-denominational church founded by the couple.
The program was prepared in cooperation with many organizations in Poland, Israel and Germany. Similar marches have taken place in more than 80 cities in 12 countries.
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