There is a road between two places. It is about two miles long, an ordinary stretch of ground that runs from the camp called Auschwitz to the camp called Birkenau. More than eighty years ago, human beings were driven down this road and others like it toward the gas chambers, and they did not come back. Once a year, on Yom HaShoah, the day set aside to remember those who were murdered, people walk that same road on purpose, slowly, in silence, alive. This is the March of the Living. It is not a parade and it is not a tour. It is an act of memory, a refusal to let the murdered be forgotten, and a walk taken in their honor by those who came after.
I write this carefully, because the subject does not allow for anything else. If you are a rabbi or a pastor considering bringing your community to walk in the March of the Living, you are taking on something serious. This is the gravest experience a heritage journey can hold. What follows is meant to help you understand what the March is, what it asks of those who walk it, and how a group prepares to honor the memory of the murdered with the reverence that memory demands.
What the March of the Living Is
The March of the Living is an international remembrance program. Each year, on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, participants from around the world gather at the site of Auschwitz and walk the roughly two miles from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. They walk the path that was, during the Holocaust, a path of death, and they walk it in the opposite spirit, as the living who have come to remember the dead.
The name carries its full meaning. The March of the Living stands in deliberate, mournful contrast to the death marches of the Holocaust, when prisoners were forced to walk, starving and freezing, until they collapsed or were shot. Where those marches were marches of death imposed by murderers, this is a march undertaken freely, in remembrance, by people who refuse to let the world forget what happened here.
The March began in 1988 and has continued each year since, bringing together survivors, descendants, students, educators, and people of conscience from many nations and faiths. Survivors have long walked at the front, and as their generation passes, the responsibility of remembrance moves to those who walk behind them. To walk near a survivor on this road, while that is still possible, is to carry something that cannot be replaced.
The Ground You Are Walking
To prepare a group for the March, I begin not with logistics but with the place itself, because the ground is not neutral.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the Nazi death camps. More than one million people were murdered here, the overwhelming majority of them Jews, along with Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners, and others. Most were killed in the gas chambers of Birkenau within hours of arriving. The road the March follows leads toward the very place where this was done.
I do not describe Birkenau in words that try to capture it, because no words can. I tell groups only what they need to know to be prepared. The camp is vast. The rows of barracks and the chimneys of barracks long since gone stretch toward the horizon, and the scale of it communicates something photographs cannot. The railway tracks run straight into the camp and stop. At the far end stand the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, blown up by the Nazis as they fled, left as ruins so that no one could pretend it did not happen.
This is the ground the March of the Living crosses. Every person who walks it should understand, before they take a single step, where they are and what was done here.
How a Group Prepares to Walk
In more than forty years of leading heritage journeys, I have learned that the March cannot be approached cold. Preparation is not optional. It is a form of respect.
Build the Foundation First
I never bring a group to walk the March without context. Before Auschwitz, a group should encounter the world that was destroyed, the shtetl towns, the synagogues and cemeteries, the thousand years of Jewish life in Poland that came before the catastrophe. When a group walks the March having first met the people and the world that were lost, they are not walking through an abstraction. They are walking in honor of specific human beings whose lives they have come to understand.
Speak Honestly Beforehand
I sit with groups before the March and speak plainly about what is coming. I tell them there is no correct way to feel. Some will weep. Some will be silent and dry-eyed and not understand why. Some will feel a numbness that frightens them, and I tell them in advance that numbness is a human response to the incomprehensible, not a failure of the heart. Naming these reactions ahead of time frees people to simply be present.
Walk in Silence and Intention
The March is walked slowly and, for much of its length, in silence. I ask groups to hold that silence, to resist the instinct to fill it. This is not a walk for conversation or photographs of oneself. It is a walk taken on behalf of those who were driven down this road and could not survive it. Many participants carry small wooden memorial plaques bearing the names of the murdered, planting them along the route so that the names are present on the ground where the people were taken.
Carry the Prayers and the Names
At Birkenau, the March gathers for a ceremony of remembrance. For Jewish groups, the El Malei Rachamim is chanted and Kaddish is recited, the words that Jewish tradition speaks for the dead. For Christian groups, a guide helps frame a moment of reflection and prayer that honors the murdered without imposing. Where it is possible, reading aloud the names of individuals, of communities, of the towns that were erased, restores something the murderers tried to take, the names themselves.
Walking With Survivors, While We Still Can
For decades, the survivors led the March. They walked at the front, the ones who had been here as prisoners, returning now as free human beings to bear witness on the very ground. To walk behind them was to walk behind living testimony.
That generation is nearly gone. Soon there will be no one left who saw it with their own eyes. This is the heaviest responsibility the March now carries. As the survivors pass, the act of remembrance falls to those who come after, and the question becomes whether we will keep walking, keep speaking the names, keep refusing to forget. When I bring a group to the March, I tell them they are not spectators to history. They are becoming the bearers of memory. That is what the March asks of them, and it does not end at the gate.
After the March
The day does not close cleanly, and I do not pretend that it does. After Birkenau, a group needs time, quiet, and care. I build space into the itinerary afterward, not to move on, but to begin to carry what they have witnessed. Groups should not be rushed from Birkenau to a meal to a bus to the next thing. The weight needs room.
For many, the days after the March turn toward the future, toward the living continuation of Jewish life, and for some itineraries, toward the State of Israel and Yom HaAtzmaut, which follows soon after Yom HaShoah on the calendar. That movement, from the deepest mourning toward life and continuation, is part of the spiritual architecture of the March of the Living. But it must never feel like the suffering has been resolved or explained. It has not been. It cannot be. The most honest thing a group leader can do is let the grief remain real while affirming the responsibility to remember and to live.
FAQ: The March of the Living in Poland
What is the March of the Living?
The March of the Living is an international remembrance program held each year on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Participants walk the roughly two miles from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the same route prisoners were driven along during the Holocaust, this time as the living who have come to remember and honor the murdered. It began in 1988 and brings together survivors, descendants, students, and people of conscience from around the world.
Why is it called the March of the Living?
The name stands in deliberate contrast to the death marches of the Holocaust, when prisoners were forced to walk until they died. The March of the Living is undertaken freely, in remembrance, by people who are alive and who refuse to let the world forget. It is a march of memory and of refusal to forget, walked in honor of those who were murdered.
How should a group prepare for the March of the Living?
Preparation is essential and is itself a form of respect. A group should first encounter the world that was destroyed, the Jewish communities, synagogues, and cemeteries of Poland, so the March is walked in honor of specific people, not an abstraction. Leaders should speak honestly beforehand about the range of emotions that may arise, and the March itself is walked slowly, in silence, with prayers and the names of the murdered carried along the route.
Can Christian groups take part in the March of the Living?
Yes. The March brings together people of many nations and faiths, united in remembrance. For Christian groups, a guide helps frame moments of reflection and prayer that honor the murdered with reverence. The shared act of refusing to forget, and of standing against the evil that was done here, gives the March meaning across faith traditions.
What happens after the March, and how do groups process it?
After walking to Birkenau, a group needs quiet, time, and care, and we build space into the itinerary so no one is rushed. The grief is real and is not resolved. Some itineraries then turn toward the living continuation of Jewish life and, on the calendar, toward Yom HaAtzmaut, moving from mourning toward affirmation of life. But this movement never claims to explain or undo the suffering. It honors the responsibility to remember and to keep living.
Walking in Remembrance
The road from Auschwitz to Birkenau will always be what it was. Nothing can change what happened there. But once a year, the living walk it in honor of the murdered, in silence, carrying their names, refusing to let them be forgotten. To bring your community to walk that road is to take up the work of remembrance at the very place where remembrance matters most, and to carry it home and onward, now that the witnesses themselves are nearly gone.
If you are considering bringing your community to walk in the March of the Living, I will help you do it with the preparation and gravity it requires. You can read more in our guide to Jewish heritage in Poland and learn how the group leader experience works through our group heritage tours. For group leaders bringing fifteen or more participants, you travel free.
When you are ready to begin that conversation, reach out to us. I have been helping group leaders carry their communities through journeys like this for over forty years, and I will walk it with you.