The march began at Auschwitz and ended 3 kilometers away at Birkenau, where Jews from across Europe were transported by train and murdered in gas chambers. This year's commemoration comes amid a fragile two-week ceasefire with Iran after a war that began on 28 February, though the specific airspace restrictions that complicated travel for Israeli survivors remain unclear. The annual march is now in its 38th year and usually draws thousands of participants, including Holocaust survivors and Jewish students, leaders, and politicians, but the exact number of attendees this year has not been confirmed.
Among the guests were survivors of recent antisemitic attacks, including the mass shooting in December at Sydney’s Bondi Beach where 15 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration, though details on other attacks represented are unknown. Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy chief executive of the International March of the Living organisation, warned at a press conference that antisemitism has surged and is spreading everywhere since 7 October, with the scale and normalization of this hatred echoing dark times seen before. According to Euronews, Hannah Abesidon, whose father Tibor Weitzen was killed in the Bondi Beach massacre because he was a Jew, described how antisemitism starts with the Jews but does not end with them, though measures to address the surge were not specified.
My father didn’t make it because he was a Jew. It starts with the Jews but it doesn’t end with the Jews.
Separately, Israel came to a standstill on Tuesday as sirens sounded across the country in tribute to the Holocaust victims, with traffic halting and everyday life suspended during a two-minute silence at 10:00 am local time. The commemoration is held each year in April or May in accordance with the Hebrew calendar and is separate from International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January.