In May each year young Israeli's from around the world come together in Poland at Auschwitz and march to the camp's death centre Birkenau. This is called the 'March of the Living' and it allows a new generation of young Jews to see for themselves what took place under the Nazi's during WWII.
The Israeli Government allows one bus load of Gentiles to participate, the well trusted and recognised Christian benevolent ministry, 'Bridges for Peace' and it was with this group, that I was invited to be one of 48 international invited delegates that marched in 2005.
Australia's Ron Ross was in Jerusalem serving as the Bridges for Peace International Communications Director and he invited me and my wife Delma as the Australian cricket chaplain, to be part of the 2005 memorial March of the Living.
As it was, Delma chose not to travel (again) and Peter Scotland joined me. Peter and I have been friends since the late sixties. His father Tom Scotland flew 63 missions as a Pathfinder Pilot including over Warsaw to the Polish 1944 uprising. Tom wrote the book 'Voice from the Stars' of those WWII experiences and only recently died (August) aged 89. This was a personal pilgrimage for Peter.
Now there is another march over the same territory and a lot more besides. Bridges for Peace newsletter revealed this in September that the relatives who massacred the Jews in WWII, are marching together with Holocaust survivors to commemorate the tragedy.
Descendants from both sides - march
Over 50 members of the German delegation were descendants of members of Wehrmacht, police, or SS, who were directly involved in the annihilation of Europe's Jews marched on 20 August along with stops at several of Poland's other extermination camps.
These people plus supporters march from Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, the starting point of the march, which will go through Treblinka, Kielce, Warsaw, Sobibor, Chelmno, Majdanek and Belzec. A memorial ceremony is held at each of the sites.
The idea was raised in 2011 during a convention in honour of the aid offered by evangelical Christian groups to Holocaust victims. Deputy Speaker of the Knesset [Parliament], Knesset Member [MK] Lia Shemtov (Yisrael Beiteinu), who was behind the Knesset convention represented Israel in the march.
Yetnews.com reports that the main ceremony takes place in Warsaw. "These are incredible teenagers who discovered their tragic connection with the Jewish people and decided to follow this truth while seeking forgiveness and absolution from the Holocaust survivors".
Reflective key note speaker
Back in 2011 in this inaugural speech, Shemtov said, "They say that children should not bear their parents' sins as a mark of Cain. Sadly, the memory of the acts of the Holocaust haunts you even now, when you, the next generation are exposed to the rising anti-Semitism in Europe, radical Islam's burning hatred, and you, young men and women, who are the same age as 1.5 million children who were slaughtered in the Holocaust say 'no more!”
Anyone who has visited these horrific Holocaust sites realise the enormity of its wickedness and yet, for most Germans of the era, bought up under Martin Luther's hatred of the Jews and fuelled down the centuries to the Nazi Dr Joseph Goebbel's anti-semite cultural propaganda, saw no moral or ethical issue with Jewish extermination.
Without 'political vigilance', any society, anywhere, anytime, with its own prejudices, has a proclivity to go down such unspeakable pathways committing such crimes.
Every day is an important time to remember and reflect upon such irreversible loss whereupon the Gentiles celebrate Messiah, Jesus our Jewish Saviour.