The theme of this year’s March of Life (“March of Remembrance” in the US and “Marcha de La Vida” in Latin America) is “Uprising Against Antisemitism.” The marches will take place during the time of Yom HaShoah, April 18th, which this year coincides with the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Hatred of Jews and antisemitism has reached alarming levels. Antisemitism has reemerged into everyday life all over the world and too many people remain indifferent. Therefore, Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, recently issued a strong call to action: “Who is speaking out? Who dares to come forward?”
The March of Life was founded by Christian Pastor Jobst Bittner and his wife Charlotte in Tübingen, Germany. The organization was born in rueful response to the unimaginable atrocities that occurred in their own hometown and other cities in Germany, as well as the surrounding countries throughout Eastern Europe. Together with penitent descendants of members of the German Wehrmacht, police, and SS forces, the Bittners have organized memorial and reconciliation marches at former death camps all over Europe. Since the beginning of this movement in 2007, Remembrance Marches have been held in 14 nations and over 300 cities.
DALLAS
On Sunday, April 16th this profound and moving event will take place once again at Southern Methodist University. The goal of the march is to provide students and the wider Christian and Jewish Communities an opportunity to stand together and make a positive impact.
The events of the day will begin at 2:00 pm at the lower level of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center on the SMU campus and will include the lighting of candles by Holocaust survivors, Rosian Zerner and Tova Feldman, who will share their abbreviated stories of tragedy and triumph. Also participating are German delegates from Tubingen, as well as a vignette from the play Yanusz and Steffa performed by Opera Leggera of Kingwood, Texas.
Each participant will then carry a memorial stone with the name of a college-aged Holocaust victim as participants engage in a short march through campus. Finally, the gathering will close with the announcement of several scholarship awards by the Nathaniel Foundation to SMU students whose submitted entries best depict the importance of post-Holocaust memory and a commitment against antisemitism in forms of art, prose, and stories.
To register for the Dallas march, please go to: https://mordallas.org/registration/
HOUSTON/KINGWOOD
On the coattails of the sellout Beauty for Ashes Luncheon at the Kingwood Country Club on March 31st, The Kingwood, Texas march program will take place on Sunday, April 23rd at 2:00 pm at the beautiful, newly remodeled Kingwood Middle School. Guest speakers child Holocaust survivor Rosian Zerner and German perpetrator descendants Frank and Bärbel Pfeiffer will give their testimonies. Consular representatives from Israel, Germany, Poland ,Hungary and Ukraine will also address the upstanders.
Following the program, upstanding marchers will be transported to the starting point of a short walk to the Holocaust Garden of Hope to get a sneak preview of this one-of-a-kind outdoor museum, slated to be open to the public this fall.
To register for the Kingwood march, please go to: https://bit.ly/MOR23
