3D technology to help Holocaust survivors appear at virtual March of the Living

The annual March of the Living ceremony will utilise 3D technology for the first time next month for a ceremony featuring Israel’s President.

Holocaust survivors have been filmed so they will appear to be marching at a Shoah commemoration at Auschwitz, which takes place virtually on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 8 April.

It will feature a digital ceremony including the laying of virtual plaques on the train tracks of the former Nazi death camp, with an address from Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, the chair of the Jewish Agency, Isaac Herzog and Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor and former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel.

It will include an online memorial with Israel’s head of state, a tribute to medical professionals who risked their lives during the Shoah, and numerous Holocaust survivors from around the world.

Numerous bodies, such as the World Health Organisation, will take part in the programme, alongside key figures in the global fight against Covid, including Israel’s Coronavirus Commissioner Prof. Bachman Ash.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said: “We all have a duty to pass on the memory of the Holocaust to future generations, not to forget, not to let it be forgotten.”

During this pandemic we are prevented from stepping on the accursed earth, saturated with the blood of six million of our people. Yet, we have vowed never to forget or let go.”

Technology allows us, each and every one of us, to participate in the March of Living without leaving home, while contributing to the commemoration of the Holocaust and its victims. We must harness all the tools at our disposal to fight racism, antisemitism, attempts at denial. We must continue marching.”

Jewish Agency Chair Isaac Herzog said the march “connects between those who learned about the Holocaust firsthand and those who did not; between the generation of survivors that is disappearing, and the younger generation that grew up around the world not knowing firsthand the story of the Holocaust and the struggle of the Jewish people as well as the predatory powers of racism and antisemitism.”

Since its inception in 1988, close to 300,000 International March of the Living participants have walked the 3.2 km path from Auschwitz to Birkenau.

Participants who wish to place memorial plaques with personal messages on the train tracks at Birkenau can do so via a dedicated mini-site https://nevermeansnever.com/