March of the Living launches virtual remembrance project for Yom Hashoah

(JNS)-March of the Living launched a global Holocaust remembrance project for individuals to pay tribute to Holocaust survivors, victims and the fight against anti-Semitism ahead of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which began on the eve on April 20.

The March of the Living Virtual Plaque Project, initiated under the slogan "NeverMeansNever," enables people from around the world to compose a personal message and place it on a virtual plaque to be set against the backdrop of the infamous train tracks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

"The project reflects the ongoing determination to promote the importance of memory by utilizing innovative technology to teach the timeless lessons of the Holocaust," said the organization, which normally sends throngs of Jewish youth to the site to mark the date.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin was the first to lay a virtual plaque, followed by well-known former Soviet refusenik and recent Genesis Prize winner Natan Sharansky; U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman; Jewish Agency chairman Isaac Herzog; and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the United Kingdom.

March of the Living is the largest annual international experiential Holocaust-education program in the world. It has taken place in Poland on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, also known as Yom Hashoah, without interruption since its inception in 1988.

The 2020 live event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

To date, more than 260,000 March of the Living participants have taken the 3.2-kilometer (almost 2-mile) walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau in honor of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.