International March of the Living pays tribute to the heroic allied forces who took part 80 years ago in the historic D-Day operations to free Europe from the hands of Nazi tyranny.
Throughout WWII, Jews played an important role, serving with Allied militaries forces as well as in partisan units who fought all across Nazi occupied Europe.
During D-Day itself, thousands of Jewish soldiers were part of American, British and Canadian forces that landed in Normandy.
“Over 4,000 of the soldiers who landed on the Normandy beaches to fight in D-Day were Jewish,” said Walter Bingham, a Jewish German-born veteran who was rescued by the Kindertransport. Bingham later fought with the British Army in the Normandy landings. According to Bingham, the world’s oldest working journalist, Jews made up 4.2 per cent of American soldiers, one per cent of British fighters, and 1.5 per cent of Canadian forces. “52 Jewish men died in the Normandy landings. I took part in some of those battles, and by the grace of God survived them unscathed.”
Walter Bingham has participated in several March of the Living programs and was featured in a recent March of the Living documentary, Journey of Hope: Retracing the Kindertransport after 85 Years.
In 2024, at 100 years of age, Walter Bingham was one of 55 Holocaust survivors who traveled to Auschwitz-Birkenau to share his story on the March of the Living
In 2012, March of the Living brought a delegation of American WWII veterans in their late 80s and early 90s who liberated concentration camps during WWII to the March of the Living where they were honored for their service.
Among the goals of the March of the Living are these:
To honor the heroic Allied veterans and partisan fighters who fought to liberate Europe from the hands of Nazi tyranny during WWII.
To inspire participants to commit to building a world free of oppression and intolerance, a world of freedom, democracy and justice, for all members of the human family.
As the world marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, we acknowledge our eternal debt to these heroic WWII fighters – who not only liberated Europe from the evil grip of Nazi Germany, but preserved the blessings of freedoms and democracy for the next generation and for many generations long into the future.
