“We have to march this year. It might be our last chance.”

Nate Leipciger, Holocaust Survivor, 97

“Marching at the March of the Living means victory!”

Reny Friedman, Holocaust Survivor, 88

“Every step I take in this camp is a triumph. I come back here because I am free!”

Halina Birnbaum, Holocaust Survivor, 96

“I marched because we don’t have much time left.”

David Shaecter, Z”L, Holocaust Survivor

“We must never stop telling the world the story of the Holocaust.”
Gabriella Karin, Holocaust Survivor, 95

International March of the Living is a non-profit organization with a 501(c)(3) classification, ID number 22-3261085, with the Internal Revenue Service.

 2 West 45th Street, Suite 1112, New York, NY 10036

If you encounter any issues, donate@motl.org

Renee
April 18th, 2023 - Auschwitz, Poland. 95 yo Holocaust survivor Hedy Bohm was born in Transylvania, Romania, an only child to Ignach and Larjbet. Hedy was attending a Jewish all girl school until the 10th grade. In April 1944 Hedy was sent to Oradea ghetto in Romania, from there she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. She was doing labor work in an ammunition factory. Hedy was freed by the American forces in April 1945. At 17 she joined a group of orphans from Hungary and received a visa to Canada, where she now lives. Hedy is photographed at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. (Ziv Koren/Polaris)
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עותק של Avishag Shaar-Yashuv day 2 (27)
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עותק של 286A0949
April 18th, 2023 - Auschwitz, Poland. 95yo Holocaust survivor Arek (prisoner number B7608) was born in Poland. When the WW2 broke he was forced to flee to Lodz. Arek's family was sent to the concentration camp where they were murdered. Arek was then sent to Auschwitz together with 185 orphans, He was 14 at that time. Only 40 people out of 5000 from Arek's city survived the Holocaust. Arek's grand-daughter works at the White House. Arek is photographed beside the bunk beds in the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp where he slept while he was a prisoner of the Germans in World War 2. Today Arek lives in Leeds, England. (Ziv Koren/Polaris)
Pinchas Gutter
April 18th, 2023 - Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland. 87 yo Holocaust survivor Shoshana Trister was born in Poland. She was only 4 when WW2 broke. Before the war began she remembers a beautiful life. In 1939 deportation began, Children were separated from their parents, the men were taken to do labor work. Shoshana's mother hid Shoshana and her brother, each in a crate. Shoshana sat shaking and silence in the crate. Around she heard screaming and shots fired. When it was quiet she stood up and peeked. What she saw she can never forget, German officers holding an infant from his legs, shaking him and throwing him onto the stone paved ground. A lot of blood splattered. The joy and happy sounds they made have scarred and traumatized her. She stopped talking for a long time. For 23 they hid in a pit below a pigs sty pf a Polish woman. They survived on pigs food. Today Shoshana lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Ziv Koren/Polaris)
Mala Tribich MBE, 95, UK
Rita Starkman, 83, Canada
Zili Wenkert, 83, Israel
April 23rd, 2025 - Auschwitz, Poland. EXCLUSIVE. Year of birth: 1937. Place of birth: Poland. When the Germans occupied Poland in September 1939, Irene was almost two years old. She and her family were sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. One day, she went out with her mother, Helena, to look for food, and when they returned, they found her father, David, on the kitchen floor with blood flowing from his neck. The Germans had murdered him. Her mother realized that they might be next in line. Equipped with Irene's bag and doll, Lalichka, they crawled on all fours through the ghetto's sewer system, overcoming the terrible stench and the rats. They went out to the Aryan area of Warsaw and removed the yellow stars. Michael Topilski, her mother's nephew, was already waiting. They went to the house where her mother, Irene and her doll hid in a small closet. "Mother hugged and kissed me, asked me to be a good girl, said she would bring me food and a chamber pot, and asked me to be quiet all the time.” Irene's mother, who did not look Jewish, worked as a cleaner. Every time she felt danger, they moved to another house. "But I was cold, I was in the dark and I couldn't see anything. We went through eight hiding places. I stayed alive thanks to her. It was only when the war ended and the hell ended that I finally saw a smile on my mother's face.” After the war, they traveled to Paris with relatives. Her mother worked as a cleaner in a hotel, and Irene went to an orphanage. "Every Sunday she came to visit and brought sweets to me and the other children.” But after March 4, 1948 she never saw her again. “The director of the orphanage took me to a cemetery, where I learned that my mother had died of a heart attack.” Yitzhak Topilsky, Michael's father, took Irene to Peru where she grew up. In 1956 she moved to New York and studied for a degree in linguistics. In 1963 she immigrated to Israel, married and had 2 children: David, named after her father, and Ilana, named
April 22nd, 2025 - Auschwitz, Poland. EXCLUSIVE. Year of birth: 1933. Place of birth: Lithuania. When the Germans invaded in 1941, Arnold's family was captured by Lithuanian soldiers who transported them to the infamous Ninth Fort. Arnold's mother convinced an officer that her husband had been an officer in the Lithuanian army during World War I, and they were released from prison. The family was sent later to a labor camp" the mother and sister were moved to the women's section, and Arnold and his father to the men's section. The father became responsible for running the camp. When he realized that SS soldiers were collecting children for extermination, he hid Arnold and four other children. After two weeks, the children were transferred to Birkenau and sent straight to the gas chambers. At the very last minute, a resourceful boy overheard an SS soldier say he needed workers. That boy instructed the children to behave like adults and they were taken to work in the camp. Arnold was separated from his father and sent to Dachau in a famous group of 131 Lithuanian boys who were saved from the crematoria due to a malfunction in the facility. One night the American Air Force bombers destroyed the camp. All around – burned bodies. Some of the people were so hungry, they ate from the bodies. It was the most shocking sight he had ever seen. (Arnold's father was murdered in Dachau.) After the liberation, his mother and his sister found him in Budapest. Arnold was a dentist in the US for 54 years. In 2020, after the death of his wife Batya, Arnold immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem, reuniting with his son and daughter, who had immigrated to Israel many years before him. Arnold has 2 children and 4 grandchildren. (Ziv Koren/Polaris)