World Leaders Come Together to Mark 'Greatest Human Tragedy'

OSWIECIM, Poland, April 25, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Janos Ader, President of Hungary, will speak at Auschwitz- Birkenau to a group of over 10,000 young people from around the world as part of The International March of the Living 2014 on Holocaust Remembrance Day – Yom HaShoah, Monday, April 28, 2014.  

The March begins at 1 p.m. CET under the iconic "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at the entrance to Auschwitz in Poland. There will be press opportunities with the featured speakers starting at 12 p.m. Everything will also stream live online at http://motl.org.

March of the Living brings students of diverse backgrounds and survivors from around the world together in Poland for a week of intensive education to study the history of the Holocaust and examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hate.

Culminating in a three-kilometer march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, it serves as a counterpoint to the experience of the "Death Marches," where hundreds of thousands of Jews forced by the Nazis to cross vast expanses of European terrain through harsh conditions.

Six torches will close the ceremony evoking specific themes of this year's March:

1. Cecilia Ahlberg in honor of her great uncle Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat in Nazi-occupied Hungary who led an extensive and successful mission to save the lives of nearly 100,000 Hungarian Jews. Irwin Cotler, Member of Canadian Parliament and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, will assist.
2. Leonardo Farkas, Chilean philanthropist of Hungarian descent, to commemorate the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust with special emphasis on the 600,000 Hungarian Jews.
3. Rabbi Elie Abadie, the leader of New York's Edmond J. Safra Synagogue, in memory of the Rabbis, Teachers, and Students who perished during WWII and of the Jews of Sephardic backgrounds who suffered during the Holocaust.
4. Justice Asher Grunis, the President of Israel's Supreme Court, in memory of the 1.5 million innocent children killed
5. Eli Rubinstein, author, community leader, philanthropist, and son of survivors from Hungary, to honor the survivors
6. Harel Locker, Director General of the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, to honor the State of Israel, where the Jewish people were reborn from the ashes of the Holocaust.

SOURCE The International March of the Living