Israel’s President Isaac Herzog was joined by Eli Sharabi and other released hostages at the gates of Auschwitz in poignant moment at the annual March of the Living, marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Yom HaShoah.
Isaac Herzog was also met at by President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. The two leaders signed the visitors’ book, laid a wreath at the Black Wall, where prisoners were executed by the Nazis, and visited the exhibition at Block 27 in the Camp.
The two went on to hold a bilateral meeting after which they made statements to the media.
Joined by his wife and a large delegation from Israel, including Minister of Education Yoav Kisc, to lead the March of the Living, President Herzog stood at Auschwitz, “the extermination camp where over a million members of my people were murdered simply for being Jews.”
He said: “On this historic date, marking 80 years since the defeat of the Nazis and the liberation of the camp. Of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, half—three million—were Polish. It is an unfathomable number. In just six years, on the soil of Occupied Poland, one of the most magnificent Jewish communities in history—Polish Jewry—was almost entirely destroyed by the Nazis, their helpers, and collaborators.”
He added that with “a broken heart, I remind us all that although after the Holocaust we vowed, “Never again,” today, even as we stand here, the souls of dozens of Jews again “yearn within a cage,” “thirsting for water and for freedom”; as 59 of our brothers and sisters are held by terrorist murderers in Gaza, in a horrific crime against humanity.
President Isaac Herzog with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda at the gates of Auschwitz for March of the Living 2025 Pic: Twitter/X
“The return of the hostages is a universal human imperative; and I call from here upon the entire international community to mobilise and put an end to this humanitarian crime.”
The President thanked President Duda for his country’s solidarity and support for Israel since October 7.
He went on to say that one of the most important lessons of World War II is “the moral imperative that obligates the allies of the free world to stand firm against forces that encourage and drive dark ideologies of terror and hatred” and that “as Israel continues to face attacks of varying intensity, on multiple fronts—attacks driven, funded, and led by the Iranian octopus of hate and terror—we must expand our partnership against the axis of evil. Iran threatens not only Israel but global stability, and the nations of the world must cooperate to stop it.”
President Isaac Herzog with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda at the gates of Auschwitz for March of the Living 2025
On the issue of Holocaust education, President Herzog said, “I believe that our joint presence here today—in this sacred place—reflects our shared commitment to march toward a common future founded also on the memory of the past.”
He noted that renewing the Israeli-Polish youth delegations is an important step in that direction, as it “embodies both the imperative to memorialise the Holocaust and pass it on to future generations, and the aspiration to deepen the partnership and brotherhood between our peoples and to build a shared future together.”
Thanking President Herzog for coming to lead the March, “together with Jewish youth from all over the world, at a very significant moment—80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945”, President Duda said: “In just a moment, we will march here together, symbolically, in the 37th March of the Living, where youth will walk alongside survivors—first and foremost in a celebration of life, and then in remembrance, but also with a dramatic call: Never Again! Never again hatred, never again discrimination, never again antisemitism.
“Above all, we must not remain silent. We must not remain silent in the face of hatred between peoples. We must not remain silent in the face of racist or ethnic hatred. If we are silent, the end result can be what happened here at the hands of the Germans during World War II—when wild hatred drove them to annihilate the Jewish people. We call it the Holocaust, but it was simply a wild urge to kill and destroy.
President Duda added that he also spoke with President Herzog “about the Iranian threat that Israel is facing and about the war in Gaza that began with Hamas’s attack on Israel.”
He expressed hope that it will be possible to bring it to an end, and that the hostages held by Hamas will come home.
To watch the video of President Herzog at Auschwitz with March of the Living, click here.
