Israel news photo
Israel news photoReuters

The United Nations will host a new exhibition honoring the March of the Living.

The exhibit, entitled “When You Listen to a Witness, You Become a Witness,” will launch on Tuesday, January 28, in the Visitor Centre, Dag Hammarskjold Library Lower Level.

The opening event and reception will take place that evening in the Library gallery from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, will be the keynote speaker.

The exhibit opening follows International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual day of commemoration established by the United Nations.

“When You Listen to a Witness, You Become a Witness” features powerfully moving images and reflections in verse gleaned from 25 years of March of the Living, in color and black-and-white representations, documenting the stories of aging survivors and young students as they walk hand in hand participating in a life transforming journey.

The March of the Living is an annual program which brings high school students from around the world for a week of intensive education and touring in Poland and Israel, to study the history of the Holocaust and examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hate.

The aim of the program is to impart the lessons of the Holocaust, celebrate the history of Jewish survival and instill a passion for social justice. The students visit once thriving sites of Jewish life and sites of mass murder and genocide in Poland.

On Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) on April 28, 2014, the students will march from Auschwitz to Birkenau in memory of Nazi victims with survivors sharing their stories standing in the very places their tragic stories unfolded.

The UN exhibit ends with a guest book, in which visitors are encouraged to write their own messages of hope and tolerance.

These statements will be taken on the 2014 March of the Living, and placed on the grounds of Auschwitz to Birkenau along with the thousands of other plaques participants place there themselves.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)