Marking 80 years since the destruction of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, a March of the Living was held in Budapest today, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. It ended at the Keleti train station from which the first transports embarked to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944.

Some 565,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, at Auschwitz Birkenau, on the banks of the Danube River and in Death Marches to Austria.

The March of the Living in Hungary was led by 80 Holocaust survivors of Hungarian descent, including Aviva Keinan and Marian Miller from Israel. At the main ceremony, Miller performed a song written by her cousin, Gabor Ardash – “It Is Not Really Goodbye” – with singer Tal Sondak. Gabor wrote the song before his execution by the Danube. He was only 13.

Also participating in the March were Deputy Chairpersons of the International March of the Living, Baruch Adler and Avi Dickstein, head of the organization’s European operations, Michelle Gourary, KKL Chairperson Ifat Ovadia Lussky, Chairperson of the Jewish Agency, Doron Almog and thousands of marchers.

As the ceremony ends, the “Train of the Living” will embark from the Keleti Station to Oświęcim with 500 students, who will conduct a nighttime vigil on the train, commemorating the “death trains” that left the station over 80 years ago with more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews on board. The Hungarian delegation will arrive at the March of the Living in Poland on the morning of Yom Hashoah, between the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps.

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