A delegation of 30 adults, young adults and Holocaust survivors from Australia will be joining the 2024 March of the Living.

Since 2001, the first year Australia sent a delegation to the March, approximately 2,000 participants from Australia have taken part in the March. These include 1200 students; 450 adults; 300 staff – educators, survivors, madrichim, and 50 Young Adults.

Frank Lowy at the 2013 March of the Living in Auschwitz-Birkenau in front of the cattle car he donated in memory of his father.

In 2013, Australian philanthropist and Holocaust survivor, Frank Lowy, related his story to participants on the March of the Living, standing in front of a cattle car similar to the ones used to transport Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz- Birkenau including his father Hugo Lowy.

Later at the memorial ceremony he told the students: “So here I am, with you all in Birkenau. I know he was also here, under this same sky. Just like almost half a million Hungarian Jews, he came to this place in a wagon, and almost immediately after arriving, disappeared as smoke into this sky. I was 13 when I lost my father and now I am 82 – and you know, I still miss him…”

The Australian survivors joining the 2024 March are Peter Baruch and Judith Solomon.

A native of Poland, Peter Baruch, 85, and his parents were the only ones to survive out of his entire extended family. Read more about Peter Baruch »

Born in Budapest, Hungary, in August 1942 as an only child, Judith Solomon was interned in the Budapest Ghetto during the war with her mother and grandmother. They escaped Budapest with the help of Raoul Wallenberg, and were liberated by American soldiers. Read more about Judy Solomon »

Also joining the 2024 group are 5 Holocaust Studies teachers from a number of non-Jewish high schools and two former Australian Parliamentarians – one Jewish and one non-Jewish.

“1/3 of the Australian delegation will be non- Jewish,” noted Cedric Geffen, Director of the Australian March of the Living.

“Last year, a Principal from a non-Jewish high school joined us who hopefully will reinforce the probability of us running a bespoke program for non-Jewish high school students in the future.

“The desire to grow the proportion of participants from the ‘wider community’ is a clear strategic objective of MOTL Australia and one which we are rigorously pursuing. Our intent is that by 2027 in addition to substantially growing our numbers, we will have 50:50 representation from the Jewish community and the wider non-Jewish community.”

Prior to the March of the Living in Poland, there will be a special March in Budapest, Hungary, commemorating 80 years since the destruction of Hungarian Jewry in the spring of 1944, most of them in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Australian Cantor Shimon Farkas singing El Malei Rachamim at the March of the Living ceremony on Yom HaShoah

Leading the program in Budapest will be celebrated Chazan, Cantor Shimon Farkas of Sydney, Australia who has attended the March previously with his sons.

“This year, I will travel to Budapest and Auschwitz with the 2024 March of the Living along with my two wonderful sons, wife and grandchildren,’ said Shimon Farkas who was born in 1949 in Fehergyarmat, Hungary. Three of his four grandparents perished in Auschwitz.

“We will sing Jewish melodies in the very places where so many of our beloved ancestors – including three of my grandparents – were sent to their deaths 80 years ago.

And our message will be loud and clear: Hitler you did not win and you will never win! Am Yisrael Chai!”

Australian Cantor Shimon Farkas and son Chaim singing at the March of the Living