International March of the Living mourns the passing of Marian Turski, Holocaust survivor, historian, co-founder of the Polin Museum and President of the International Auschwitz Committee.
A survivor of the Łódź Ghetto, Turski was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, where his father and brother were murdered. Turski then survived two death marches before being transferred to Buchenwald. In May 1945, some 80 years ago, he was liberated from Terezin, near death from typhus and exhaustion, at 19 years of age.
Following the war, and throughout his life, Turski became an eloquent spokesman for Holocaust remembrance and education, protesting against antisemitism and all forms of intolerance and racism, and encouraging dialogue and reconciliation between Polish and Jewish communities.
Among his most famous pronouncements was an exhortation that the world should adopt, an Eleventh Commandment: “Do not be indifferent.”
Turski was a cofounder of the landmark institution, “POLIN: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews” in Warsaw. March Of the Living delegations were among the first to visit the March of the museum when it opened in 2013.
In 2017, the Polin Museum hosted a special March of the Living exhibit, Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations.
In Nov. 2018, at the Polin Museum during the launch of the Polish edition of the March of the Living book, Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations, Marian Turski spoke eloquently about the young people attending the March of the Living.
He noted that the students were “taking over the baton” of Holocaust memory as “they start witnessing the witnesses of history.”
He also wanted the young people on the March of the Living “to understand that Auschwitz can happen anywhere. Literally anywhere. It can happen here, in your country, on your land.”
Turski encouraged the youth on the March of the Living to ‘remember where you come from” and “that they have diverse roots [and] it enriches them.”
He also noted the importance of Polish Jewish dialogue on the March of the Living and that “no one feels alienated. Let them try to attract Polish youth to the greatest extent possible.”
On August 7, 2023, Marian Turski led a joint Remembrance March & March of the Living with the participation of some 2,000 Polish people. The march, which commemorated the date of the first deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka, was organized by the European March of the Living, the POLIN Museum and other organizations.
“Auschwitz didn’t fall suddenly from the sky. Auschwitz crept and tiptoed, taking small steps, it came closer, until this happened here,” warned Turski on January 27, 2020, at the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz from Nazi forces.
“Don’t be indifferent!”, he pleaded with all those gathering for the commemoration.
As we mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of World War II, Marian Turski’s message to the world remains as profoundly important as ever.
