A screenshot from a video uploaded by the IDF on Holocaust Memorial Day on May 2, 2019. (screenshot: IDF)
The official Instagram account of the German armed forces on Thursday “liked” a video uploaded by the Israel Defense Forces on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The IDF video featured officers at various Nazi concentration camps saying: “We say loud and clear: Never again.” The video uploaded Thursday was viewed nearly 100,000 times in the first 24 hours.
The role Jewish soldiers played in WWII has been a focal point of the IDF’s education programs over the past year. Jewish soldiers who fought for allied powers in the war far outnumbered the current number serving in the Israeli military today, according to an IDF commander.
The officer in the Education Corps estimated that there were over 1.5 million Jews who fought against Nazi Germany in the US, British, Soviet and other allied armies.
He said the IDF recently launched an online initiative to teach younger Israelis about the role Jews played in WWII.
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“The significance of being a Jewish fighter in a war is challenging and raises many questions,” the unnamed officer told the Ynet news site. “This information has been around for years, but only recently have they started to ask questions [about it.]”
Each year, Israel sends a delegation of IDF officers and bereaved families of soldiers to Auschwitz for the annual March of the Living memorial event.
Then-IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz visits the Auschwitz death camp in Poland along with other uniformed officers on April 7, 2013. (Moshe Milner/GPO/FLASH90)
The “Witnesses in Uniform” delegation joined thousands of other students from all over the world on Thursday for the march to the former Nazi death camp where over one million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.
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