Army chief in Auschwitz: IDF ‘shield’ against second Shoah

The state of Israel will ensure the horrors of Auschwitz never happen again, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said Sunday while visiting the Nazi concentration camp on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day,

Gantz, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, was accompanied by a delegation of Israel Defense Forces officers and bereaved families of soldiers, and wrote in the visitors’ book at the site where over 1 million Jews were murdered during World War II.

“On a clear, cold day, it is hard to understand or sense the gap between the silence all around and the horror that took place here, among the camp barracks, and inside of them,” Gantz wrote in the visitors’ book at the concentration camp memorial site. “An incomprehensible horror. The state of Israel is the security that an atrocity like this will not happen again. The IDF is the shield for the national home — the safe haven for the Jewish people.”

The “Witnesses in Uniform” delegation of IDF officers was accompanied by parents of IDF soldiers who died in the line of duty, disabled veterans, and a Holocaust survivor who told the delegation of his experiences at the site.

“I am proud to stand at the head of the army and the delegation that, with great humility, seeks to bow its head in memory of the deceased and respect for the survivors, and to shoulder the responsibility of learning lessons from the past and ensuring future security,” Gantz wrote.

On Monday, Gantz will lead the March of the Living procession, comprising some 10,000 participants from around the world, which will proceed from Auschwitz to the adjacent Birkenau complex, one of several sites in Poland where Hitler’s Final Solution for exterminating Jews was put into action.

It is the first time that an IDF chief of general staff will lead the march.

The stated aim of the March of the Living is to impart the lessons of the Holocaust, celebrate the history of Jewish survival, and instill a passion for social justice. The journey starts in Poland and continues in Israel, where participants honor Israel’s fallen soldiers on Yom Hazikaron — Memorial Day, and celebrate Israel’s Independence on Yom Ha’atzma’ut. Gantz was named as one of the six torch lighters for 2013 at the ceremony that closes the march.

The annual program brings tens of thousands of 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. To date, over 180,000 students have participated.

On Sunday night, Israel began marking Holocaust Memorial Day with a state ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

During his visit to Poland, Gantz will also hold a working meeting with Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak and the head of the Polish armed forces, General Mieczyslaw Cieniuch. Gantz is also scheduled to place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw.