KRAKOW, Poland — Hundreds of youth activists who have gathered in Poland for the 31st annual March of the Living ceremony to commemorate the Holocaust released a declaration against antisemitism Thursday morning.
The activists gathered Wednesday to fine-tune the draft and offer comments and suggestions before it was finalized overnight. It will be read onstage at the formal Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Thursday afternoon, following the three-kilometer march from the concentration camp of Auschwitz to the death camp of Birtkenau.
The text reads as follows:
First Emerging Leaders International Declaration Against Antisemitism, Racism and Intolerance
We are the Jewish people.
We have always been a small nation with a resonating voice. Our 4000-year story is rich with love and triumph, though rife with hatred and tragedy. In places near and far, innumerable, uncountable, there … and here, we have known antisemitism. Targeted, chased, expelled, isolated, killed, and nearly exterminated.
We are the Jewish people.
We knew antisemitism then and we know it today. Acts of antisemitism and all types of hatred are further spreading the destructive impact of intolerance. Standing here today together, Jews and non-Jews alike, we must not remain idle in the face of evil, no matter its form or expression.
It has been said, “The path to Auschwitz was built by hatred, but paved by indifference.”
We have the ethical obligation not only as Jews but as human being to transform the world we see into a place where we want to be.
Reaching that goal requires us to understand that simply refraining from evil will not allow our vision to reach fruition, for it is in the active pursuit of goodness and the relentless search for kindness that humanity may fulfill its potential.
With this declaration we vow to be builders of the future, not victims of the past, and here today we pledge to:
Stand tall in the face of bigotry;
Raise our voice against antisemitism;
Speak out again racism; and
Commit to loving all our neighbors as ourselves.
We are the Jewish people.
The March of the Living procession will be live-streamed at Breitbart.com at 1:30 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. EDT).
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.