Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino: "We will march in the place designed to destroy the Jewish people, standing tall in our Israel Police uniforms, and we will vow: Never again" • Delegation reunites Holocaust survivor with Polish woman who saved him.
An Israel Police delegation of 185 policemen, officers and cadets arrived in Poland to take part in Monday's annual March of the Living. The police officers, led by Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, will march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, which together comprised the largest Nazi concentration camp complex built during World War II.
"I was given the privilege of marching with you," Danino said to the delegation on Sunday. "We will march with the Polish police commissioner into the Nazi inferno. With feelings of pain and shock permeating all of us, we will also feel the pride and true honor of belonging to the police force of a Jewish state, fiercely defending the security and the values of democracy, equality and justice for all citizens, regardless of religion, race and gender. We will march in the place designed to destroy the Jewish people, standing tall in our Israel Police uniforms, and we will vow: Never again."
Danino went on to say that "Participating in the March of the Living further demonstrates to all those present the importance of the commitment and responsibility -- to remember and never to forget."
Earlier in their trip, the delegation visited Treblinka extermination camp, where most of Warsaw's Jews were murdered, as were hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over Europe. The delegation then went to Majdanek concentration camp, visited Krakow and on Sunday, went on a tour through the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
While visiting Auschwitz, the police officers heard the testimony of 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Michael (Miki) Goldman. Goldman was taken to Auschwitz when he was 14. His parents and siblings were killed, but Goldman managed to escape during a death march and was taken in by a Polish family.
Later, he moved to Israel and joined the police force. Goldman joined Bureau 6, the special police unit dedicated to interrogating Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.
The police delegation surprised Goldman by inviting Stepha Razner, the Polish girl who took Goldman in the day after he escaped from Auschwitz, saving his life. Goldman and Razner had an emotional reunion decades after their first fateful meeting.
In recent years, the Israel Police has sent four delegations annually to Poland. "Policemen who participate in the march come back as changed individuals. They are much more sensitive to people and they have a new understanding of how important the work they do is," Police Human Resources Division head Maj. Gen. Yaron Be'eri said.
Each year, thousands of people -- including public figures -- from Israel and around the world, participate in March of the Living
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