An initiative with a long-standing history
Every year, near April 19 - the date of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 - the Polish Council of Christians and Jews organizes the March of Prayer “On the Path of the Warsaw Ghetto Monuments.” About a hundred Warsaw residents and guests from other cities participate. The march, which has been held for the past 30 years, leads participants in silence along the traces of the Warsaw Route of Jewish Martyrdom. The route begins at the monument to the Ghetto Heroes. The next points on the route are: The Tree of the Righteous, the monument to Szmul Zygielbojm, the bunker at 18 Mila Street and the memorial stone to Janusz Korczak. The march ends at the monument on Umschlagplatz, from where the Germans deported Warsaw Jews to the death camps.
A space of unity, reflection, remembrance and prayer
No speeches are made during the march. Instead, participants pray, reciting and singing Jewish and Christian prayers, psalms are also recited - jointly in Polish, in Czeslaw Milosz's translation. The prayer of John Paul II for the Jewish nation is also recited at the Umschlagplatz, at the site where the Polish pope prayed himself. At each stop, the names of Warsaw residents who lived in the area before the Holocaust are read out.
"Thank you for the joint testimony of faith given by Polish Jews and Christians in the former ghetto area. By walking in prayer in the memory of the uprising, we express responsibility to God and people. Remembering the painful history of Christian-Jewish relations, this common sign is very important", wrote the Rev. Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff - then Chairman of the German Episcopate's Committee on Religious Relations with Jews - in his letter to the march participants in 2013.
"Human dignity is rooted in God. Therefore, ultimately, human dignity cannot be murdered. Murderers do not have the last word with God. This is our hope for the victims,” he stressed.
This year's edition of the march will begin on Sunday, April 06, 2025 at 4 pm at the Ghetto Heroes monument.