The memory of Auschwitz victims was commemorated during the 5th edition of the "Light of Peace Run" which partially overlapped the route of the so-called “Auschwitz Death March”.

The 5th edition of the "Light of Peace Run" took place on 18 January 2024. The inauguration was attended by, among others, the President of the Institute of National Remembrance Karol Nawrocki and representatives of the IPN.

Hundreds of students from various Polish schools took part in the run covering the distance between Oświecim and Gliwice. The event was inaugurated by the IPN President Karol Nawrocki.

- We have met today to pay tribute to, and to honor the memory of those who were just a step away from liberation, who were waiting to leave the German concentration camp. However, in their greed for forced labor, the Germans decided to herd them for tens of kilometers in the winter cold, murdering many of them,” said IPN President Karol Nawrocki.

The 79th anniversary of the “Auschwitz Death March” was also commemorated in Pszczyna in southern Poland where the IPN President and local authorities laid wreaths.

- Totalitarian evil murders and destroys from beginning to end, it does not stop in its path, just as it happened with German Nazism, and drags into a whole spiral of war, cruelty and barbarism everything and everyone who stands in its way. Pszczyna also stood in the path of this evil - emphasized the IPN President.

Pszczyna was an important point on the route. In this town, columns with marching prisoners separated. Altogether, 56,000 people would march west, scattering bodies along the way.