Holocaust rites at Auschwitz

OSWIECIM, POLAND —  Thousands of young Jews and elderly Holocaust survivors marched Tuesday at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz to honor those who perished in the Holocaust, while an Israeli official condemned the Iranian president’s recent anti-Israel comments.

A shofar, or ram’s horn, sounded the march’s start. About 7,000 people from more than 40 countries, many carrying the blue and white flag of Israel, then streamed through the infamous wrought-iron gate -- crowned with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work Sets You Free” -- at the former Auschwitz camp.

Under a clear blue sky, the participants trekked 2 miles to the sprawling Nazi sister camp of Birkenau, home to wooden barracks and the gas chambers.

The annual March of the Living, which honors the memory of the about 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, appeared this year as a counterpoint to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech Monday at a U.N. racism conference in Geneva.

Ahmadinejad, who has spoken of a myth of the Holocaust and has predicted the collapse of Israel’s “Zionist regime,” accused the Jewish state in his speech of being a “most cruel and repressive racist regime.”

Speaking before Tuesday’s march, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom dismissed the Iranian leader’s address as “a speech of hatred.”