Supporters of efforts to boost Holocaust education gathered at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington on Tuesday evening to celebrate the launch of the International March of the Living Eisenhower Family Initiative, which will “spearhead impactful programs that promote awareness, education, and action against antisemitism worldwide.”

The night was organized by the International March of the Living and the Eisenhower Family Initiative, and featured speeches from Merrill Eisenhower, the great-grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Eva Clarke, a Holocaust survivor born at the Mauthausen concentration camp in the days prior to its liberation by U.S. forces under then-Gen. Eisenhower’s command. 

Eisenhower and Clarke’s meeting, according to a release provided by organizers of the initiative, “symbolizes the profound connection between those who ensured liberation and those who survived, underscoring the importance of preserving memory and standing against hatred.”

The release also stated that the initiative “commemorates the enduring legacy of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, whose pivotal leadership in liberating Nazi concentration camps stands as a timeless testament to courage and justice. Eight decades later, his resolute stand against hatred continues to inspire the global fight against antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and intolerance.”

Eisenhower told the crowd that his great-grandfather was responsible for documenting the horrors that occurred in the concentration camps, noting that preventing another Holocaust required educating the public about what was done to the Jewish people during World War II. Referencing a famous quote attributed to his great-grandfather, Eisenhower said, “Take pictures, because one day they will say this never happened,” to explain why “it’s important for us” to “give people an opportunity to try to understand” what occurred during the Holocaust. 

Eisenhower said that many people “don’t truly understand the eradication of populations, not just the Jewish population, there are others as well . …  As global citizens, which we all are, we have a responsibility to make sure that we are talking about, that we are working through and we are bearing witness” to the atrocities.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), also spoke at the event, as did Josh and Marjorie Harris, co-chairs of the initiative, and Greg Masel and Phyllis Heideman of International March of the Living. Jewish folk singer Happie Hoffman performed a song and the U.S. national anthem. 

Leiter, whose son was killed while serving in the IDF in Gaza in November of 2023, spoke about being left speechless and unable to bring himself to say Kaddish while inside a crematorium at Auschwitz with an elderly survivor of the Holocaust who had also survived the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks during the most recent March of the Living trip. “When I got called to join this year’s March of the Living, I felt that it was time, that I owed it to myself, and I immediately said yes,” Leiter said. “Everybody said, ‘You feel, say Kaddish.’ And I couldn’t speak. My throat went dry. My tongue was tied. I couldn’t speak.”

“I tried to figure out as we’re marching from Auschwitz to Birkenau what it was that was going on in those nanoseconds in my mind that made me so speechless. I understood what my dilemma was. What kind of Kaddish do I say?” he asked. 

The International March of the Living is an annual educational event that brings people from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust before marching the two miles between the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.