A Holocaust survivor in Montreal is taking part in the second Ride for the Living from Auschwitz to Krakow in Poland 70 years after making a similar journey by foot.
Marcel Zielinski was a 10-year-old Auschwitz prisoner liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945 when he, along with a group of children, walked the 55 miles from the camp to his Krakow hometown to search for his parents. On June 12, he planned to ride on a bicycle along the same route with his son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.
Ride for the Living is a fundraising event organized by the Jewish Community Center of Krakow.
The ride was the idea of Robert Desmond, who in 2013 rode his bike from London through Normandy, Paris, Luxembourg, Nuremberg, Prague and Krakow to Auschwitz and described his journey on his blog.
“The idea is to do a ride from Auschwitz to the JCC not only to look at the history of Poland but the current life of modern-day, trendy Krakow, with its reborn Jewish community and the amazing JCC, too,” Desmond said about the ride. — jta