MOSCOW - The Russian Jewish Congress will hold a March of the Living symbolic funeral procession on Friday in Zmievskaya Balka (Rostov-on-Don) to mark the 75th anniversary of the August 1942 extermination of the town’s Jewish population at the hand of the Nazis and their accomplices. The commemoration is a joint initiative of the RJC (the Russian affiliate of the World Jewish Congress) and the local Rostov government, and is part of a series of events being held across the country this week to remember the victims of the Holocaust.
The symbolic march in Rostov-on-Don is the largest of the events being held this week, and is the first March of the Living to be dedicated to victims at Zmievskaya Balka, the largest Holocaust massacre in Russia. Additional marches will be held on August 13 in Arzgir (Stavropol Krai), Kaliningrad, Kislovodsk,(Stavropol Krai), Mineralniye Vody (Stavropol Krai), Novozibkov (Bryansk Oblast), Orel, Stavropol, and other cities across Russia. 
To commemorate the Zmievskaya Balka massacre, participants will follow the route taken by the Nazi-led Rostovchani who marched 27,000 victims - more than half of them Jewish - to execution by gunfire.
Marchers will wear black armbands with the yellow Star of David forced upon Jews during the occupation. Posters have been hung across the city informing residents of the upcoming march, to simulate the signs that were posted in 1942 ordering local Jews to assemble for the execution march.
The formal program will take place at the end of the march at the foot of the memorial complex at Zmievskaya Balka, with a memorial ceremony encompassing both Jewish and Christian prayers.
“Zmievskaya Balka was the biggest execution site of Holocaust victims in Russia, it is ‘the Russian Babi Yar’, and a terrible symbol of the Holocaust throughout our national territory,” said Russian Jewish Congress President and WJC Vice President Yuri Kanner. “We called our procession the March of the Living because we are alive, we remember, and should never forget what has happened.”
Kanner will preside over the ceremony, and Russian officials, both local and federal, are also expected to take part, including representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s office and the Federal Agency on Nationalities, as well as Rostov Governor Vasili Golubev, and representatives of the Rostov Regional Government and Legislative Assembly and Rostov-on-Don Municipal Administration. Leading diplomats, foreign officials, representative of veteran organizations and youth groups have also been invited.
The Rostov-on-Don March of the Living is a joint initiative of the Russia Jewish Congress, the Rostov Regional Administration, Rostov-on-Don Municipal Administration, and the RRE Holocaust Center, with the assistance Office of the Russian President, Federal Agency on Nationalities and the Rostov Jewish Religious Community.
On 11-12 August 1942, Nazis orchestrated a marching massacre in Zmievskaya Balka, a former settlement that today is part of Rostov-on-Don City. An estimate 15,000-18,000 of these victims were Jewish, along with Soviet prisoners of war, participants of clandestine anti-fascist organizations, and the gravely ill.
The memorial events dedicated to 75th anniversary of the tragedy at Zmievskaya Balka in Rostov-on-Don will last through 14 August, and will include meetings of veteran organizations and film screenings. A conference on the Preservation of Holocaust Memory is also scheduled. A joint Russian-German-British historical-documentary exhibition, “Rostov during the occupation and the Holocaust era,” will open at the Donskaya State Library for the occasion.
