One million European Jews died at the camp between 1940 and 1945 along with around 80,000 non-Jewish Poles, 25,000 Roma and 20,000 Soviet soldiers OSWIECIM, Poland: Released Gaza hostages joined Holocaust survivors on Monday for an annual march in southern Poland to commemorate victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Survivors of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas also joined the “March of the Living” at the site, which has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of European Jews. “I came to show that we’re alive and that we’ve built a country,” Bella Haim, 86, told AFP. Her grandson Yotam Haim was captured by Hamas militants on October 7 and later gunned down in Gaza by Israeli soldiers who failed to realize he had escaped from his captors. “I told myself that I couldn’t remain silent and I’m marching here in the name of my grandson Yotam and the victims” of the attack, Bella said. She was part of an Israeli delegation that flew to Poland for the march in the southern city of Oswiecim, which numbered around 8,000 people this year. Every year, Jews and non-Jews from around the world take part in the event at the site of the former death camp, which was built by Nazi Germany after it invaded Poland. One million European Jews died at the camp between 1940 and 1945 along with around 80,000 non-Jewish Poles, 25,000 Roma and 20,000 Soviet soldiers. The camp was liberated by the Red Army in January 1945. This year’s March of the Living was briefly disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters who spoke out against what they called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures. The militants also took some 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza. The army says 35 of them are dead. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.