Marching against silence: Cambridge University hosts first 'March of Life' event amid rising antisemitism

Last Sunday was no ordinary day in the United Kingdom, as many supporters of the Jewish people and nation took to the streets for a series of ‘Marches of Life.’ Mike McNally, UK Director of the global March of Life movement, played a leading role, while Anne Beaumont helped organize the first-ever march in the historic university city of Cambridge.

March of Life (MOL) is "a prayer and memorial movement," McNally told Christian journalist Paul Calvert. "It has three main objectives," he continued.

"The first one is remembering, working through the past and giving Holocaust survivors a voice. The second is reconciliation, to bring healing and restoration between the descendants of victims and perpetrators; and [thirdly] taking a stand for the people of Israel and against modern antisemitism."

Beaumont, an alumna of the prestigious University of Cambridge, described how pro-Palestinian encampments virtually took over the campus last summer, disrupting activities to the extent that the graduation ceremony had to be relocated.

She explained why she felt it was important for Cambridge to host a March of Life for the first time this year, in addition to several other UK cities.

"I heard all the antisemitic tropes, both from students, but more, also, from townsfolk," she said, recalling her visit to the encampments. She added that Jewish students have even been spat on, and "often feel uncomfortable."

Following the shocking Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, Beaumont began praying daily with the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), via their Global Prayer Gathering.

Because she was "so horrified about what had happened," Beaumont joined a London rally organized by the newly formed Christian Action Against Antisemitism, in solidarity with the 251 hostages abducted into Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

"And I just wanted to have one in Cambridge," she said, referring to organizing a rally.

It took some time, with assistance from the ICEJ, and other ‘divine appointments.’ Beaumont said that she was approached by a lady she didn’t know, Catherine Lindsay, organizer of the Cambridge March of Life.

ALL ISRAEL NEWS also spoke with Lindsay for an update on last Sunday's events. She noted that the march included British Christians, members of the Jewish community, and two German descendants of Nazi perpetrators directly involved in carrying out the crimes during World War II – particularly, the Holocaust.

“We had an Orthodox Jewish lady reading names of victims of the Holocaust, Reform synagogue members lighting the memorial candles, and a Jewish man singing,” she said.

“The young lady who read the names is a third-generation Holocaust survivor, and the two girls from Tubingen were able to say the word their ancestors never did: ‘Sorry.’”

“It was quite amazing to see how it all came together in the last few days,” Lindsay added. "This [march] is the first step to really doing something significant in Cambridge, where the antisemitism is so palpable we really need to do something," Beaumont told Calvert, who asked about the origins of the March of Life.

McNally recalled how the March of Life movement began in 2007, after a German pastor, Jobst Bittner, spent time praying and fasting, seeking to understand why his congregation had not experienced real growth.

"He really heard God saying that the ‘silence of the fathers’ was also in him," McNally told Calvert. "So his grandfather and father, their silence about what happened during the Holocaust was deafening to [God]."

Bittner then decided that he would examine his past, and he learned that his grandfather and father "did nothing" when Jews were being deported to concentration camps.

The pastor then asked members of his congregation to look at their own family history.

"What they found was quite unbelievable," said McNally, "to the point where many found that their fathers and grandfathers were responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish lives."

McNally gave Calvert the example of one young woman who researched her grandfather and learned he had set up the plumbing lines for the gas chambers in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"It absolutely broke them to the core," he said, adding that these German Evangelical Christians "had no idea that these records would show how involved their own grandfathers and fathers were."

In 2007, Bittner decided to "walk the former death march routes with marches of life," he told Calvert. He organized a march through the Swabian Alps, from cities around southern Germany, to the former Dachau Nazi concentration camp.

"What was supposed to be a very small event," McNally explained, "became a big event," after a number of American Holocaust survivors heard about it and asked if they could join the march.

McNally and his wife, Lynn, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, also joined the first march, together with different church leaders from across Europe.

The couple had what he called the "privilege" of witnessing the personal journey of one Holocaust survivor, Rose Price. McNally recalled that she had "never been able to listen to German and had never wanted to go anywhere near Germany," but at the memorial event at Dachau, "for the first time ever, she actually cried."

"And then she started laughing with joy and it was just a very, very precious moment," McNally said.

March of Life has expanded to 25 nations, with over 300 cities around the world hosting marches. “And it’s growing by the year,” he added.

McNally also highlighted the work of MOL in the United Kingdom, including efforts to promote Holocaust education in schools and a volunteer program that enables German youth to spend two to three years at Adi Negev, assisting children with disabilities in Israel.

He explained that all the marches come together in Israel every year for the ‘March of the Nations.’

To learn more, visit March of Life, March of Life UK and ICEJ UK.

Click below to listen to the full interview.