Israeli, Polish presidents join youth at remembrance event

WARSAW, Poland – The Israeli and Polish presidents are joining thousands of young Israelis and Jews from elsewhere in the world for a Holocaust remembrance march between the former Nazi German death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

The participation by the leaders in the yearly March of the Living comes as their countries seek to heal a rift that opened up earlier this year with the Polish passage of a Holocaust speech law.

Israel sees the law as an attempt by Poland to rewrite Holocaust history. Poland insists its aim is simply to protect historical truth.

Ahead of the march Thursday, thousands of young people, many of them wrapped in Israel's white and blue flag, visited the grounds of Auschwitz, including a Death Wall where the Germans executed their prisoners.