KRAKOW, Poland - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived Thursday in southern Poland where he will join a Holocaust memorial ceremony at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp.
Some 20,000 people are expected to march at the ceremony, known as the March of the Living, which remembers the victims of the Holocaust during World War II.
Some six million Jews perished in the Nazi Holocaust, which is known in Hebrew as the Shoah.
"We have learned the lesson of the Shoah. The Jews will never again be left without a home or a Jewish defence force to protect their lives," Sharon said Wednesday at a ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
Sharon flew to Poland with 20 Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel, and with another 20 of their grandchildren who are serving in the Israeli army.
He is due to hold talks with Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka before returning to Israel late Thursday.
05/05/2005 10:20 GMT