JERUSALEM (VINnews)— Delegations from all over the world landed in Poland over the weekend to participate in the annual March of the Living. Around 7,000 people are expected to follow fifty Holocaust survivors on Tuesday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, as they walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau. Despite the ongoing war, ten Holocaust survivors were able to arrive from Israel.

An extraordinary and deeply moving moment took place during the preparatory events for the March of the Living in Kraków, when a family Holocaust story came full circle in an almost unimaginable way.

Josh Aronson, a journalist for Maariv, attended the testimony of Holocaust survivor Hannah Yakin. During her account, he realized that her father, Jan van Holst, was the man who had helped save his grandfather’s life during the Holocaust.

Yakin spoke about her father’s activities as a member of the Dutch resistance, where he forged identification documents and helped rescue Jews under Nazi occupation. As more details emerged, Aronson understood that this was more than a historical account—it was a deeply personal family story. According to him, the details about the forged documents and the circumstances of the rescue matched his grandfather’s survival story.

At that point, Aronson approached Yakin and her family and revealed the surprising connection: her father was the man who enabled his grandfather to survive.

He shared with Yakin and those present how his grandfather, 18-year-old cantor Aron Aronson, received fake documents from her father. Under his new identity as an opera singer, he was able to leave for Switzerland.

“For me, meeting Hannah Yakin is far more than a professional encounter. It’s a profound and historical closure of a circle,” Aronson said. “Her father, Jan van Holst, was the man who saved my grandfather’s life in the darkest days of humanity. Thanks to his courage and kindness, my family exists today, and I am able to stand here in Kraków.”

Aronson added that the meeting carried especially deep personal meaning. “My grandfather was an extraordinary man who combined intellect and heart, and built the foundations of who I am. After personally experiencing the severe terror attack in Manchester, and after the murder of my beloved cousin, Eli Shlanger z”l, in the Bondi attack, this meeting feels like a living legacy. I see this connection as a direct message from my grandfather, that despite pain and loss, we must never stop building.”

Jan van Holst is known as one of the Dutch resistance members who worked to save Jews during the Holocaust. Through forging documents and smuggling children from a daycare opposite the Dutch Theater in Amsterdam, he helped rescue hundreds of people. He was later recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

The emotional meeting between Aronson and Yakin took place as part of the 2026 March of the Living, an annual educational program that brings participants from around the world to Poland to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust and carry its memory forward to future generations.