The liberation of Auschwitz was 80 years ago. How to remember the ‘unthinkable’ – National

The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops is being commemorated on Monday at the site of the former death camp, marking the last major event where survivors can attend.

Among those who traveled to the site was 86-year-old Tova Friedman, who was 6 years old when she was among the 7,000 people liberated on January 27, 1945. She believes this will be the last meeting of Auschwitz survivors and she has come from her home in New Jersey to add her voice to the warnings about hatred and anti-Semitism.

“The world has become toxic,” she told The Associated Press a day before a celebration in nearby Krakow. “I understand that we are in a crisis again, there is a lot of hatred in the area, a lot of mistrust, and it will get worse if we don’t stop it.” There may be another terrible disaster.

During World War II, Nazi Germany killed 1.1 million people in southern Poland, which was under German occupation. Most of the victims were Jews who were killed industrially in gas chambers, but Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals and others were planned to be eliminated in the Nazi racial ideology.

Elderly camp survivors, some dressed in blue and white scarves reminiscent of prison uniforms, walked together to the Death Tower, where prisoners were executed, including Poles who resisted the occupation of their country.

His country lost six million citizens during the war and joined Polish President Andrzej Duda. He carried a candle and walked with Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. On the wall, the two men bowed their heads, murmured prayers and crossed themselves.

“We, the Poles, who were occupied by the Nazi Germans at that time – the Germans built this genocidal industry and this concentration camp – are today the custodians of memory,” Duda told reporters.

He spoke of the “unimaginable damage” done to many people, especially the Jewish people.

In total, the Nazi regime killed 6 million Jews from all over Europe, exterminating two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of the rest of the world. In the year In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Across Europe, officials and others paused to remember.

“As the last survivors fade away, it is our duty as Europeans to remember the unspeakable crimes and honor the memory of the victims,” ​​Ursula von der Leyen, president of the German European Commission, said on X.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leads a self-defense nation at the Bebin Yar Holocaust Memorial in Kiev, where tens of thousands of Jews were killed during the Nazi occupation. He arrived in Poland on Monday to attend the memorial service.

“The evil that wants to destroy the lives of entire countries is still in the world,” he wrote on his Telegram page.

The commemoration will conclude with world leaders and royalty joining elderly survivors of the concentration camp in Birkenau, part of Auschwitz, where the Holocaust took place.

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But politicians were not asked to speak this year. As the survivors are expected to number around 50 due to their aging population, organizers are choosing to make it the centerpiece of the festival. World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder will also speak.

Among the leaders expected to attend are German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Germany has never sent both of its top government officials to celebrations, German news agency Diepa said.

Although the far-right party has gained significant support in recent years, it shows Germany’s determination to take responsibility for the country’s crimes.

French President Emmanuel Macron attends a symbolic memorial service for the 6 million Jews who have no graves at the Paris Shoah Memorial and after meeting survivors of Auschwitz and the Bergen-Belsen camp.

Britain’s King Charles III will also be there, along with kings and queens from Spain, Denmark and Norway.

In the year Russian representatives have been central guests in the past at a celebration to mark the liberation of the Red Army camp on January 27, 1945, and to recognize the heavy losses suffered by Soviet forces at the hands of Nazi Germany. But in the year In 2022, after Russia completely invaded Ukraine, it was rejected.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to the participants, according to the Kremlin newspaper: “We remember that it was the Soviet soldier who crushed this terrible, absolute evil and won a victory, the greatness of which will live forever in world history.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement Thursday: “There is one thing to be said to the organizers and to all Europeans living there: Your lives, your work and your entertainment, the existence of your countries, your children, were paid for by Soviet soldiers, their lives, their blood.”

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