The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops is being marked Monday at the site of the former extermination camp, a ceremony that is widely seen as the last major celebration that any notable number of survivors will be able to attend.
Among those who visited the site was Tova Friedman, 86, who was six years old when she was among the 7,000 people liberated on January 27, 1945. She believes this will be the last gathering of survivors at Auschwitz and she came from her home in New Jersey to add her voice to those warning of rising hatred and anti-Semitism.
“The world has become toxic,” she told The Associated Press a day before celebrations in nearby Krakow. “I realize that we are in a crisis again, that there is so much hatred, so much distrust, that if we don’t stop, the situation could get worse. There could be another terrible destruction.”
Nazi German forces murdered some 1.1 million people at this site in southern Poland, occupied by Germany during World War II. Most of the victims were Jews killed on an industrial scale in gas chambers, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals and others targeted by Nazi racial ideology.
Elderly survivors of the camp, some wearing blue and white striped scarves reminiscent of their prison uniforms, marched together to the Wall of Death, where prisoners were executed, including many Poles who resisted the occupation of their country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with two Canadian Holocaust survivors living in Krakow, Poland, as part of events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
They were joined by Polish President Andrzej Duda, whose country lost six million citizens during the war. He carried a candle and walked with Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. At the wall, the two men bowed their heads, murmured prayers and crossed themselves.
“We, Poles, on whose lands the Germans built this extermination industry and this concentration camp, occupied at the time by the Nazi Germans, are today the guardians of memory,” Duda later told the journalists.
He spoke of the “unimaginable harm” inflicted on so many people, especially the Jewish people.
“Our duty… to remember”
In total, the Germans murdered six million Jews from across Europe, wiping out two-thirds of Europe’s Jews and one-third of all the world’s Jews. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Across Europe, officials and others stopped to remember.
“As the last survivors disappear, it is our duty as Europeans to remember the unspeakable crimes and honor the memory of the victims,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is German, on X.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who leads a nation defending itself against Russia’s brutal invasion, yesterday placed a candle at the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial in kyiv, where tens of thousands of Jews were executed during the Nazi occupation. On Monday, he arrived in Poland to attend the commemorations.
“The evil that seeks to destroy the lives of entire nations still remains in the world,” he wrote on his Telegram page.
The commemorations will culminate later Monday when world leaders and royalty join elderly camp survivors, the youngest of whom are around 80, at Birkenau, the part of Auschwitz where the massacre of Jews took place.
However, politicians were not invited to speak this year. Due to the advanced age of the survivors, around fifty of whom are expected, the organizers chose to make it the center of the celebrations. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, will also speak.
World leaders are present, including Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was expected.
Before the ceremony, Trudeau met with Canadian Auschwitz survivors who also made the trip to Poland. This may be Trudeau’s last major international trip as prime minister before the next leader of the Liberal Party is chosen on March 9.
In a press release published on SundayTrudeau wrote, “80 years ago, the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration and extermination camp was liberated, ending the systematic murder and genocide perpetrated there by the Nazi regime.”
“Tomorrow, I will join other world leaders on the grounds of Auschwitz Birkenau to honor the victims of the Holocaust, oppose the rise of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, and reaffirm our promise: never again That.”
Other expected leaders include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Germany has never sent its two highest state officials to these celebrations before, according to German news agency dpa.
It’s a sign of Germany’s continued commitment to taking responsibility for the country’s crimes, even as a far-right party has gained increasing support in recent years.
French President Emmanuel Macron will be present after observing a minute of silence at the Shoah Memorial in Paris, a symbolic tomb for the six million Jews who do not have a grave, and meeting an Auschwitz survivor and a Bergen survivor -Belsen. camp.
King Charles III of Great Britain will also be in attendance, as will the kings and queens of Spain, Denmark and Norway.
Russian representatives were once the central guests at anniversary celebrations in recognition of the Soviet liberation of the camp on January 27, 1945 and the enormous losses suffered by Soviet forces during the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany. But they have not been welcome since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to participants saying: “We will always remember that it was the Soviet soldier who crushed this terrible and total evil and won a victory whose greatness will forever remain in the history of the world.”
“Russian citizens are the direct descendants and successors of the generation of winners,” Putin said. “We will continue to firmly and principledly oppose attempts to rewrite the legal and moral verdict against the Nazi butchers and their accomplices.”
Holocaust educators say that with more misinformation about the Holocaust spreading on social media, their work is more important than ever to ensure younger generations know what really happened.
