Some of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz returned to the notorious Nazi death camp on Monday as the world marked the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
Auschwitz was the largest of the extermination camps and has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million Jews. One million Jews and more than 100 000 non-Jews died at the site between 1940 and 1945.
Elderly former inmates, some wearing scarves in the blue-and-white stripes of their death camp uniforms, laid flowers at the site on Monday, touching the camp’s Wall of Death in silence.
Around 50 survivors were expected at the main commemoration outside the gates of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Britain’s King Charles III, French president Emmanuel Macron and dozens of other international leaders joined them.
The Auschwitz Museum told AFP the focus was on former inmates – Marian Turski, Janina Iwanska, Tova Friedman and Leon Weintraub.
“When I arrived in Auschwitz and got off the train, I saw the pits where human corpses were burned because the crematoria could not keep up,” Iwanska, a 94-year-old survivor, told AFP earlier this month.
The streets of Oswiecim were mainly deserted except for police and fleets of official cars. The camp was closed to the public and lay silent except for the fluttering of the Auschwitz Museum flags, striped like the prisoners’ uniforms.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was among leaders at the ceremony.
In a statement, Zelenskyy said the world must unite “to prevent evil from winning”. In a rival statement, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin praised the role of Soviet soldiers in ending the “total evil” of Auschwitz.
Until its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian delegation had always attended the ceremony, but Moscow was barred again this year.
There has also been controversy following rumours that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could attend the ceremony.
Poland said last month it would not act on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Netanyahu on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes over the Gaza war. But Israel was represented by education minister Yoav Kisch.
Organisers said this could be the last major anniversary with such a large group of survivors.
“We all know that in 10 years it will not be possible to have a large group for the 90th anniversary,” Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki said.
“As the number of Holocaust survivors regrettably diminishes with the passage of time, the responsibility of remembrance rests far heavier on our shoulders and on those of generations yet unborn,” King Charles III said on a visit to Jewish community centre in Krakow on Monday.
Auschwitz was created in 1940 using barracks in Oswiecim, southern Poland. Its name was Germanised into Auschwitz by the Nazis.
The first 728 Polish political prisoners arrived on 14 June 1940.
On 17 January 1945, as Soviet troops advanced, the Schutzstaffel (SS) forced 60 000 emaciated prisoners to walk west in what became known as the ‘Death March’.
From 21 to 26 January 1945, the Germans blew up the Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria and withdrew as Soviet troops approached.
On 27 January, Soviet troops found 7 000 survivors when they arrived.
The day of its liberation has been designated by the United Nations as Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Ahead of the anniversary, survivors spoke to AFP about the need to preserve the memory of what happened in the death camp and warned of rising hatred and anti-semitism. They expressed fears that history could repeat itself.
Some 40 survivors in 15 countries told their stories, alone or surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – proof of their victory over absolute evil.
Julia Wallach, who is nearly 100, cannot recall the events without crying.
“It is too difficult to talk about, too hard,” she said. The Parisian was dragged off a lorry destined for the gas chamber in Birkenau at the last minute.
But hard as it is to relive the horrors, she insisted she would continue to give witness.
“As long as I can do it, I will do it.” Nearby, her granddaughter Frankie asked: “Will they believe us when we talk about this when she is not there?”
That is why Esther Senot (97) braved the Polish winter last month to go back to Birkenau with French pupils.
She kept a promise made in 1944 to her dying sister Fanny, who – laid out on the straw coughing up blood – asked her with her last breath to “tell what happened to us so we are not forgotten by history”.
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