Holocaust survivors, their families and world leaders have gathered at Auschwitz to mark the 80th anniversary of the Nazi death camp’s liberation.
Today’s ceremony, which is expected to be attended by 50 survivors, is expected to be the last major observance that any notable number of survivors will be able to attend.
The Nazis murdered some 1.1 million people at the notorious site in southern Poland, which was under German occupation during World War II before being liberated by Soviet troops.
Most of the victims were Jews killed on an industrial scale in gas chambers, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, gay people and others who were targeted for elimination due to the Nazi’s depraved racial and social ideology.
Elderly camp survivors, some wearing blue-and-white striped scarves and hats that recall their prison uniforms, walked together to the Death Wall, where prisoners were executed.
According to organisers, four former inmates – Marian Turski, Janina Iwanska, Tova Friedman, and Leon Weintraub – will speak at the main event.
‘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 Warsaw-born survivor, said this month as she reflected on the horrors she witnessed at the camp.
Among those murdered were huge numbers of Poles who resisted the occupation of their country, and today Polish President Andrzej Duda joined those present to remember the six million citizens his country lost during the war.
Soldiers arrive with wreaths at the so-called ‘Death Wall’ at the Auschwitz I former concentration camp site on the 80th anniversary of its liberation
Some elderly camp survivors wore blue-and-white striped scarves and hats that recalled their prison uniforms
View of the gate that reads, ‘Work Sets You Free’, in German, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
Former prisoners and their guests attend a wreath-laying ceremony in front of the Death Wall
Elderly camp survivors walked together to the Death Wall, where prisoners were executed
Survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp and their families arrive to lay candles at the Death Wall
Today’s ceremony at Auschwitz is expected to be attended by 50 survivors
olish President Andrzej Duda speaks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp
View of a tree between former camp buildings on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp
He carried a candle and walked with Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum director Piotr Cywinski. At the wall, the two men bowed their heads, murmured prayers and crossed themselves.
‘We Poles, on whose land – occupied by Nazi Germans at that time – the Germans built this extermination industry and this concentration camp, are today the guardians of memory,’ Duda said to reporters afterwards.
He spoke of the ‘unimaginable harm’ inflicted on so many people, especially the Jewish people. ‘May the memory of all the dead live on, may they rest in peace,’ he said.
In all, the Germans murdered six million Jews from all over Europe, annihilating two-thirds of Europe’s Jews and one-third of all Jews worldwide.
In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27, the anniversary of Auschwitz-Birkenau’s liberation, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Across Europe, officials and others are pausing to remember at memorials and are meeting with survivors, the majority of whom are in their 90s or older.
Twenty years ago, around 1,000 survivors attended commemoration ceremonies at the site.
‘As the last survivors fade, it is our duty as Europeans to remember the unspeakable crimes and to honor the memories of the victims,’ European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is German, said on X.
Commemorations will culminate later Monday when world leaders and royalty will join with elderly camp survivors, the youngest of whom are in their 80s, at Birkenau, the part of Auschwitz where the mass murder of Jews took place.
Politicians, however, have not been asked to speak this year. Due to the advanced age of the survivors, about 50 of whom are expected, organizers are choosing to make them the center of the observances. Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, will also speak.
Among the leaders expected to attend are Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
It is reported to be the first time in history that Germany has sent both of its highest state representatives to the observances.
It is a sign of Germany’s continued commitment to take responsibility for the nation’s crimes, even amid a growing far-right movement that would like to forget.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend, while Britain’s King Charles III will also be there, along with kings and queens from Spain, Denmark and Norway.
The weather in Oświęcim, a short drive from Krakow, is cold and bright for today’s ceremony
Survivor Janina Iwanska attends a wreath laying ceremony at the Death Wall during the 80th anniversary commemorations
Polish police patrols along the fences of Auschwitz concentration camp site
A woman looks through a window of the former house of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp now being turned into the Auschwitz Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalisation
Leon Placek, a survivor of former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp of Bergen-Belsen attends ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp
French President Emmanuel Macron, left, talks with filmmaker Eric Toledano, second left, Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp survivor Esther Senot and Leon Placek, right, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Holocaust survivor Naki Bega, 97, stands in front of the Holocaust memorial after laying a wreath in Athens, Greece
The monarch will become the first British head of state to visit the former Nazi concentration camp, with the trip described by royal sources as a ‘deeply personal pilgrimage’ for the King.
Russian representatives were in the past central guests at the anniversary observances in recognition of the Soviet liberation of the camp on January 27, 1945, and the huge losses suffered by Soviet forces in the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany.
But they have not been welcome since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose leads a nation defending itself against Russia’s brutal invasion, placed a candle at the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial in Kyiv, where tens of thousands of Jews were executed during the Nazi occupation.
Writing on Telegram, Zelensky said: ‘The evil that seeks to destroy the lives of entire nations still remains in the world.’
Four Auschwitz survivors are expected to speak at the ceremony today
Polish President Andrzej Duda walks among barbed wire fences following a ceremony at the Death Wall at the Auschwitz I former concentration camp
The former house of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, now being turned into the Auschwitz Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalisation
He is set to travel to Poland today, where he will meet with other world leaders.
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 June 14 of that year.
On January 17, 1945, as Soviet troops advanced, the SS forced 60,000 emaciated prisoners to walk west in what became known as the “Death March”.
From January 21-26, the Germans blew up the Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria and withdrew as Soviet troops approached.
On January 27, Soviet troops arrived, finding 7,000 survivors.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
