The one in which Adolf Hitler developed the industrial machinery he killed, only in these facilities in the south of the occupied Poland, 1.1 million people – the majority Jews – dawned covered with frost and mist on Monday. This January 27, 80 years of their release, a round date that has summoned delegations of more than fifty countries to the fields turned into a museum, the Polish municipality that housed them has been convened. The message “never again” has resonated this time more than ever. Holocaust survivors have warned about the rise of anti -Semitism and the extreme right in the world. “The commemoration of the Anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation serves as a reminder about inhuman treatment of people and as a warning against the increasingly noisy movements of the radical and anti -democratic right,” he said during his speech in an emotional Leon Weintraub ceremony, 99 years.
The central act of the tribute has starred in the 50 Holocaust survivors who have participated in the commemoration. First thing in the morning, in a more intimate ceremony, they made a floral offering and ignited candles in memory of the victims, in the courtyard of block 11 of the Auschwitz I. field. On a wall.
In a lifted tent on the known as Puerta de la Muerte in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extension of the field where the Nazis raised the ability to exterminate industrial dimensions, four survivors have shared their memories and warnings.
Tova Friedman was just five and a half when she was deported but still keeps images and thoughts of those painful times in memory. “Am I the only Jewish girl who remains in the world?” He wondered to see from his hiding place in the Starachowice work field that took all children, “among heartbreaking shouts of their parents.” Or the first time he saw his father cry when they were separated, to send her mother and her to Auschwitz, and to Dachau. Also the black smoke and the smell that came out of the chimneys of the field – “we all knew”; the teeth of German shepherds; The beating that the Nazis gave him a day, and think: “I will never let them know how much damage they are doing to me.” And the fear when seeing the girls of a nearby barracks being driven, squalid, some without shoes in an icy floor, to the gas chamber. “Will we be the following?” He wondered.
“80 years after liberation, the world is again in crisis,” said Friedman, who has warned of “prejudices, fear, suspicion and extremism, and rampant anti -Semitism.” The 86 -year -old writer and therapist has urged “transforming violence, anger, hatred and evil”, to build “a more human world and just before these negative forces destroy us.”
Marian Truski, 98, has also mentioned the rise of anti -Semitism and recalled that it was that same phenomenon “which led to Holocaust.” The Polish historian and journalist has asked for “courage” to face “Hamas when he tries to deny the slaughter of October 7,” or who extends theories of conspiracy against the Jews. At the same time, he has encouraged the “understanding between neighbors” and recalled that Germans and French, Poles and Lithuanians got it despite their differences in the past. As Janina Iwanska, 94, another survivor, Truski has asked to think about new generations.
“Be attentive and vigilant!”
Weintraub, who emigrated from Poland to Sweden pushed by anti -Semitism in his country, has shared the pain that causes him to see parade “openly uniform and Nazi style slogans in marches throughout Europe.” This almost 100 -year -old gynecologist has denounced that the “self -proclaimed nationalists defend the same hate ideology as the German Nazis”, which extol “racism, anti -Semitism and homophobia as virtues.” “Be attentive and vigilant! We, the survivors, understand that the consequence of being considered different is active persecution, whose effects we have personally experienced. ”
The focus of commemoration has been in survivors, increasingly older and less numerous. Among the 3,000 guests at the ceremony were also about thirty heads of state and government, such as the French president, Enmanuel Macron; German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz or the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski. He has also participated a large representation of European royal houses. Among the attendees have figured the kings Felipe VI and Letizia, and King Carlos III of England. The United States has sent a delegation headed by the special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
This anniversary has been paradoxical, shaken by two of the most important conflicts that the world has known since World War II (that of Ukraine and that of the Middle East). The heads of state and government of two of the traditional protagonists have not participated: Israel, in the name of the victims, and Russia, on behalf of the Red Army, who released the countryside on January 27, 1945. As much as they have Sendas Detention orders issued by the International Criminal Court for War Crimes, in Gaza and in Ukraine, respectively.
Poland, who would not hesitate for a second to arrest Putin if he had the opportunity, gave the Israeli prime minister free to participate in the events if he wanted. Israel has however sent to the Minister of Education, Yoav Kisch. The Jewish state, created in 1948 after the Holocaust in which the Nazis killed six million Jews, along with millions of more victims, by the International Court of Justice of The Hague. The leader of the Jewish community in Europe, Ariel Muzicant, stirred on the eve of commemoration by evoking this idea and defended the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza. “Genocide is the desire to exterminate another people. Israel has never had this desire, ”he said in a hotel in Krakow.
Muzicant regretted: “We are commemorating the greatest genocide in the history of mankind. Everyone has come, but when I see the reactions after the attacks of October 7, 2023, I wonder what we do here. ” The president of the European Jewish Congress defended Israel’s right to defend himself, and criticized the “antisemism” of the governments of Spain, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Belgium. “Terrorists use civilians as human shields,” he justified when asked about the 47,000 Gazati that the Israeli army has killed.
