Survivors return as world remembers Auschwitz 80 years after liberation

Approximately 50 survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp will return to the site on Monday to commemorate the day of the camp's final liberation on January 27, 1945. They will attend the commemoration alongside several heads of state, including King Charles, European royals, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

During the commemoration, the focus will be on the survivors, many of whom are in their late eighties or nineties, rather than the political figures. In Auschwitz, 1.1 million people were murdered, the majority of whom were Jewish. The survivors hope that by sharing their experiences, the world will remember this history and ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.

"Every soul on this Earth has the right to live," said 94-year-old Yona Laks, who arrived at the camp in 1944 with her twin sister and older sister. "Auschwitz was a laboratory for killing. That was its task, and it proved its 'efficiency': very few people survived Auschwitz."

Although daytime temperatures have recently risen above freezing, and most of the snow has melted, many of the 50 survivors attending Monday's commemoration are frail and unable to spend too long outdoors. Therefore, a large heated tent has been erected at the "Gate of Death" at the entrance to Birkenau.

The commemoration will begin with survivors and Polish President Andrzej Duda laying wreaths at the "Wall of Death" in Auschwitz I, where thousands of Polish prisoners, Jews, and Soviet prisoners of war were shot. British Labour leader Keir Starmer recently laid a wreath there, which remained at the site over the weekend. The commemoration will then move to the Birkenau death camp, also known as Auschwitz II.

Each anniversary of the Soviet army's liberation of the camp is different. Thirty years ago, there was far less international attention than there is now, when the celebrated author Elie Wiesel led a large group of survivors and their relatives to one of the crematoria that the Nazis had blown up before fleeing. German historian Susanne Willems spoke fondly of the survivors she has met over the decades: "Many of them are like my favorite grandfather. Of course, we have lost many of them, and it is my responsibility to carry on and be their witness."

There will be no political speeches from international leaders at the "Gate of Death," and no representatives from Russia will be in attendance due to Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine nearly three years ago, despite the fact that the camp was liberated by the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front, which was primarily Russian. Vladimir Putin attended the 60th-anniversary commemoration, but he is now persona non grata.

The Nazi decision to exterminate European Jews in death camps began to be implemented in early 1942. Six extermination camps were built in occupied Poland: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Treblinka was much smaller than Auschwitz, but in a shorter period, 800,000 to 850,000 Jews were murdered there.

The dreaded SS chief Heinrich Himmler and the camp commandant Rudolf Höss oversaw the expansion of Auschwitz, with the construction of a second camp at Birkenau for industrialized murder. By the end of 1942, there were four separate gas chambers and crematoria there.

The first mass deportations of Jews to Birkenau in March 1942 came from Slovakia and France, followed by those from the Netherlands and Belgium in July, who walked under Auschwitz's infamous "Arbeit macht frei" sign to their deaths at the new camp. Soon, trains would arrive at a purpose-built ramp at Birkenau, not far from two gas chambers, where at one point, 12,000 Jews a day were gassed and their bodies burned.

Yona Laks lost her parents in Chelmno and arrived in 1944 with her twin sister, Miriam, and older sister, Chana, from the Lodz Ghetto further north. She told the BBC: "I was ordered to go to the left, which meant the crematorium, and my twin was sent to the right. It was just because the man was so bored, he didn't even look at people, and just said 'left, right, left, right.' I didn't know that left meant death, but I knew it wasn't good."

Between 80% and 90% of new arrivals were sent to their deaths, while others were selected for slave labor. "I was already very close to the gate; I could see sparks, flames coming out of the chimney, and I could even smell the burnt meat." Yona Laks was saved because her older sister shouted that she should not be separated from her twin, which reached the notorious Nazi "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele, who used part of Birkenau for often fatal medical experiments on twins.

Women and children, the elderly, and the infirm were sent straight to the gas chambers. My grandfather, in one of the first Dutch transports, survived a month and a day of slave labor until August 18, 1942. His sister, Geertje van Hasselt, her headmaster husband, Simon, and their two daughters, Hermie (14) and Sophia (9), were murdered on arrival on February 12, 1943.

Nearly one million European Jews were murdered here between 1941 and 1945. But the dead also include about 70,000 Polish prisoners, 21,000 Roma, and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, as well as an unknown number of gay men. Auschwitz received 1.83 million visitors last year. Although the camp is closed during the commemoration, there were still large numbers of visitors over the weekend touring the museum in many of the old barracks at Auschwitz I before traveling to the bleak and vast site of Birkenau.

The scale of the site is daunting. Many of the barracks' remains are fenced off, leaving only the brick foundations, and you can see far into the distance. But the ruins of the two gas chambers and crematoria that the Nazis tried to destroy when they attempted to obliterate the evidence remain. "Coming here makes you anxious. Until you see it with your own eyes, you don't realize how sad it is," said a young woman from a group of 18-year-old friends from Lancashire. "It's obvious you know about it, but when you see it with your own eyes, you just think this is insane," said another. "It's insane to think that some people don't think it existed."

Far-right parties have made significant gains in several European countries, particularly in Germany, where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling in second place ahead of elections next month. Historian Susanne Willems, who has led groups to Auschwitz for many years, took a group of police officers from Berlin to Auschwitz last week to explain the rise of Nazism and how any military type of hierarchy risks slipping into authoritarianism. "I do this work to help these people understand clearly what the limits of police action should be, and that whatever they are asked to do, they have the right to decide whether to obey; in fact, they have the right to refuse anything they think is against human rights."

Hours before the start of the Auschwitz commemoration, UK Labour leader Keir Starmer pledged to make Holocaust education for Britain’s Jews "truly a national cause" to defend the truth and combat anyone who denies it. "We will ensure that it is taught in all schools and work to give every young person the chance to hear recorded testimony from survivors, because by learning from survivors, we can foster compassion for others and an appreciation of our shared humanity, which is the ultimate way to defeat hatred of difference."

Among those not traveling to Poland for the commemoration is Italy's most famous Auschwitz survivor, Liliana Segre, 94, who will be attending an event in Rome. A life senator, Segre is under police protection due to a torrent of antisemitic abuse, which has reached new heights on social media since the release this month of a documentary about her life. Her father and grandparents were murdered in Birkenau, but like Yona Laks, she survived as a teenager on the Nazi death marches to the Marsch of Ravensbrück camp. "(Segre) often tells me 'I am tired of the insults'," said Roberto Jarach, director of the Milan Holocaust Memorial.