At the former Auschwitz concentration camp site, events are being held to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by Soviet troops. This commemoration is widely regarded as the last major ceremony with a large number of survivors able to attend. Many survivors have traveled from all over the world to jointly remember history and warn the world to be vigilant against the rise of hatred and antisemitism.
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02-08, 2025Tova Friedman, 86, is one of them, who was only six years old when she was liberated on January 27, 1945. She believes this will be the last major gathering of Auschwitz survivors. She traveled from her home in New Jersey, hoping to use her voice to warn people that hatred and antisemitism are on the rise today. "The world has become toxic," she told the Associated Press the day before the commemoration near Krakow, "I realize that we are in crisis again, with so much hatred and mistrust around us, and if we don't stop it, it could get worse and there could be another terrible destruction."
Nazi Germany occupied southern Poland during World War II and killed approximately 1.1 million people there. Most of the victims were Jews who were mass murdered in gas chambers, but there were also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, and others who were targeted for elimination by Nazi racial ideology. Elderly camp survivors, some wearing blue and white striped scarves reminiscent of prison uniforms, walked together to the "Wall of Death," where prisoners, including many Poles resisting the national occupation, were executed.
Polish President Andrzej Duda also joined them, whose country lost 6 million citizens in the war. He walked with a candle alongside Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. At the wall, the two bowed their heads in silent prayer and made the sign of the cross. "We Poles, in this land that was then occupied by Nazi Germany, where the Germans built this extermination industry and concentration camp, today we are the guardians of memory," Duda told reporters afterwards. He spoke of the "unimaginable harm" suffered by many, especially Jews.
Overall, the Germans killed 6 million Jews from all over Europe, wiping out two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population and one-third of the world's Jewish population. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Across Europe, officials and others are pausing to remember history. "With the passing of the last survivor, we as Europeans have a responsibility to remember those unspeakable crimes and to honor the victims," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy also lit candles at the Babi Yar massacre memorial in Kyiv, where tens of thousands of Jews were executed during the Nazi occupation. He then arrived in Poland to participate in the commemoration. "The evil that tried to destroy the lives of entire peoples still exists in the world," he wrote on his Telegram page.
The commemoration will culminate later on Monday (early Tuesday AEST) when world leaders and royalty will join elderly camp survivors, the youngest of whom are in their 80s, at Birkenau, the site of the mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz. However, no politicians have been invited to speak this year. With the survivors being so elderly, and with around 50 expected to attend, organizers have chosen to make them the focus of the commemoration. World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder will also speak. Leaders expected to attend include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. According to the German news agency dpa, Germany has never before sent its two highest state representatives to a commemoration. This marks Germany's continued commitment to taking responsibility for its national crimes, even as support for far-right parties has been rising in recent years.
French President Emmanuel Macron will attend after observing a moment of silence at the Shoah Memorial in Paris, a symbolic cemetery for the 6 million Jews who have no graves. He also met with a survivor from Auschwitz and one from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. King Charles III of the United Kingdom will also attend, as well as kings and queens from Spain, Denmark, and Norway. In the past, Russian representatives were important guests at the anniversary events in recognition of the Soviet Union's liberation of the camp on January 27, 1945, and the enormous losses suffered by the Soviet army in the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany. But since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, they are no longer welcome.
The Kremlin said that Russian President Putin sent a message to the participants. "We will always remember that it was Soviet soldiers who crushed this terrible and absolute evil and won a victory, the greatness of which will forever remain in world history," he said. "Russian citizens are the direct descendants and heirs of the victorious generation." "We will continue to counter, in a principled and steadfast manner, attempts to rewrite the legal and moral verdicts against the Nazi butchers and their accomplices."
