Politicians were asked not to speak at this year’s event, as it could be the last time survivors gather on 27 January, the date when the Soviets liberated the Nazi death camp in 1945.
Holocaust survivors have warned of rising antisemitism as they gathered in southern Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
The Nazis killed 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of whom were Jewish.
Given the age and frailty of the survivors, some believe it could be the last time they meet at the site to mark the day — 27 January 1945 — when Soviet troops liberated the camp, freeing 7,000 people.
Therefore, the organisers of Monday’s ceremony decided to make the survivors the central focus of the observances and asked politicians not to speak.
Among the survivors who spoke was 86-year-old Tova Friedman, who was just six when the camp was liberated.
“I remember as a five-and-a-half-year-old child, watching from my hiding place…as all my little friends were rounded up and driven to their deaths, while the heart-breaking cries of their parents fell on deaf ears,” she said.
“After all the children were gone and the courtyard was empty, I thought to myself, ‘Am I the only Jewish child left in the world?’”
Many of the speakers warned the audience about the dangers of rising antisemitism, saying it was such hatred that led the Nazis to kill 6 million Jews during World War II.
“Today, and now, we see a huge rise in antisemitism and it is precisely antisemitism that led to the Holocaust,” said Marian Turski, an Auschwitz survivor.
Auschwitz survivor Leon Weintraub spoke of the need to be vigilant, particularly at a time when the far-right is becoming more popular in Europe.
“Let us be very serious and let’s take seriously what the enemies of democracy preach. They generally seek to implement the slogans they promote,” he said.
“If they succeed in gaining power, we must avoid the mistake of the 1930s, when the world failed to take seriously the Nazi regime and their plans to create a state free of Jews, Roma and people of different opinions, or sick, or those deemed unfit to live.”
‘We will never forget them’
Earlier in the day, elderly camp survivors, some wearing blue-and-white striped scarves that recalled their prison uniforms, congregated at the Death Wall, where prisoners were executed.
Polish President Andrzej Duda and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum director Piotr Cywiński joined them.
Other world leaders who travelled to Auschwitz for the ceremony included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Although Russian representatives are typically invited to Auschwitz on 27 January, Holocaust Memorial Day, they have not been welcomed since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends, neighbours, grandparents: more than one million individuals with dreams and hopes were murdered in Auschwitz by Germans,” German Chancellor Scholz said.
“We mourn their deaths. And express our deepest sympathy. We‘ll never forget them. Not today, not tomorrow,” he stated.
Also in attendance was King Charles, the British monarch, who said: “It is a moment when we recall the depths to which humanity can sink when evil is allowed to flourish, ignored for too long by the world.”
“As the last survivors fade, it is our duty as Europeans to remember the unspeakable crimes and to honour the memories of the victims,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen added.
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