Poland: The world commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz

Eighty years later, the world commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on Monday where ceremonies, on the very site of this former German Nazi camp, are expected to bring together around fifty survivors.

Under the historic Birkenau gateway, they will take part in an official ceremony, alongside dozens of leaders, including King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as German Chancellor and President Olaf Scholz and Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The ceremony is scheduled to begin Monday at 4:00 p.m. local time and will bring together 54 international delegations.

“We focus on survivors and their message”

“This year we are focusing on the survivors and their message,” Pawel Sawicki, spokesperson for the Auschwitz museum, told AFP. “There will be no speeches from politicians,” he stressed.

According to organizers, this could be the last big anniversary bringing together a large group of survivors. “We all know that in ten years, for the 90th anniversary, it will no longer be possible to have such a large group,” said Pawel Sawicki.

Auschwitz-Birkenau has become the symbol of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany on six million European Jews, a million of whom died at the site between 1940 and 1945, along with more than 100,000 non-Jews.

The rise of hatred and anti-Semitism around the world

Before this 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, around forty survivors of the Nazi camps agreed to speak to AFP.

In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, from Russia to Argentina, from Canada to South Africa, they told their stories and posed for a photo, alone or surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, proof of their victory over absolute evil.

They warned of the rise of hatred and anti-Semitism in the world and shared their fears of seeing history repeating itself.

“It’s too hard to tell, too hard”

Julia Wallach, almost a hundred years old, finds it difficult to talk about the past without crying. “It’s too hard to tell, too hard,” breathes this Parisian who survived two years in Birkenau where a Nazi made her get off a truck at the last minute, bound for a gas chamber.

Although it was difficult for her to relive these horrors, she decided to continue to testify. “As long as I can do it, I will,” she insists. At his side, his granddaughter Frankie wonders: “When she is no longer here, will people want to believe us when we talk about it?”

This is why Esther Senot, 97, went to Birkenau last month accompanying French high school students. It was a promise she made in 1944 to her dying sister Fanny, who, lying on straw and spitting blood, asked her in her last breath to tell what happened “so that history does not Don’t forget us.”

The “Death March”

The camp was established in 1940 in barracks in Oswiecim, in occupied southern Poland, whose name was Germanized to Auschwitz by the Nazis. The first 728 Polish political prisoners arrived there on June 14 of that year.

On January 17, 1945, faced with advancing Soviet troops, the SS forced 60,000 emaciated prisoners to march west in what became known as the “Death March.”

From January 21 to 26, the Germans blew up the gas chambers and crematoria at Birkenau and withdrew. On January 27, Soviet troops arrived and found 7,000 survivors.

Rumors about the possible participation of the Israeli Prime Minister

The day the camp was liberated was proclaimed by the United Nations as Holocaust Remembrance Day. Until the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian delegation had always attended the anniversary ceremonies, but for three years it has no longer been invited, a decision by the organizers strongly criticized by Moscow.

Rumors about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s possible participation in the ceremonies also sparked controversy. Last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

At the request of Polish President Andrzej Duda, the Polish government confirmed last month that it would not arrest Benjamin Netanyahu over a visit to Auschwitz, although it appears the Israeli leader has no intention of come. Israel will be represented by its Minister of Education Yoav Kisch.

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