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Polish historian and Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski, speaks at the commemoration event. AFP
Mourning and Remembrance on the 80th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation

Mourning and Remembrance on the 80th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation

"We must not be afraid; we must resolve our issues as neighbours to prevent another bloodbath," advocates Marian Turski, a survivor of the Nazi extermination camp, during the event.

Miguel Ángel Alfonso

Enviado especial a Auschwitz

Lunes, 27 de enero 2025, 16:35

On this day 80 years ago, on the afternoon of Saturday, January 27, 1945, troops from the 60th Army Corps of the USSR entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The retreating SS guards, surrounded by the advancing enemy from eastern Poland, had fled, not without first blowing up the gas chambers in an attempt to erase any trace of their own barbarity. Astonished, the Soviet soldiers found 7,000 prisoners on the brink of starvation - more than half would die within days - but also irrefutable evidence that human evil had reached its peak within that compound. There they found 837,000 garments (many of them child-sized), 44,000 pairs of shoes, and 7.7 tonnes of hair prepared in bales. In total, it is estimated that around 1.3 million people passed through the concentration camp from 1940, of whom 1.1 million were exterminated, mainly Jews.

Now a reminder of the past and, especially, a warning for the future, Auschwitz hosts the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of its liberation this Monday, an anniversary also designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Despite the site now becoming an unprecedented international summit, with representatives from 42 international delegations, 27 of them at the highest level, the organisers have wanted to give all the prominence to the survivors, with the presence of 50 of them, whose ages range from 90 to over a hundred years.

"Only a handful of us who were prisoners remain. Let us not be afraid today to have the same courage against Holocaust denial, let us oppose conspiracy theories that claim that the evils of this world are initiated by certain social groups," defended Polish historian and Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski. Born in 1926, he was forced to move to the Lodz ghetto and later deported to Auschwitz, where his father and brother were murdered. During his speech, he made a plea for peace.

In the centre of the tent where the liberation is commemorated, situated where Nazi doctors conducted selections for forced labour, stands a solitary freight train wagon, one of the many used by the Nazis between 1940 and 1945 to transport deported Jews to the concentration camp. These were the wagons that connected the ghettos with the extermination camps.

Specifically, it is one of those used in 1944, at the time when Auschwitz-Birkenau commander Rudolf Hoss turned the camp into a death industry with the murder of 400,000 Hungarian Jews in a few weeks.

International Delegations

Among the attendees, the Spanish delegation led by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia and the Minister of Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres. Also present are representatives from Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom - the fact that, after many months, King Charles III has travelled for an event abroad underscores the importance of this anniversary.

Additionally, 20 presidents or prime ministers from other countries will attend, including Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden; Haakon of Norway, the heir to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the Prince of the Order of Malta. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose attendance was not confirmed until the last moment for security reasons, will also be present.

Among the notable absences are Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has become an international pariah since the start of the war in Ukraine despite his country's troops liberating Auschwitz; or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose state has preferred to send Education Minister Yoav Kisch. Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump is also absent, with his delegation led by Steve Witkoff, the special representative for the Middle East.

Earlier, at nine in the morning, around fifty survivors and their families gathered at the death wall of the concentration camp. Dressed in the blue and white striped scarves reminiscent of the uniforms they wore in the camp, the victims of Nazism laid candles and a floral tribute.

During the ceremony, which will also include words of thanks from the Museum's director, Piotr Cywinski, several musical pieces will be performed, including two works by composers who were murdered in Auschwitz. To conclude, after the Jewish mourning prayer, the 'kaddish', all guests are expected to pay tribute to the more than one million victims of Auschwitz.

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todoalicante Mourning and Remembrance on the 80th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation