World Leaders Mark Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary

Jerusalem, 27 January, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- (PAP) – Holocaust survivors and world leaders gathered in Poland on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where more than 1.1 million people perished during World War II.

The main remembrance ceremony is held at Auschwitz Memorial and Museum in southern Poland, in front of the historic main gate to the former camp, with around 3,000 people in attendance, including delegations from over 60 states and representatives of international organizations.

Attendees were welcomed by a surviving inmate of the camp, Marian Turski. In his speech, Turski said that those who lived to tell about their experience were always very few. “Therefore, I think that our thoughts should go to the vast majority, to the millions of victims (of the camp – PAP) who will never tell us what they went through, what they felt, because they were claimed by the Holocaust,” he said.

Turski also mentioned the current global rise of antisemitism which led to the Holocaust in the past. He said that for hundreds of years, various nationalities and ethnic groups lived side by side, and that hatred and prejudice towards them had always led to bloodshed. “Luckily, there are positive experiences when both sides conclude that there is no other means that compromise to ensure peaceful, safe life for their children, grandchildren, future generations,” Turski said, giving Germany and France, and Poland and Lithuania as examples of such conflict-free coexistence.

Marian Turski is a Polish Jew who survived imprisonment in the Auschwitz camp and the subsequent deadly evacuation marches. After the war, he became a prominent Polish journalist and member of the International Auschwitz Committee.

The Nazi Germany established the Auschwitz camp in 1940, initially for the imprisonment of Poles. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was opened two years later and became the main site for the mass extermination of Jews. There was also a network of sub-camps in the complex.

The Nazis killed at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war.

The camp was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945. In 1947, it was declared a national memorial site.

January 27 has been designated by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.