OSWIECIM, Poland—Auschwitz survivors warned of the dangers of rising anti-Semitism on Monday, as they marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops in one of the last such gatherings of those who experienced its horrors.
The ceremony at the site of the camp, which Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland during World War II to murder European Jews on a huge scale, was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Britain’s King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and many other leaders.
They did not make speeches, but rather listened for perhaps the last time to those who suffered and witnessed at first hand one of humanity’s greatest atrocities.
Israel, founded for Jews in the shadow of the Holocaust, sent Education Minister Yoav Kisch.
“We see in the modern world today a great increase in anti-Semitism, and it was anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust,” said Marian Turski, 98, who was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 and survived the westward ‘death march’ to Buchenwald in 1945.
Survivors Say Anti-Semitism Is Spreading Once More
Retired physician Leon Weintraub, 99, who was separated from his family and sent to Auschwitz in 1944, warned of the dangers of intolerance.
“I ask you to multiply your efforts to counteract the views whose effects we are commemorating today,” he said.
Author and academic Tova Friedman, 86, said “80 years after the liberation, the world is again in crisis”.
“Our Jewish-Christian values have been overshadowed worldwide by prejudice, fear, suspicion and extremism,” she said, “and the rampant anti-Semitism that is spreading among the nations is shocking.”
Anti-Semitic incidents have surged in part along with protests against Israel in many parts of Europe, North America, and Australia since Israel launched its assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza after attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said on Monday that hatred of Jews was rising against the backdrop of that war, adding: “Young people are getting most of their information from social media, and that is dangerous.”
Before the ceremony, which took place in a tent built over the gate to the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, leaders stressed how important it was to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.
President Duda told reporters at the camp that “we Poles, on whose land the Germans built this concentration camp, are today the guardians of memory.”
